Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software

Scheduling With Spreadsheets, Really? Who Does That Anymore?

Whether you are in retail, hospitality, healthcare or an industry, generating a weekly or bi-schedule with Excel spreadsheets, it can be time consuming. This becomes even more difficult when it comes to tracking employee hours, including overtime. And, while Excel spreadsheets can be useful in some areas of business, using it for the purpose of scheduling employees especially in companies with complex and rotation shifts can be headache for supervisors.

Scheduling With Spreadsheets, Really? Who Does That Anymore?

One of the better investments an organization can make is to deploy an ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution that will help with better workforce planning, and improve overall employee productivity, and satisfaction.

ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution is purpose-built for the managers and supervisors alike, and utilizes employee working patterns and shift preferences —as a best fit, with statutory holidays and absences automatically applied. The manager is immediately notified through an alert, of schedule gaps caused by absences, holidays or workload demand, so that the appropriate action can be taken.

ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution benefits include:

Minimize compliance risk with consistent rules and policies
Accurately anticipate demand to help reduce under-staffing
Employees are allocated to a shift based on preference and seniority
Statutory holidays and absences are automatically applied
Actual vs. budget schedule report can be generated thus, reducing the possibility of over-staffing
Minimize compliance risks, while adhering to local, regional and cross continental rules and policies
Accurately anticipate demand based on forecast, to help reduce under-staffing

Now, can your Excel spreadsheet do all that? Trying to guess the right number of employees you need to cover a shift or the best worker to fill an open one, commonly causes errors and complications. With Workforce Scheduling the guesswork and manual scheduling is taken out of the equation.

To download a copy of ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution or to register for one of our bi-weekly webinars, go to our website. And, to speak to an account executive, call: 866.294.2467.

Excel Spreadsheets, Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail, Statutory Holidays, Workforce Planning, Workforce Scheduling

Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

Every boss appreciates a hard working employee, especially one who will volunteer to stay at work longer to complete that project and meet a deadline. And, in the world of retail and hospitality it’s almost become the norm that employees are expected to work long hours and some split shifts-especially during busy periods Christmas holidays included. But, if all your company’s projects have tight deadlines, does that mean you have to work overtime every week? As an employee in retail, does your schedule include a lot of spilt-shifts? Sooner or later, working these long hours will eventually take its toll.

We all understand that from time to time extra hours are required to get the job done. But, when does all this extra hours you are putting in start to affect your health and, more importantly starts alienating you from your loved ones?

Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

In an article Minda Zetlin for Inc.com titled ‘10 Reasons to Stop Working So Hard’ she eloquently describes some of the drawbacks of working crazy hours. In no particular order, we selected five reasons out her list that clearly makes a case for why should not be working long hours every time:

“Most of the work is less important than you think-A few years ago, hospice worker Bronnie Ware famously published the top five regrets she heard from her dying patients. Those who’d had careers all regretted the number of hours they spent at work. But many of her patients also spoke of dreams they wished they’d fulfilled.

Your mood is a buzzkill-The kind of irritability and impatience that goes with being overworked and behind schedule will cast a black cloud over the people around you both at work and at home. If you’re an employee, it will damage your career. If you’re a small business owner, it will harm your business.

Sleep matters-“The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep,” Arianna Huffington said in a 2011 TED talk. She would know. She fainted from exhaustion and broke her cheekbone and is now something of a sleep evangelist. “I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he’d gotten only four hours’ sleep the night before,” she continued. She considered retorting: “If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.”

Your judgment is impaired-The research is conclusive: sleep deprivation impairs decision-making. As a leader, poor judgment is something you can’t afford. Crossing some tasks off your to-do list, handing them to someone else, or finishing some things late is well worth it if it means you bring your full concentration and intelligence to the tough decisions your job requires

You suck when it counts-I can tell you from experience that going into a meeting tired and distracted means you will suck in that meeting. You’ll be bad at generating new ideas, finding creative solutions to problems, and worst of all you’ll suck at listening attentively to the people around you. That disrespects them and wastes their time as well as yours.”

Bottom line: Spending long hours at work might help you meet deadlines, but those long hours, especially when they are done over a long period of time, can affect both your physical and, yes mental state. When you spend a significant part of your day working, there is not enough time to rest and recharge.

Christmas, Holidays, Hospitality, Overtime, Retail, Split Shifts, TED Talk

An Effective Cloud System Will Prepare You For The Fair Labor Standards Act

The Department of Labor (DOL) has given businesses advanced notice so, they can prepare their organizations in time and being compliance with the upcoming December 1, 2016 when the new overtime rules takes effect. And, to that end, the system you are using should allow you to automatically record overtime for exempt employees at certain salary levels and job profiles. To some extent that may be easier said than done, because we are not referring to spreadsheets here as that mode of tracking of paying employee won’t cut it, especially, if the Department of Labor (DOL) comes knocking on your door.

A Effective Cloud System Will Prepare Your For The Fair Labor Standards Act

When these new overtime rules take effect companies need to ensure they have:

Implemented the necessary changes within their time attendance system to accommodate the overtime rule changes. If by chance, your system is archaic to begin with, this might be the perfect time to deploy a solution that not only meets all of those requirements, is robust and flexible enough grow with your organization.
Taken the necessary steps to determine the salary threshold and which employees qualify for overtime pay. The U.S. Department of Labor Fair Labor Standards Act has a plethora of information, from which you can glean. If you are in the hospitality and/or retail industry, for example, you will need to figure out how this is going to impact your organization. Typically, managers in those industries and others work an inordinate amount of hours per week-but with the new rule employers will have to limit workers hours to 40 per week.
Used all the available resources at their disposal by ensuring tracking of employee hours is done accurately, hence, those clunky punch clocks and spreadsheets are simply not going to cut it anymore.

An effective time and attendance solution will accurately track employee hours, vacation and other leave management requirements, and provide real-time reporting analytics. Moreover, ATS cloud computing solution can quickly adhere to— work rule compliance, collective bargaining agreements (CBA), and will quickly adapt to the eligibility rules for exempt and non-exempt workers. So, if the Department of Labor comes knocking after December 1, 2016 you will have at your disposal, all required information.

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Cloud Computing, Collective Bargaining Agreements, Hospitality, The U.S. Department of Labor Fair Labor Standards Act, Time and Attendance

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

The latest brouhaha over employees being scheduled for on-call shifts hit a crescendo, a few days ago, revealing a practice that is frowned upon my many workers, many of whom, have cited the effects these on-call shifts are having on workers ability to plan activities outside of work. It’s possible that some of these companies are using a variety of spreadsheets and other manual methods to schedule employees.

If your organization is using an outdated scheduling system, chances are, you could be wasting valuable time and money. ATS Workforce Scheduling system is powerful and robust software that provides broad-based capabilities to help companies better manage their business and their labour force. The ATS Workforce Employee Scheduling targets small, mid-size and large-scale operations in retail, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing and services.

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

ATS Workforce Scheduler Includes:

Budgeting and Forecasting
ATS budgeting and forecasting module features an independent, definable structure that supports the creation, editing and reporting of business volume and workforce forecasts. With a wide variety of options for defining productivity tasks, standards, drivers and parameters, ATS Budgeting and Forecasting tool provides unprecedented detail and accuracy of workforce requirements.

Eradication of Scheduling Conflicts
ATS Workforce Scheduler allows managers to see details of how a team of workers is scheduled through the day, coupled by the use of an advanced heuristic algorithm that enables companies to meet forecast needs by developing an optimized schedule of employee work assignments. ATS Workforce Scheduler has the distinction of being able to build individual employee shift and job preferences into weekly work schedules. ATS Workforce Scheduler provides real-time employee availability, thus, allowing managers to immediately correct any necessary conflicts, due to overlapping shifts, and overtime. With this unique feature, the software will reduce workforce turnover and increase employee satisfaction.

Ability to Schedule Employees in Real-Time
ATS Workforce Scheduler provides updates in real-time. For example, once a manager has completed their staff schedulers they can send it to their employees through mass updates. Employees, in turn, can view their schedules online from any device that’s connected to the Internet.

Easy to Use Tools
Get the peace of mind you deserve by making sure you have the right people scheduled at the right time and place. With ATS Workforce Scheduler, you can schedule employees by department, shift, or multiple sites. ATS Workforce Scheduler automatically calculates the number of hours each employee is scheduled to work and compares it to the number of hours they wish to work each week.

Reporting Capabilities
ATS Workforce Scheduler creates intuitive analytics that are based on your business and workforce requirements, relevant work and shift rules, and individual employee information.

In conclusion, with a growing number of regional, state and provincial governments clamping down on on-calls shifts, manual spreadsheets will not help your organization. What you need is a robust solution that will reduce time spent on scheduling, save costs, increase productivity and employee engagement.

To see a demonstration of ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution, go to our website. You can also join the conversation on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest.

Budgeting, Employee Scheduling, Forecasting, Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, On-Call Shifts, Overtime, Retail

Today’s Manufacturing Companies Want Cloud-Based Solutions

Today’s North American manufacturing companies are faced with; intense competition, pressure to increase profit margins, a competitive talent pool and impatient shareholders. Now just image in that scenario, those same companies are using inadequate systems to track payroll costs, thus inhibiting the ability to forecast overruns, which in turn, can impact overall the profitability of the business. Installing a traditional time and attendance solution, with support by in-house IT or an outside consultant has been the norm for the last 20 plus years. But with many manufacturing companies hoping to stay ahead of their competitors, having an IT department for the sole purpose of managing a Server among other IT related responsibilities, no longer makes sense when a growing body of evidence shows that moving your solution to the cloud saves money.

A recent survey on many of the world’s manufacturing organizations by IDC revealed, in part, that:

“The advantages of cloud computing for manufacturers are significant, as line of business leaders and their IT organizations increasingly rely on cloud to flexibly deliver IT resources at the cost and speed the business requires. Traditional IT spend is clearly on the decline, and manufacturers must update their cloud roadmaps to ensure their investments benefit the business. According to the IDC European Vertical Markets Survey, 2014, almost 50% of European manufacturing respondents noted they have adopted or will adopt ERP in the public cloud. And in Asia/Pacific, 49% of manufacturing respondents are using cloud – public or private – or intend to use cloud, based on the 2014 IDC Manufacturing Insights Asia/Pacific Business and IT Priorities Survey.”

Today’s Manufacturing Companies Want Cloud-Based Solutions

For a few manufacturers, the question remains, if they deployed a cloud-based time and attendance, would their company save money? If you are still unsure, then consider the following:
 Is your company is global in nature with locations across different regions or countries? If so, by moving to a cloud-based time and attendance, it will allow for easier information gathering from those distant facilities and the consolidation of global data and analysis.
 Manufacturing companies with a heavy emphasis of remote users that rely on mobile access – are better off using the power of the cloud to access employee hours and other data.
 Smaller organizations who cannot afford a traditional time and attendance solution-one that requires yearly updates and maintaining an expensive Server on which to house the application-would be wise to adopt a cloud-based time and attendance.

ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance for Manufacturing has helped thousands of companies manage their business and increase profits. ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance for Manufacturing will enable your organization to improve operational efficiency. And, with increased visibility to what is happening at your local site, whether it’s in Windsor-Ontario, Dorval-Quebec or Colorado-USA, or across the globe, you will be able to meet your customers’ increasing demands, streamline payroll costs, increase workforce productivity and maintain the smile on the faces of your shareholders.

Contact ATS to learn why thousands of manufacturers trust ATS to provide Time and Attendance software designed for their industry. In addition, ATS Time and Attendance for Manufacturing is uniquely positioned for companies in cross-functional industries. The ATS team has deep expertise to meet and adhere to the guidelines of many industries including; Retail, Government/Public Sector, Automotive, Engineering & Construction, Industrial Machinery, Transportation & Logistics, Hospitality, and Aerospace and Defense.

To download a demonstration, go to our website. And, to speak to account representative call; 866.294.2467.

Today’s Manufacturing Companies Want Cloud-Based Solutions

Aerospace and Defense, Automotive, Cloud Based Time and Attendance, Engineering & Construction, Hospitality, Industrial Machinery, Manufacturing, Public Sector, Quebec, Retail, Transportation & Logistics, USA

How To Show Your Appreciation To Employees During The Holiday Season

Trying to keep employees engaged during the holiday season can be a challenge for many companies. During this time of the year employees are thinking of planned family visits and gift buying to name a few-and this is precisely when companies may notice a slight dip in productivity. If as an employer, you are aware of this slight dip each year, there are several there some things you can offer employees to keep them productive or at the very least engaged during that period. As an employer, how about bringing in a tray of cookies and some eggnog that employees can sample as their go about their day? It’s a small gesture that it likely to brighten your employees day.

Glassdoor, an online career community portal conducted a recent study titled “What Employees Want The Most This Holiday Season” and in conjunction with Forbes.com listed ten intrinsic items that employee said they would love to get from their employer during the season. They include:

Number 10: Commuter Subsidy-2%
Number 9: Holiday Party with an open bar-5%
Number 8:   Gym Membership-7%
Number 7:   Company Stock options- 9%
Number 6:   Option to telecommute for one year-13%
Number 5:   Grocery Giftcard-29%
Number 4:   Paid Time Off-36%
Number 3:   Raise in pay-60%
Number 2:   Cash bonus-73%
Number 1:   Cash

You can see the infographics on the Forbes website. Some industries including; retail, service and the hospitality are all open for business during the holiday season. Employees in these industries are likely very overwhelmed having to deal with an equally stressed out throng of shoppers- and, any one of the above mentioned gifts items would work wonders for them.

In closing, while some companies may not be able to employ some or all of these ideas, employers should keep in mind that they will experience a slight dip in productivity. When this happens, take an impromptu break, invite everyone for a cookie and eggnog and just ask them about their plans for the holidays.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that count. Happy Holidays!

Holidays, Hospitality, Retail

Evaluating a new time and attendance solution? Try to avoid these common mistakes

At ATS, we have worked with numerous companies in industries that include: retail, hospitality, manufacturing & distribution, healthcare, construction and government. Based on our experience, when deploying a new time and attendance system, its best to forget the constant references of “how the old system worked” and focus on how the new solution can meet your current business requirements. Naturally, it is expected there will be a couple of reports or features that worked well in the old system. However, one of the reasons for evaluating a new solution is because the old one could not meet all your needs.

In no particular order, here is a list of some common mistakes to avoid when searching for a new time and attendance software:

“I want a new system that works like our current one”
Sometimes this just means it’s hard to accept the change. Some people get comfortable with their current system works (warts and all) and can be unwilling to learn a new system.

“I do not know what I want but will when I see it”
Not knowing what you want and just going about inviting vendors to give software demonstrations can create challenges. We suggest companies prepare a list of their business requirements including some “must haves” and/or “showstoppers” if applicable. This list should also include realistic goals, i.e implementation timeline, training etc. This will make the selection a bit easier.

The beauty contest
It’s very easy to get bamboozled by bells and whistles. Try to look beyond the glitz and choose a solution that is robust its calculation of your company’s pay and work rules. Ten different software demonstrations can get confusing and at a certain point, they all start to look the same. Try to keep it to a minimum of three vendors and a maximum of five.

“Here is how we do it in our current system”
This represents the importance of creating a list of requirements. While you may not find all the features of the old system in your new time and attendance, certain things like specific reports can be created if known in advance.

“We want the best price”
While we are not suggesting you “mortgage the farm” to obtain a functional system, purchasing a time and attendance solely based on price is a sign that your company’s requirements could be taking a back seat. In fact, if the solution can meet you organizational requirements, then the next steps should be ensuring the price is within your budgetary expectations.

To download a complete guide on “how to choose a time and attendance solution” go to our website. To join our group discussion, go to our LinkedIn and Twitter page.

Evaluating a new time and attendance solution? Try to avoid these common mistakes

Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Software, Time and Attendance Solution

Scheduling With Spreadsheets, Really? Who Does That Anymore?

Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

How To Show Your Appreciation To Employees During The Holiday Season

Evaluating a new time and attendance solution? Try to avoid these common mistakes

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