ShiftSwap

Abstract

The modern global workforce market, especially in areas like healthcare, retail, logistics, and hospitality, is characterized by systemic failures in workforce management. While the gig economy has automated work based on tasks, the shift economy (which is so important for nurses, drivers, and service staff) is stuck on outdated, manual rostering practices. Traditional workforce management systems remain as isolated systems, allowing for the optimization of internal staffing needs, but not taking into account extensive issues of liquidity at the level of a local labor market. This disconnect causes major economic issues such as chronic understaffing and excessive overtime hours and employee burnout - often referred to as the "Scheduling Struggle" by experts in the industry. The ShiftSwap is a fully developed web-based platform that aims to resolve scheduling struggle, by automating shifts and structuring the supply and demand of labor. As opposed to the old-fashioned "walled garden" HR software, ShiftSwap is an open marketplace between Agencies and Gig Workers. It has a solid Flask (python) backend which has a SQLite/SQL Alchemy database structure. Among the most notable innovations, there is a PayPal-based subscription model as a monetizing model, a Chatbot based on AI that assists users, and a Recommendation System to find the perfect worker-shift match. The entire lifecycle of the project, including the Feature-Driven Development (FDD) approach and the realization of secure payment gateways and asynchronous email notifications are discussed in this report.