Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software

It is Time to Digitize Your Spreadsheets

Say goodbye to antiquated time tracking and spreadsheets. Thanks to the power of ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, all data points are now at your fingertips, including; HR process, instant workflows, employee dashboards and more.

ATSTimeWorkOnDemand solution provides a suite of capabilities that make HR and payroll departments work easier and more efficient for everyone, across the organization. With a single tool to manage human resources, payroll and data tracking, organizations can eliminate third-party integrations, improve data accuracy, create a more engaging workforce experience, and make better-informed decisions to tightly align workforce performance with business performance.

Here are some of the benefits of ATSTimeWorkOnDemand HR Suite:

Reduce HR Administrative Costs
Empower employees and managers to securely accomplish common HR tasks, like changing addresses, making and/or updating shift schedules or viewing time-off balances, at any time.

Manage Compliance
ATSTimeWorkOnDemand is configured to adhere to collective bargaining agreements, flexible working time models and Canadian, US international holidays. With ATS Time and Attendance suite, you can fast track your workforce strategy by saving your team valuable time. The solution automates tedious tasks that overburden your people, and it will help you, gain greater insights to make more informed business decisions — and put yourself on a clear path to compliance.

Drive Deeper Workforce Engagement
Connect employees to their work with active goal setting. Recognize, review and reward achievements to increase engagement and productivity. By deploying ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, you can be confident that you and your team are making informed time and attendance decisions — in real time — to best meet your business needs.

Automation Time and Attendance Processes
ATSTimeWorkOnDemand will reduce manual — and error-prone — data entry and improve HR and payroll accuracy. Whether you use ATS Time Kiosk, hand geometry, Web Punch (for Android and iPhones) or facial recognition-these data collectors, will increase productivity and boost your business operations.

Reduce the Cost of Running Payroll and Increase Workforce Performance.
Run payroll in minutes without importing or manipulating third-party files, and post to your general ledger in real-time. ATS workflows enables you to access employee performance metrics built on — and updated by — ATS HR Suite.

Want to learn how our HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions can help you achieve a better work experience for all your people? Call; 866-294-2467. To download a demo, go to our website, www.atimesolutions.com

ATS Time Kiosk, Facial Recognition, Hand Geometry, HR, Payroll, Workflows

How To Save On Labour Costs And Transform HR Compliance

Managing HR-related compliance risks is one of many critical roles performed by HR departments. Often, several mundane tasks associated with compliance management turn skilled HR personnel into manual labourers. The total cost of payroll is the sum of labour, outsourcing, system, overhead, and other costs involved with the maintenance of payroll records; the calculation of salaries, wages, and deductions; and the distribution of paycheques.

Now let’s take closer look at areas for improvement, that will allow your company to streamline the process, and at the same time, save money.

Make use of HR compliance
HR operations, including payroll, time and attendance and recruitment that typically requires attention to compliance management-include a range of manual tasks and procedures that are accepted as part of the process. However, those inefficiencies of these operations are often accepted as a cost of doing business. But many processes can potentially introduce avoidable errors and compliance risk that go beyond the cost of inefficiency.

Think of the Big Picture
Routine, high-volume tasks like time and attendance and payroll processing would be well served, when these tasks are automated. For example, ATS Human Capital Management (HCM) flexible inherent rules-based solution can reduce errors and exceptions while significantly lowering costs.

Focus on a Return on Investment (ROI)
If HR is spending an inordinate amount of time on tracking shift differentials, labour allocation and host of other manual tasks-that’s not the best use of the HR department’s time. If the goal is to obtain HR compliance, then the decision to automate can become a relatively straight-forward decision based on the return on investment from labour savings alone.

Bottomline: ATS HCM gives you a proven solution to process payroll, schedule and track employee hours worked, including paid time off. You can satisfy wage and hour reporting requirements quickly and easily by being able to better operate in an increasingly demanding regulatory environment and accommodate a global workforce.

To learn more, download a demonstration on our website. And, to reach an account executive, call; 866.294.2467.

HR, Human Capital Management (HCM), Payroll, Return on Investment (ROI), Shift Differential

Contactless Time Clock Options In The COVID-19 Era

As parts of Canada and the US begins the process of a slow reopening, social- distancing and workplace hygiene remains top of mind for employers and employees alike. And, if some of your employees continue to work from home, you can make use of employee self-service and online web punch options, which means, you likely don’t have to think about workplace logistics for this cohort. But what about the employees who have to report to work because of the nature of your industry? Whether its food manufacturing, retail, or grocery, you probably have some way of recording their time. And, if you don’t, here are 3 ways to record employees time while they are on the job, that is both safe and contactless:

RFID/Keyfobs: ATS time clocks supports RFID and Smart Card/key fob reader options. RFID, Smart cards and key fobs, do not require contact, and chances are some or all your employees already use these types of cards.

FaceScan and IRIS Recognition Data Collectors: Due, in large part to the ongoing pandemic, more companies are requesting touchless data collectors. And, when combined with ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, innovative time and attendance app, these data collectors — pave the way for a new era of powerful employee time-tracking data that helps control labour costs and improve workforce productivity.

Proximity: ATS Proximity time clocks have an embedded sensor which reads the badge to quickly record employee arrival times, breaks, lunches, overtime and departure times. ATS proximity cards are “contactless” and is read when held within two inches of the time clock sensor. Alternatively, proximity wristbands offer another approach, this wearable method has the potential to ensure almost no contact between employees and time clocks.

Mobile and web time clocks: With ATSTimeWorkOnDemand application, employees can punch in/out from a personal device or terminal thus, eliminating hygiene concerns of a shared time clock. ATS mobile and web time clock options, delivers an engaging experience that drives user adoption across the workforce. Managers can initiate mass approvals, manage exceptions, and get approval alerts on mobile devices from anywhere 24/7.

Magnetic stripe or Barcode: Magnetic and Barcode cards: allow employees to swipe to clock in and out, without directly touching the time clock. ATS State-Of-The-Art Time Clocks are equipped with a large 7” touchscreen with and full color LCD Screen. It delivers a superior user experience and fast user adoption and has a straightforward user interface, that provides self-service view into any employee’s work-related information.

Bottomline: ATS contactless time clocks was designed with you and you and your payroll costs, in mind. ATSTimeWorkOnDemand offers complete automation and full visibility –with innovative and functionality that translates to faster employee deployment, less wasted time, and increased productivity.

To learn more, go to our website, where you can download a demo or brochures. To reach us by phone, call 866.294.2467.

Workforce Management Software Implementation: It’s All In The Process

A common phrase used by some of today’s sports teams is, “trust the process”. That’s another way of saying that the team has a plan and if everyone embraces (including management) the plan it is, likely to succeed. Of course, plans do go awry sometimes so sports teams should always expect the unexpected. It’s no different with software implementation in business.

In the world of workforce management software, the central feature is that of a shared database that supports multiple functions used by different business units. In practice, this means that employees in different departments or locations, such as; distribution, engineering, HR, payroll and finance can rely on the same information for their business process needs.

Implementation stages
The process that encompasses workforce management software implementation can be simple or complex, based on factors like size of the company, the project’s complexity and expectations.

Workforce management software implementation that takes advantage of the cloud, can skip some of the traditional steps that an on-premises deployment involves. ATS manages the infrastructure, allowing organizations to focus on data migration, process changes and employee training. The added steps of hosting the application is handled by ATS.

Project Team
The project team is responsible for the overall health of the implementation project, overseeing day-to-day initiatives and timelines. And, depending on the size of the company, the project team will look different.

Complex implementations for larger enterprise will likely have a steering committee. The committee might consist of the senior executives and departmental managers, who will establish the strategy, goals and priorities that justify the investment.

The budget
The success or failure of a workforce management software implementation project can sometimes, hinge on a realistic budget. And, one of the reasons that a company might go over budget is the expansion and scope of the project.

Implementation Costs
Initial costs are typically much lower for cloud computing solutions like ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, because you only need to focus on the software requirements and connectivity to the system. And, that’s because ATS hosts and maintains the application, thus minimizing demands on time and IT resources.

Application Design
If your company is migrating to a cloud application from on-premise solution the new solution will need to connect with other platforms, like HR, talent management, CRM or payroll. The ATS programming team will need design and develop the APIs before any data integration is established.

Migration
Data migration is crucial to a successful implementation, but transferring data from one system to another can be cumbersome and present unanticipated roadblocks. The ATS project team can make this process more efficient by coordinating with a company’s project manager to ensure a smooth data and mapping analysis is performed.

Training
It’s important to unlock the benefits of your workforce management solution. In order to do so, you need to ensure your employees, understand how to leverage the new system. ATS training is comprehensive and is available to employees through a combination of online learning opportunities.

Testing
ATS software engineers and other users from your company’s project team test connections and validate data integrity, fine-tuning adjustments so the software solution runs as you would expect, before the final data transfer and go-live date.

And…We’re Off
By now, most of the glitches (if any) have been dealt with, the system has been configured according to specifications, data has been transferred and onboarding activities have occurred, and testing is complete.

Support
Post-implementation support is the final step in the project. Sometimes everything does not go as planned, you can rely on ATS team of industry experts to help you navigate through implementation wrinkles.

No matter the type of organization, implementing a workforce management solution is a critical project that demands careful planning and commitment from the entire organization.

To learn about ATS workforce management software in the cloud, go to our website. To reach an account representative, call: 866.294.2467

Cloud Computing, CRM, HR, Payroll, Talent Management, Workforce Management Software

Still Have Faith Those Spreadsheets Will Give You Accurate Attendance Records?

Spreadsheets serve a good purpose. And several companies use them. In fact, some of ATS financial analysts and even some, in the professional service areas like; software engineers use spreadsheets to measure results. However, this data usually comes in from outside big data tools as oppose to being keyed in manually. The potential to run into errors when manually keying data into spreadsheets is real,especially, when you are dealing with things like leave management and employee attendance.

In a recent article by Courtney Blanchard, for TLNT titled, With Paid Leave Laws Expanding, You Need to Update Your Attendance Policies there are some worthwhile advice for HR and Payroll Practitioners on how to best navigate and keep accurate records of attendance policies. They read, in part:

Review company attendance policies to ensure that any mandatory notice periods (i.e., 2 weeks’ notice for a planned doctor’s appointment) do not violate the sick leave law.
Update hiring notices and workplace posters.
Educate supervisors on how to spot fraud or abuse without inadvertently retaliating against employees for using paid leave. Most laws prevent employers from seeking any verification unless an employee has been absent three consecutive working days.
Review payroll practices to ensure employees are receiving the proper rate of pay for the use of sick leave, and that pay stubs include any required information.
Develop a consistent tracking method to ensure that employees accurately accrue time, and that any time used is properly credited and deducted from the balance.

And, while this article is specific to regions in the state of Minnesota, their impact will reverberate across other US states. Also, while labour laws and leave management tracking are different in Canada they could eventually make their way north of the border.

So, if your company is tracking employee time and attendance including, vacation, and other leave management through paper time sheets, you don’t need to anymore.

With ATS TimeWork OnDemand you can:

Automate Tracking of Management Policies: ATS TimeWorkOnDemand helps automate the administration and tracking of paid and unpaid federal, provincial, and otherregional employer-specific leave policies. ATS TimeWorkOnDemand can be configured to match the needs of your organization to maintain balances, reduce manual process errors, and control absence costs.

Simplify and Streamline Compliance: Federal regulations and provincial and/or state laws and union policies, often have overlapping eligibility rules, benefit accruals, and notice requirements. Which makes it all the more important that companies should a time and attendance system that allows to them to accurately track employee attendance and leave management policies. ATS TimeWorkOnDemand solution allows your organization to automate laws and policies in a single solution—simplifying compliance and reducing costs, while also freeing your HR team to focus on higher priority responsibilities.

Keep Accurate Attendance: ATS TimeWorkOnDemand will make sure your leave policies are enforced consistently and accurately across your entire company. With ATS leave management automation, your employees will have access to self-service capabilities through leave eligibility, and balance tracking — available24/7, 365 days a year from any Smartphone or tablet, anytime, anywhere.

To learn more about ATS TimeWorkOnDemand Leave Management solution, go to our website. You can also register for one of our bi-weekly webinars. And to reach an account executive,call: 866.294.2467.

ATS TimeWorkOnDemand, Employee Self-Service (ESS), HR, Parental Leave, Payroll, Personal Time Off (PTO), Time and Attendance, Vacation

7 Tips For Managing Employee Time And Attendance

Is the practice of manually tracking employee time driving you up the walls? Labour costs is one of the biggest concern for many small businesses owners—and, when regulations for overtime, meal breaks and other pay-rules change, spreadsheets can only go so far.

7 Tips For Managing Employee Time And Attendance

Here are 7 tips to make your employee time tracking easier:

(1) Submitting employee hours to your payroll bureau-Dealing with payroll submission deadlines will be less stressful if you have an automated time and attendance system that tabulates employee hours and sends the totals to your payroll software at the click of a mouse. No more, spreadsheets and no need to use calculators anymore. It’s that simple.

(2) Invest in a reliable system- An ATS time and attendance solution automates the entire ‘punch to paycheque’ process and will provide you with alerts and data, that includes; employees who are approaching overtime, up-to-minute reporting, and will keeping you up date with the latest legislation.

(3) Unrivalled support- Whether you are using our cloud computing application ATS TimeWorkOnDemand or the client server version, you can be rest assured, we’ve got your back. Our support reps are available; online, via phone or through onsite visits, depending on your customer care support package.

(4) Details matter-Take the time to set up the employee details correctly in your time and attendance system such as: start dates, phone numbers, up to date addresses etc. And if your company has a large contingent of employees, the ATS time and attendance also has an embedded synchronization interface that can extract data from, your ERP, HR, or payroll application.

(5) After-sales training is beneficial- ATS time and attendance implementation includes a training course will help you save time and be more efficient. ATS runs flexible training, including onsite and online courses aimed at helping you get the most out of your time and attendance solution.

(6) It’s important to remain compliant with legislative changes-One of the advantages of using a system like ATS TimeWorkOnDemand, is that, it’s designed to keep pace with changes in work place legislation.

(7) There’s no need to keep doing what’s not working-Managing employee time with spreadsheets, is a tedious task and, is likely giving you more headaches that you can handle.

What to know more? Download a demo or register for one of our upcoming webinars from our website. To speak to an account executive, call: 866.294.2467.

ATS TimeWorkOnDemand, ERP, HR, Overtime, Time and Attendance

How To Prepare Your Company For The Minimum Wage Hike

Whether you run a small, midsize or large organization, chances are, you will be impacted by the proposed minimum wage hike in Ontario and several other jurisdictions across Canada. And, similarly, US businesses are grappling with the same challenges.

How To Prepare Your Company For The Minimum Wage Hike

As an organization, you have several options at your disposal, and as such, get to decide how to handle a wage hike. For the purpose of this blog, we will discuss two options:

Decrease your workforce: As a company, you might decide that in order to remain viable the simplest solution is to decrease your number of employees. Another possibility is to simply hire employees on a part-time basis, in the hopes that this will help you decrease payroll costs.
Raise prices: When payroll and other operational expenses go up, businesses can choose to pass them onto their customers. And, depending on the market and product offered, this can sometimes be a tough pill for customers to swallow, and some of them may end up speaking with their dollars by going elsewhere.

What if instead of loosing sleep (and with good reason) over the wage hike, your company automates manual business processes, thus, enabling employees to work smarter and more efficiently, while keeping your profits intact?

ATS Workforce Management HCM Solution can streamline payroll costs and improve workforce productivity. Some of these solutions include:

ATS Workforce Scheduling for retail, hospitality and healthcare is a robust and powerful solution designed specifically for organizations with hourly paid employees across multiple jurisdictions. ATS Workforce Scheduling uses data from your core business to create real-time analytic reporting and on demand-based schedules avoiding any over or under-staffing.

With ATS Scheduling you can:

Accurately report key performance indicators (KPIs) such as labour costs, employee attendance and absences, and workforce compliance.
Align employee schedules to financial budgets, payroll and labour to-sales ratios and the allocation of hours for a single entity or across the organization.
Improve employee productivity through optimized resourcing, employee and supervisor self-service. Managers can create schedules and send it to employees through interactive dashboards and workflows.

ATS Time and Attendance simplifies the tedious tasks involved with monitoring employee time and attendance, labour tracking, and data collection. That means, if you are using paper timesheets, outdated tracking and spreadsheets, you will likely not save much money unless your time tracking is fully automated. ATS Time and Attendance System — works in tandem with our best-in-class time clock/data collection devices — to help your organization control labour costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity.

Manage overtime costs ATS Time and Attendance helps you account for hours accurately, and minimize overtime to protect your bottom-line. You will have immediate access to employee attendance and get reports, in real-time on overtime trends, tools to manage overtime requests and approvals, and time card review. In other words, this means less administrative burden and fewer errors.

Bottom-line:

The wage hike is coming and will be felt by organizations and employees alike. If you are looking to improve your employee efficiency, streamline payroll costs, and make better business decisions, ATS Time and Attendance could be the right tool for your organization.

To download a demonstration or learn more, go to our website. And to attend bi-weekly webinar or speak to time and attendance consultant, call 866.294.2467.

Analytics, Employee Scheduling, Healthcare, Human Capital Management (HCM), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Overtime, Retail, Time and Attendance, Workforce Management Solution

Removing The Complications Out Of Employee Time Tracking

We at ATS continually espouse the benefits of an automated time and attendance, but we have also stressed that it does not have to be a complicated process. And, while it’s true that an organization with multiple locations, different collective bargaining agreements, and its adherence to regional and federal work rules can increase the complexity and amount of time it takes to install such a system, sticking starting with the basics can make a world of difference.

Here three simple rules to follow once you have decided to deploy a time and attendance:

Reports
Find out which reports are most important to you. For example, if you need a report that shows which or how many hours employees worked on a; daily, weekly and monthly basis, this should suffice as a starting point. Other simple reports may include; exceptions, overtime, daily time in and out and, a few payroll reports to ensure you have the proper information before exporting employee hours to your payroll, CRM, ERP, HR or talent management software. This, however, is not to suggest, you should not explore the full library of reports within a time and attendance system, or look for a solution that has the capability to provide analytics and Big Data tools to support your organizational growth.

Employee Time Clock
When deciding which time clock to use, think about your organizational philosophy and, more importantly, your actual work environment. Would biometric face recognition be better suited or would or a proximity or magnetic time clock avail itself as the better option? These are considerations that should be given once you decide which time and attendance to deploy.

Project Manager
Traditionally this role has fallen to the IT manager or consultant. But, in actuality, HR and/or the payroll practitioner and to some extent, finance personnel are responsible for the management of employee time tracking. So, would it not make sense that such a project be headed by one of these individuals? That’s not to say the role of IT is less important, it just means that the very people who manage the daily tracking of employee hours would know more, than anyone else, about your company’s time and attendance requirements. And, so, it stands to reason, that their role when choosing a solution should be elevated- in short, they are the ones that should be your project managers, with the understanding that they seek assistance and/or guidance from other departments including; IT and other operational managers.

Whether you are moving from paper time sheets to an automated time and attendance solution or merely upgrading to a new solution, removing the complications will help the deployment go a bit smoother.

To learn more about ATS Time and Attendance solutions, go to our website. And to register for one of our weekly webinars, contact us.

Analytics, Big Data, Biometrics, CRM, ERP, HR, Payroll, Time and Attendance, Time Clock

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.

Keep current with ATS:

Follow ATS on Twitter
Join the conversation with ATS on LinkedIn
Follow ATS on Google Plus

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

What’s Fuelling The Growth In Today’s Manufacturing?

Ask this question to executives in the manufacturing sector and you are bound to get several different answers, albeit there will be similarities in those answers. It’s no secret that the manufacturing industry has had to adapt and evolve to the rapid changes around them in order, to survive-while dealing with some naysayers who had left them for dead after one of this century’s worst financial crisis.

But who would know the inner workers of the manufacturing industry and its resilience and ability to adapt than anyone else? How about the President and Chief Executive Officer, Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation who penned a poignant article titled “Three Megatrends Transforming Manufacturing”. We tool the liberty of extrapolating some of paragraphs (in no particular order) which reads in part;

“We’re entering a new industrial age driven by digitalization, customization, and miniaturization that is transforming the nature of work in manufacturing. Since the turn of the millennium, the sector has evolved faster and more thoroughly than at any other time in history.”

The rise of the digital era has impacted all industries especially manufacturing. The article states that “The ability to collect and analyze large volumes of data in economic transactions has revolutionized customer care in the retail and finance sectors. In manufacturing, Big Data will accelerate the integration of IT, manufacturing and operational systems on the shop floor and lead to better forecasting and understanding of plant performance. Caterpillar is taking this a step farther, tracking the performance of its products in the field after purchase and offering maintenance and repair services based on real-time assessments.”

If you are still wondering whether the industry can adapt here is a final paragraph from the article; “Of course, manufacturers’ labor needs are changing as well: companies now rely on more automation and require fewer employees, and those they hire must demonstrate higher science, technological and math skills. Fortunately, the millennial generation—as large as the baby boomer generation—is more technologically sophisticated. And, as the manufacturing workforce has diversified over time, manufacturers are working to continually foster more inclusive environments.”

The title of this blog asked? “What’s Fuelling The Growth In Today’s Manufacturing”? The answer is simple-it’s the ability of the industry to adapt and evolve with the times. Many of today’s manufacturers face constant pressure to produce a top quality product on time, every time. And, the economic fluctuations, shortage of skilled labor and market governance, and adherence to workforce compliance mandates adds to the complexities that manufacturers face every day. To meet these challenges many of these manufacturing companies have adopted Workforce Management Solutions to help them keep pace with the digital era, streamline costs and improve productivity at all levels of their operations.

To download a free demonstration of ATS Workforce Management for Manufacturing, go to our website. And, to attend one of our monthly webinars, you can register online.

Big Data, Labor, Manufacturing, Shop Floor, Workforce Management Solutions

It is Time to Digitize Your Spreadsheets

How To Save On Labour Costs And Transform HR Compliance

Contactless Time Clock Options In The COVID-19 Era

Still Have Faith Those Spreadsheets Will Give You Accurate Attendance Records?

7 Tips For Managing Employee Time And Attendance

How To Prepare Your Company For The Minimum Wage Hike

Removing The Complications Out Of Employee Time Tracking

What’s Fuelling The Growth In Today’s Manufacturing?

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta