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Manufacturing Companies are Embracing AI, Robotics and Other Advanced Technologies

May 31st, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Business Intelligence | Software-as-a-Service (saas) Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Management Solutions - (Comments Off on Manufacturing Companies are Embracing AI, Robotics and Other Advanced Technologies)

A recent survey of global manufacturing companies found that 25 % of them say they have invested in artificial intelligence and cognitive computing technologies as well as in 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies.

This survey, conducted by auditing firm KPMG, reported that another 39% of manufacturing executives polled, said that over the next two years, they plan to devote a significant amount of R&D resources towards robotic technologies. Considering the competitive landscape that today’s manufacturing companies are faced with, it’s no surprise that many of them are migrating to cloud-computing technologies, as they grapple with tight profits margins and the confluence of emerging new technologies.

Manufacturing Companies are Embracing AI, Robotics and Other Advanced Technologies

And, according to Doug Gates, KPMG’s Global Chair of Industrial Manufacturing; “Manufacturers recognize a failure to evolve will leave their organization in a non-competitive position.” When you consider the upheaval that many of these companies went through after the 2008 recession, it’s no wonder many of them are adopting advanced technology.

Another part of KPMG’s Doug Gates, analysis states, in part, “The need to become more digital has never been greater and investments in new technologies are a way to enhance agility, flexibility and speed to market when launching new products and services-critical elements for manufacturing companies to win in the marketplace.”

If your manufacturing company is still deciding whether to deploy a cloud-based workforce management solution and/or other advanced technology, it’s never too late. To reach an ATS account executive by phone call, 866.294.2467 and to download a demonstration of our manufacturing workforce management solution, go to our website.

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The Impact Of The New Overtime Rule Will Be Felt Across All Industries

May 25th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Forecasting | Overtime | Overtime Equalization | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance On-Demand - (Comments Off on The Impact Of The New Overtime Rule Will Be Felt Across All Industries)

The United States Department of Labor had been contemplating updating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for quite some time and in December (of this year) 2016, this proposed update will take effect. And this will have wide-ranging effects in just about every industry and while is being instituted in the United States it will be felt in Canada as several Canadian companies have subsidiaries and/or remote employees in operate in the very regions where this propose overtime rule will take effect.

This change also means that, for several organizations, these upcoming changes will require adhering to; how employees are classified, observing hours worked, how time is tracked and, the manner in which overall compensation is paid. Once this law is enacted, it’s anticipated that companies will have 60 days to comply with these new regulations-and if companies choose not to comply, they will subjected to fines and penalties.

An excerpt from The Department of Labor, states, in part;

“The Department is proposing to update the regulations governing which executive, administrative, and professional employees (white collar workers) are entitled to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime pay protections. The Department last updated these regulations in 2004, and the current salary threshold for exemption is $455 per week ($23,660 per year). With this proposed rule, the Department seeks to update the salary level required for exemption to ensure that the FLSA’s intended overtime protections are fully implemented, and to simplify the identification of nonexempt employees, thus making the executive, administrative and professional employee exemption easier for employers and workers to understand and apply.”

The Impact Of The New Overtime Rule Will Be Felt Across All Industries

Here are some suggested steps you can implement to align your organization with the upcoming changes:

Deploy a time and attendance solution
Accurately tracking employee time and being able to get real-time reporting be an essential part of complying with the proposed FLSA overtime rule changes. An effective time and attendance solution will make it easy for businesses to know when an employee is approaching overtime, track hours of employees who work on weekends and remote workers who use mobile devices.

Classify Salaried Employees
If some of your employees are making over the threshold amount they may be exempt from overtime if their job duties fall under the category of; administrative, managerial or executive as it’s defined under the regulations. That said, you should be careful, as employees who have, in the past, fallen under these categories have made case they should be paid overtime.  Prepare a list of employees whose salaries do not exceed the threshold because they may be entitled to receive overtime once the changes are enacted. Best case, scenario implement a leave management tool that will help automatically monitor and send alerts if when an employee is approaching overtime.

 Control Overtime Costs
On the surface, controlling overtime may seem difficult but in actuality it’s not. If you are using paper time sheets to track and monitor overtime, then yes, it does become a herculean task. By why bother using such antiquated methods, when you can deploy a time and attendance solution that which will automatically tell you; which employees that are scheduled for overtime, show you all overtime costs for each day, and distribute hours evenly between employees (using an overtime equalization tool) so, don’t have to employees for overtime hours, when you do not have to. Now isn’t this better than the spreadsheets, you are currently using?

Ultimately, the most important thing is going to be accuracy. Companies need to have an effective system in place, to accurately track time worked by employees and determine any changes they may need to make to ensure, they are in compliance.

To learn about the benefits of a time and attendance solution and how it can help your organization minimize the impact of changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act, go to our website or call us at ; 866.294.2467.

The Impact Of The New Overtime Rule Will Be Felt Across All Industries

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Do You Have The Right Software To Manage And Calculate Statutory Holiday Pay?

May 18th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Benefit Accruals | Employee Time and Attendance | Overtime | Payroll | Time and Attendance Canada - (Comments Off on Do You Have The Right Software To Manage And Calculate Statutory Holiday Pay?)

As a business executive you probably know that Monday, May 23rd 2016 is Victoria Day or by one of its commonly referred to names that include; “May two-four,” (reference to a 24-bottle case of beer) “the May 24 long weekend,” and “May long weekend.” Some have also deemed it as the official start of summer, hence; the fireworks in many parts of the country. And, as a business executive, you probably, also know, that this day is a federally and provincially regulated statutory holiday, which means, employees in Canada receive a day off, a day off with pay or compensation in lieu of time off.

Do You Have The Right Software To Manage And Calculate Statutory Holiday Pay?

If your organization has employees working on that day it’s important to familiarize yourself with these guidelines before you ask employees to come in to work. The Ontario Ministry of Labour gives a brief description on its website and also has a calculator that employers can use to determine how to allocated statutory holiday pay to its employees. The information, reads, in part;

“Generally, employees who qualify are entitled to take public holidays off work and be paid public holiday pay. Some employees are exempt from public holidays while others work in industries with special rules, which can include requiring an employee to work on a public holiday. This calculator provides the calculation for the 9 public holidays. The calculator does not provide the calculation for public holiday pay for a substitute holiday. An employee who qualifies is entitled to take a substitute holiday if the public holiday falls on a non–working day, during the employees’ vacation or when the employee agrees in writing, or is required, to work on a public holiday.”

Now can you imagine a very busy HR or payroll practitioner manually calculating holiday pay for a workforce of 100 plus employees and then keying it into a spreadsheet and then your payroll software? Manually keying employee stat pay or hours in a spreadsheet is bound to give practitioners headaches and will likely make them yearn for that “May two-four case of beer.” Instead why not use a time and attendance solution that will automatically pay employees the statutory holiday based on provincial, federal and your company’s own work rule policies. That way, you have met your obligation as a company, are not paying someone overtime, to manually key in employee data and now everyone can enjoy Victoria Day and the fireworks that comes with it. And, that’s a win-win for all.

Want to know how to calculate employees holiday using an ATS Time and Attendance Solution? Call us at 866.294.2467 or go to our website and download a demonstration. You can also register for one our monthly webinars or download a brochure.

Do You Have The Right Software To Manage And Calculate Statutory Holiday Pay?

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Do You Feel Trapped With Your Time And Attendance System?

May 11th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Cloud Based Time Management Solution | ERP | Hosted Time and Attendance System | Payroll | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance On-Demand | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Analytics - (Comments Off on Do You Feel Trapped With Your Time And Attendance System?)

Organizations face many challenges, including; retaining a competitive edge, managing employees and keeping them productive and motivated, keeping cost low and increasing customer satisfaction. And, with all this to manage, you are likely not thinking about the negative impact your current time and attendance is having on your business. Here are five ways, your time and attendance system may be having a negative impact on your business:

Your company is losing money
If your current time and attendance is paper-based, there is no doubt you are wasting money by having someone manually calculate employee time, vacations, statutory holidays and host of other things that could easily automated. If you are using some off the shelf or outdated time and attendance solution, you will, at some point, have to pay for new versions, annual maintenance and software bug fixes. Wouldn’t it be nice, if you could have a solution that did not include these ongoing costs?

Limited Choices
You believe that the current version you have works. In other words, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Sometimes, these words tend to be the last ones uttered before the system breaks down, or you come to the realization, that your system is not keeping pace with your business.

Do You Feel Trapped With Your Time And Attendance System?

Lack of Integration
Let’s say you have a mid-size company with 500 employees, wouldn’t it be awesome to have a time and attendance solution that’s intuitive, and can integrate to your; financials and job costing, payroll, human resources information system (HRIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM)? Moreover, your company cannot take advantage of real-time analytic reporting if you are using an outdated time and attendance solution. A 21st century cloud-based time and attendance solution connects to mobile devices and is available from anywhere, at anytime propels your business further and provides greater efficiency.

Upgrading will be a piece of cake or, so you think
Upgrading can sometimes cost the same as what you spent a few short years ago on a new time and attendance system. Also upgrading to a new solution will likely require stakeholders to ensure the business requirements are met. After all, your business requirements have likely changed from a few years ago when you first implemented the solution. In short order, that quick upgrade you were going to get, might end up lasting longer than you had planned for.

Customized System
If your current system is customized, it can create problems with upgrading or its ability adhere to bug fixes – more often than not, this can lead organizations to defer upgrades, sometimes indefinitely. Who wants to be stuck with a time and attendance system that is so heavily customized that it prevents a company from taking advantage of newer versions? With an ATS cloud-based time and attendance upgrades are built-in and takes place without interruption to your company’s business operations.

Deploying a best-in-class time and attendance solution based on today’s technology, enables businesses in various industries, to adhere to multi-jurisdictional and legal compliance differences at the local, provincial, federal and state level. ATS TimeWork OnDemand provides real-time visibility, streamlines payroll costs, increase workforce productivity and gives you access to multiple levels of consolidated reporting and enterprise-wide Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), all displayed in real time, on dashboards.

To learn more, go to our website and register for a free webinar, download brochures or a demonstration. You can also join the conversation through LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter.

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We Do Not Use Or Believe In The Cloud, So What?

May 5th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Software-as-a-Service (saas) Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance On-Demand | TimeWork | Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on We Do Not Use Or Believe In The Cloud, So What?)

Saying your company does not believe in the cloud or even plan to use it is likely hard to believe as the dominance of cloud-based applications are showing no signs of abating. Some companies have dedicated IT teams and servers on which they can store their own data, foregoing the need to use cloud-base solutions and in the short term, this will work. However, there will come a time when these companies will have to upgrade their servers and apply software patches and this will inevitably become cost prohibitive-even for companies with large IT budgets. Businesses and their shareholders are interested in streamlining costs and increasing workforce productivity and since the cloud provides that, more businesses are choosing not to buy new servers, and instead, deploy cloud-based applications.

David Goldman of CNN business wrote an article titled “What is the cloud?” and states in part; “You can run from the cloud — but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide. Your job might require you to log onto cloud-based software. Microsoft’s next version of Windows is expected to run some features of its operating system in the cloud.”

We Do Not Use Or Believe In The Cloud, So What?

So, can your company reap some benefits if we decide to move our current, employee timesheet to the cloud? Yes, you can! ATS TimeWork OnDemand is a robust cloud-based time and attendance solution that provides companies with a unique advantage while addressing employee time capture through an integrated, intuitive, flexible and comprehensive workforce management solution.

The article by David Goldman goes on to say “Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook are among the biggest data center operators for consumer cloud services. There are 320 million iCloud users. Facebook users have uploaded more than 400 billion photos and add an average 350 million a day. Amazon’s cloud services operate in 190 countries around the world.”

In closing, there are lots of benefits to migrating your time and attendance to the cloud, while at the same time maximizing the value of your company’s most important resource, its workforce. In addition, as your organization grows, you need a cost-effective, flexible solution that will grow with you. And, that’s where a cloud-based solution like ATS TimeWork OnDemand, comes in handy.

To download a return on investment (ROI) calculator or to attendance one of our monthly webinars, go to our website.

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Canadian Federal Government Is Contemplating New Leave Management Policy

May 3rd, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Employee Scheduling | Employee Self Service | Leave Management | Time and Attendance - (Comments Off on Canadian Federal Government Is Contemplating New Leave Management Policy)

The Canadian federal government recently mused about the possibility of updating parental leave, specifically for new dads. It made news and, for those who love and hate the idea both came out in full force and articulated their respective arguments through a variety of social media platforms. Whether you are or against it, one thing is clear, time is changing. This would perhaps be unheard of some 30 or 50 years ago. In actuality, there is nothing new about such a leave, because in the province of Quebec, new dads can take up five weeks leave while the province covers 70% of their salary.

The role of fatherhood has changed dramatically in the last several years. Josh levs a journalist for CNN wrote a book titled “All In” after he approached his employer to request time-off for the birth of his new baby. During an interview with Brigid Schulte of The Washington Post, he revealed, in part, “I’d been covering parenting issues for CNN, and then all of a sudden I was in the news. I was doing stories and columns on fatherhood, then my wife was about to have our daughter. My employer, Time Warner, had an extremely unusual policy: anyone could get 10 weeks of paid leave to take care of a new child – except the man who’d impregnated the mother of his child. Me. The biological father.”

Canadian Federal Government Is Contemplating New Leave Management Policy

So, will this type of leave management affect Canadian businesses? All indications are this is in the infancy stage. However, if you are one of those businesses who currently track employee vacation, and other time-off requests through a series of spreadsheets, it’s not too late to make the switch to an automated time and attendance system that will automatically track your company’s leave management.

ATS Time and Attendance Leave Management System automates employee time-off request. With ATS Leave Management System employers can accurately enforce leave management policies, and approvals based on an organization’s unique business processes.

To learn more about ATS Time and Attendance Leave Management System, go to our website to download a demonstration or a brochure. To reach an account executive by phone, call 866.294.2467.

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