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5 Ways to Curb the Challenges of a Remote Workforce, While Adhering to Labour Laws

July 24th, 2020 | Posted by ATS in ATS TimeWork OnDemand | Biometric FaceScan | Contactless Time Clocks | Employee Scheduling | Employee Self Service | ERP | Fingerprint Time And Attendance Canada | Fingerprint Time And Attendance Toronto | HR | Labour Analytics | Leave Management | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto - (Comments Off on 5 Ways to Curb the Challenges of a Remote Workforce, While Adhering to Labour Laws)

The impact of COVID-19 has been felt by companies, of all sizes around the world. Today, many of these companies have pivoted to remote work, while we, all wait to see what will happen with the pandemic as time goes on. If your company, was using a physical time clock before COVID-19 where employees punched in/out at the start and end of their shift, and your workforce is now remote, don’t be disheartened. ATS has a range of solutions, that include; employee self-service, online timesheets and contactless time clocks that are designed for the remote workforce.

Here are excerpts from article by Elizabeth Arnold and Chester Hanvey titled Mitigating the Compliance Risks of a Remote Workforce . The excerpts espouse a list of solutions that companies can adopt as some of their employees are now working remotely.

  1. Provide Clear Guidance to Employees: Supervisors play a critical role in guiding and enforcing employee time-management policies. The presence of sound internal policies can play an important role, as well. However, organizational researchers have found that policies alone are often insufficient mechanisms to ensure compliance. Direct involvement by supervisors can help achieve the organization’s compliance goals.
  2. Explore Technological Solutions: A variety of tech options are available to help promote accurate time reporting. For example, you may want to create a mechanism that allows employees to quickly and easily record time spent on compensable activities outside of the work shift. The greater amount of effort required for employees to report time in these situations will likely contribute to employees underreporting time.
    Another approach to maximize accuracy in tracking work time is to implement software that has a “timer function.” Employees can activate and stop the timer as they perform different activities. To increase detail and efficiency, “activity codes” can be created to reflect the activity the employee is performing. Tracking work at this level of detail and frequency can improve the accuracy of information recorded. 
  3. Scheduling Employees: Another strategy for driving compliance in some contexts is to create detailed schedules with specific time segments allocated to different activities, including meal and rest breaks. Schedules can be distributed through a shared calendar program, such as Outlook or Google, and can help to eliminate ambiguity about expectations concerning remote work.
  4. Conduct Audits of Reported Time: Perhaps the best way to ensure that an employee is reporting time accurately is to perform an audit. Organizational researchers have concluded that monitoring of employees and administering visible consequences for noncompliance are often necessary for policies to be effective. Auditing time records provides a mechanism to evaluate compliance directly. It allows you to make corrections to reported time, which not only ensures that you pay employees properly for their work but also minimizes your organization’s legal exposure. 
  5. Driving Compliance Proactively: The rapid increase in the size of a remote workforce creates challenges related to compliance with labor laws. A variety of approaches exist to ensure that all work time is compensated for hourly employees and that the nature of the work is appropriate for exempt employees. The most effective strategy will depend on a number of factors, but you should be mindful and proactive about driving compliance. 

While no one knows with absolute certainty what tomorrow might bring, we do know that change is sure to come. In order to truly pivot to a more digital organization, companies must be ready to adopt agile solutions that can easily shift gears, while adapting to new technology, and take on what’s yet to come.

You can explore ATS range of modern HCM solutions that include: ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, Payroll, HR, Employee Self-Service, Online Timesheets, ERP and analytics to help you drive productivity now and into the future.

To reach an account executive by phone; call 866.294.2467. You can also download a demonstration or a pre-recorded webinar from our website.

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3 Tips To Keep You Focused While Working From Home During COVID-19

July 14th, 2020 | Posted by ATS in ATS TimeWork OnDemand | Predictive Scheduling | SaaS Time and Attendance | Telecommuting Employees | Time and Attendance | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto | Work-Life Balance - (Comments Off on 3 Tips To Keep You Focused While Working From Home During COVID-19)

Working from home during COVID-19 pandemic can make seem like you are working all the time. Know how to set boundaries between your work and personal life, as well as avoid professional isolation. And, if your office is closed due to the corona virus pandemic, you might be working from home for the first time.

If you are working from home for the first time and/or just can’t seem to stay focused with the knowledge that your TV and fridge is nearby, consider these tips for maintaining work-life balance and avoiding professional isolation. These tips are from an article by Elizabeth Grace Saunders in Harvard Business Review titled, How to Stay Focused When You’re Working from Home

  1. Establish working hours- It may sound silly, but if you want to have a focused day of work, pretend you’re not working from home. Before I became a time management coach, my schedule was chaotic. I didn’t have a set time that I would be at my computer, and I would often schedule personal appointments or run errands during the day. And since my personal life didn’t have boundaries, my work life didn’t either. When I was home, I would feel guilty for not checking business email at all hours of the day and night. I never felt that I could truly rest.
  2. Structure your day for success- Maximize the effectiveness of your time at home by structuring it differently than a typical workday. For example, if you work from home only one day a week or on occasion, make it a meeting-free day. If you can’t entirely avoid meetings, reserve at least half a day for focused work. Choose a time that works best for you, based on any required meetings and your energy levels.
  3. Set boundaries with others- To make your efforts stick, be clear with the people who might see your work-at-home days as simply days you’re at home. Explain to friends, family, and other acquaintances that the days you’re working remotely aren’t opportunities for non-work-related activities. For example, if you’re home with your spouse, tell them, “I’m planning on being on my computer from 8 AM to 5 PM today. I’m happy to chat at lunch, but other than that I’ll be occupied.” Typically, when you set expectations and stick to them (say, really stopping at 5 PM), people understand your limits instead of assuming you’ll be available. (I also recommend having a place where you’re away from anyone else who might be home, such as an office or bedroom where you can shut the door and be out of sight.)

Bottomline: While some employees have been working remotely for many years and will likely keep their same routine, managers should remember that not every employee actually wants to work from home, a shift that can be stressful for some. However, as organizations increasingly mandate that many employees work from home during this pandemic outbreak, it’s becomes even more important that managers, communicate with their employees as some might be struggling with the change.

About ATS
ATS offers a broad portfolio of time and attendance solutions that streamlines the collection, calculation, and reporting of employee hours for workforce management and eliminates the manual tasks of payroll preparation, increasing efficiency and reducing errors in corporate payroll departments.

To learn more about ATS, go to our website. To download a demo of our time and attendance app or reach us by phone call; 866.294.2467.

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Use These Questions To Help You Avoid Hiring The Wrong Employee

July 9th, 2020 | Posted by ATS in Career | Employee Productivity | Employee Self Service | HR | Time and Attendance Blog | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto - (Comments Off on Use These Questions To Help You Avoid Hiring The Wrong Employee)

Hiring employees is no easy task, just ask any HR or hiring manager and they will you. Some of them probably have their own lists of questions that they have compiled and use, during their years of experience.

Here are 4 Interview Questions to Avoid Hiring Toxic Employees according to Dianna Booher’s blog, in TLNT: Talent & HR online publication.

  1. Who are 3-5 people in the public arena or your personal or social life whom you admire and why? Responses here will reveal several things: How informed are they on local happenings, current affairs, politics, or pop culture? Does their response suggest they can’t think of anyone, or simply that they can’t narrow their choices? Were all choices from public life rather than personal or social circles? That may suggest few mentors or role models in their life. Why? If all choices are personal acquaintances, that may suggest non-involvement in the community or activities outside the home. Why? At least, their answers will reveal their values.
  • Can you recall ever seeing or hearing about someone mistreated in the workplace? How did you handle or react to the situation? Their answers will reveal values and ethics. You’re also judging their capacity to feel empathy and compassion. Further, the action they took in this situation tells you about their ability to persuade others to stop the mistreatment or otherwise correct the situation. Their response also tells you about their tolerance for risk (if they had to act alone to stop the mistreatment). Did they risk their own reputation or even their own job to do the right thing?
  • Would you tell me about a particularly bad day you’ve had this past year or two — a day when nothing was routine and almost everything went wrong? How did you deal with all the stress and calamity? Their response gives you some perspective on what happenings they consider “routine” versus “calamity” and “particularly bad.” But what you’re really looking for is their coping mechanisms — both emotional stability and resourcefulness. Listen carefully to the retelling for words like “so upset,” “so angry,” “had a major meltdown,” “went ballistic,” “frantic,” “just beside myself with worry.”
  • Explain a new idea to me. For example, take a complex term, product, service, or project in a past job and explain it to me so well that I could teach a session on it tomorrow. I’ve yet to meet the job applicant who admits to having weak communication skills. In my three decades of reviewing résumés and making hire decisions, job candidates routinely claim some version of “excellent oral and written communication skills.” This exercise aims to test that boast. As the applicant explains the concept, interrupt with questions along the way to see how they react.

Bottomline: To ensure the success of your business, you need to hire the best job candidates and provide them with the support they need to grow in their jobs. And in these strange COVID-19 times, you are likely to conduct your interviews virtually, which in and of itself, can present a different set of challenges.

To learn more about ATS you can register for our next webinar. To download a demo of our time and attendance app or reach us by phone call; 866.294.2467.

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