Best-in-Class Workforce Management Software from Industry Experts
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How is the Manufacturing Sector Adapting to the New Economy?

August 8th, 2013 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Business Software Automation | Employee Time and Attendance | Labour cost | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada - (0 Comments)

The 2008 recession decimated a large part of the manufacturing industry in Ontario, other areas in Canada and the United States. Some economic pundits have asserted that the industry is on a rebounded citing the North American and Japanese big three auto sales. However, it is important to note that many of the jobs that were lost during the bleak years of the recession are returning at a snails’ pace increasing the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector. This competitiveness challenges the companies that are using a manual processes with their organizations.  A modern time and attendance solution can help these organizations keep pace with today’s challenges, achieve profit and retain customers in the following three ways:

Improve Business Process
Manufacturers could be missing opportunities to reduce labour costs when using manual time tracking processes. Our time and attendance software can help you streamline business processes, provide greater visibility and control over labour costs more effectively, manage compliance risk and improve workforce productivity.

 Increase Visibility of your Operations
As manufacturing companies expand into global markets their need to improve business productivity becomes even more important. ATS attendance system delivers critical advantages for employees, managers and administrators. The application improves employee performance and enables you to spend more time focusing on strategic business activities. Business analytics tools give managers real-time visibility into ways to reduce costs and optimize attendance control processes.

 Innovation in the Digital Age
As the pace of the digital age increases, manufacturing companies need to leverage tools that can help them adapt. A fully automated cloud-based, solution boosts workforce productivity so your employees can maximize the workday. Many of today’s business leaders are seeing workforce management as a strategic business driver that can increase the profit margins of their organizations.

The constant change of today’s business environment challenges companies to keep up. A modern workforce management software can help manufacturers prepare for growth and increase collaboration across the organization. For more information on how business management software can help meet these challenges go to our website.

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Time & Attendance and The Cost of Doing Nothing

December 5th, 2012 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Business Intelligence | Business Software Automation | Hosted Time and Attendance System | Time and Attendance System | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software - (0 Comments)

Every few years your company sets aside some time to review demos and understand the benefits of time and attendance. After a few weeks, you decide not to make a purchase and stay with your current excel and paper tracking time sheet process. Over the years, we at ATS have heard of numerous reasons why some companies do not want to upgrade to a solution can make their lives easier.

 Some these reasons include:
“Our current system is old but it works.”
“We have looked at this before and senior management does not want to spend money on a system like this.”
“I am not convinced we can streamline our process if we purchase this system.”

Based on our experience it is often the fear of change that makes companies reluctant to adopt something new. The antiquated method of capturing employee data, although comforting, leads to erroneous mistakes and wastes valuable resources.

ATS time management software is both efficient and affordable. Because of the flexibility of the system, it easily adaptes to any industry and lowers operational costs from the very beginning.

Sometimes being reluctant to implement a software solution that can streamline business processes can be attributed to a number of factors including; limited cash on hand, uncertainty about the current state of the economy and a fear of change. While a delay can sometimes be due to limited resources in difficult times and while this may, on the surface, appear to be a prudent course of action, the cost of doing nothing is costing companies thousands of dollars each year in lost productivity.

Both large and small businesses understand that in order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace, it’s not enough to merely do more with less. It means reviewing all current practices and utilizing resources wisely.  One of the most effective tools, to help that cause, is the implementation of an effective time and attendance solution that contains business intelligence and analytic reporting tools to achieve desired profits. 

To learn more go to our website and to view a demonstration, contact a software account executive.

 

 

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Adopting Business Automation in the Era of Austerity Measures

May 3rd, 2012 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Business Software Automation | Employee Time Attendance | Hospitality Industry | Payroll | Retail | Scheduling | Workforce Management Software - (0 Comments)

To say that the recent economic crisis of 2008 touched every country in the world is a gross understatement. While some countries fared somewhat better than others, there is overwhelming evidence that many countries are still feeling the effects of the financial crisis. For example, in North America the manufacturing sector and several other industries, have been decimated and leaving millions of people out of work. This economic downturn has forced many companies to take a serious look at the many advantages afforded by business automation software.  Manually tracking employee hours through time sheets is not only a waste of resources but unintended errors can cut into a company’s profit margin.

An ATS time and attendance solution is tailored to meet the challenges companies face in the areas of: forecasting, employee scheduling, labour analytics and attendance management. Whether your industry is hospitality, manufacturing, retail or healthcare, our workforce management software is designed to meet those needs and improve business productivity.

Here are three ways our software solution can help your company:

Information in Real-Time: Companies need the latest data so they can determine how to reduce costs while maintaining productivity. ATS time and attendance provides instant visibility and enhanced reporting to help you make informed decisions about your labour force.

Functionality and Scalability: ATS time and attendance software helps organizations automate clocking and streamlines employee time tracking, while communicating with operational departments throughout the payroll process. Our modular solution is scalable and allows companies to activate additional functions as their business and number of employees grows.

Integrated Solution: ATS fully integrated time and attendance solution combines performance into one powerful system—improving efficiency and effectiveness as well as generating critical business intelligence. Our workforce management software allows for integration to a variety of systems including: Talent Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Payroll, Accounting and Financial Management and Customer Relationship Management.

To join our weekly webinar on the advantages of workforce management software for businesses go to our website. To speak to one of our account executives, call us at: 866.294.2467

 

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Top 7 Time and Attendance Questions of 2011

December 30th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Biometric Time and Attendance Facial Recognition System | Biometric Time Clocks | Business Software Automation | Cloud Based Time Management Solution | Employee Time and Attendance | Employee Time Attendance | Employee Time Clock | Employee Time Tracking | Employee Time Tracking Software | Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Payroll | Time and Attendance | Time and Attendance Blog | Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Management Solutions - (0 Comments)

Many people tend to use the end of the year as a time of reflection. We, at Apex Time Solutions, decided to compile of a list of questions received from businesses over the past 12 months. In some cases, these questions came from companies who were unhappy with their time and attendance vendor. We also received several calls from prospective customers who were using manual time sheets and wanted to understand the benefits of automating the attendance process at their organizations. This list is not exhaustive. It represents a small fraction of the many queries we received during the course of this year.

1.    Do you offer support across different provinces and/or states?
Yes. In addition, we also provide support in different time zones. When selecting a vendor, make sure they can not only answer this question but have customers who can attest to this as well. Support made it to the top of the list because this question came up numerous times from prospective customers.

2.    I am told fingerprint readers are better than other biometrics, is that true?
Based on our experience that’s false. The data collector (employee time clock) should be recommended based on   your company’s needs. There is range of things that should be taken into consideration when deciding on which data terminal will work best for your company.

3.    Can we implement payroll, ERP and time and attendance at the same time?
We would not recommend a company implement several modules or different systems at the same time. Each product requires its own project plan and testing. The implementation of business automation software should be given careful consideration and all the facts laid bare prior to deployment.

4.    Would you recommend web-based software over an on premises solution?
That depends on a company’s corporate culture and internal resources among other things. Recommendations are made based on a the needs of a company.

5.    Can your system interface to our payroll software?
This question is usually followed up by: “Are you sure, your software is compatible with our payroll application?” We have created interfaces to 300 plus payroll HR and ERP systems. Today’s software applications have import utilities that allow for interfacing to third-party programs.

6.    How fast can you implement our system?
There are many variables to consider prior to deployment of workforce management software. Once we have a full understanding of your needs, we will be in a better position to give you a timeline.

7.    If there is a certain report we want, can you build it?
Absolutely! We have no shortage of expert programmers who can build any report you want. We do, however; recommend that customers first browse through our library of reports as it may already exist within our software.

The ATS Time & Attendance manages absences and accruals, streamlines payroll integration and eliminates time fraud/buddy punching. For more information about workforce management software go to our website.

As the year comes to a close we would like to take this opportunity to wish our customers a Happy New Year!  

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It’s the holiday season: What are you using to track overtime hours and statutory holidays?

December 19th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Business Software Automation | Cloud Based Time Management Solution | Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Labour cost | Workforce Management Solutions - (0 Comments)

It’s that time of the year when some businesses have “shut-downs”, while employees at other companies are working multiple overtime hours. Whether your company is in an industry that reduces its hours during this period, or increases them employee hours need to be tracked accurately.

Are your managers creating schedules by hand, and/or asking employees to verify what time they arrive or left for work? If so, it’s a sign that your business needs to automate. In addition to the tracking of attendance, you also have to manage how much time each person is allocated by jobs, projects or department. A time and management system can save companies a great deal of time and reduce errors that are made from manual calculation of attendance.

The ATS workforce management software provides comprehensive and accurate data collection of your organization’s working hours. It tracks premiums, statutory holidays and streamlines payroll costs.

Here are some of the benefits to automating employee attendance:

  • Hosted software solution that can be accessed 24/7 via any web browser
  • Elimination of manual calculation and the risk of making errors while tracking attendance on paper
  • Reduction in time spent managing employee attendance
  • Instant real-time labour analytic reports
  • Available via the internet 365 days a year and from any computer with Internet access
  • Employee self-service for vacation request and other personal time-off
  • Interface to any payroll, HR or ERP application

The ATS workforce management software demonstrates our expertise in the following areas of: implementation, maintaining, hosting and evolving leading solutions.

To learn more go to our website or join our user group on LinkedIn.

 

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The Pros and Cons of Telecommuting

December 7th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Business Software Automation | Telecommuting Employees | Time and Attendance Blog - (0 Comments)

The advent of employees working from home has been a challenge for companies and employees alike. Over the last 15 years, many fortune 500 companies have strongly encouraged their sales representatives to work from their homes. Of course, working from home is not suited to everyone.

Some companies will agree to their employees working from home if there are checks and balances in place. For example, an agreement between the company and the employee may require that the employee log in and out at the start and end of their shift and record projects they are working on.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages to this arrangement:

Advantages:

Time with the kids – A parent with small children will get time to spend with them and help in their development. There many successful businesses who have adopted the idea of employees working from home with great results. Some examples include: mom bloggers, many of whom balance blogging and recommending company products and also taking care of little kids, sales reps of major pharmaceutical conglomerates and technology companies to name a few.

Travel time –When working from home, you don’t have to contend with traffic or gridlock. Also the damage to the environment with all these cars on the road is insurmountable. Millions of people commute to work each day, spending numerous hours on the road, all of which has an adverse effect on their health.

Flexibility – You can choose which tasks need to be accomplished based on its deadline. Someone who is disciplined can get more done while working at home with no distractions from colleagues.

Disadvantages:

Personal chores – It takes someone with a great amount of discipline to work from home and ignore tasks such as; doing laundry, going out for a two hour coffee break with a friend, grocery shopping or watching their favourite soap operas for a few hours.

Human interaction – The lack of human interaction will be hard for some employees to get use to. The daily ritual of meeting at each other’s office cubicle to discuss who got booted off the latest reality TV series can be a stress relief for some people. Trying to replicate these activities through a teleconference with co-workers is next to impossible when working from home.

Temptation Island – There are a range of other distractions for anyone who is working from home. If expectations are not set between the employer and the employee it’s easy for the employee to slack off. Productivity can suffer since there is no pressure to start work at a certain time or dress a certain way.

To read more about our business automation telecommuting tools, go to our website. You can follow us on Twitter or sign up to participate to in our monthly webinars. The next one is schedule for January 2012.

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