Humanity Has Streamlined Scheduling For The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is one of the top-ranked hands-on science centers in the United States. It has an international reputation for its innovative exhibits and educational programs. The concept of OMSI was born more than 100 years ago in the mind of a famed naturalist, John Cyprian Stevens. Today, the museum serves over one million visitors, students, and Portland, Oregon locals.

The number of employees fluctuates with the seasons, depending on increased or decreased demand during programs and peak times such as summer camps and classes. The museum education department, which is currently using Humanity, has about 90 employees that include paid staff, interns and those involved with work-study programs. These employees are spread out over their five exhibit halls and seven hands-on labs.

Before they switched to Humanity, OMSI used Excel spreadsheets to deal with all scheduling processes. A few of the drawbacks they noticed included that only one person could access the document at a time – the formulas used to roll the data together were easily broken and access required the use of a museum computer.

Since they switched to Humanity, they have found that the scheduling process is more streamlined. It is now easier to keep track of hours worked by each employee and OMSI can more easily regulate overtime and ensure that schedules are fair and hours are spread out among all employees. OMSI can more easily equal out time dispersed to on-call educators and provide reports to the volunteer services department which tracks interns and work-study employees.

In the past, OMSI needed to print out schedules for the daily morning check-ins, and the schedules were often outdated by a day or two. Now, they (both employees AND management staff) use IPads and other mobile devices to see the schedule in real-time. This ensures that they have the most up-to-date information and are able to provide the best customer service and experience to museum visitors.