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Here Are 3 ways To Create Better Employee Scheduling

January 9th, 2020 | Posted by ATS in ATS TimeWork OnDemand | Employee Scheduling | Employee Self Service | Fingerprint Time And Attendance Canada | Fingerprint Time And Attendance Toronto | Hospitality Industry | Labour Analytics | Software-as-a-Service (saas) Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto - (Comments Off on Here Are 3 ways To Create Better Employee Scheduling)

A recent article for TLNT.com by Joyce Maroney titled, Ease Retail Turnover By Making Scheduling More Flexible for online sheds light on the headaches that retail managers endure. Whether you are in retail, healthcare or hospitality, you will run into obstacles when creating schedules for employees — and if those schedules are manual, you will be plagued, with unnecessary headaches.

Here are 3 ways to create better schedules from the article:

  1. Make taking time off easy — Establish a formal (ideally written) policy regarding time off requests and execute that policy consistently to ensure workers trust that the process is fair. Beyond that, actually provide workers with paid time off — to refresh themselves and to help avoid absence abuses — and encourage workers to take the time they want and need.
  • Create personalized schedules — Collaborate with workers when setting their schedules so that their shift preferences are accommodated as much as possible. Take advantage of automated scheduling and analytics tools to ensure that managers have visibility into worker availability and can plan for shift coverage. And don’t forget to provide workers with accrual information and make it easy for them to check their time, request shift changes, and swap shifts with coworkers — bonus points if they can do so from their own phones.
  • Use technology to staff smartly — Seek insight into how to address staffing coverage during uber-busy periods like Black Friday by looking at historical trends of labor drivers, schedule preferences, and booked vacation time. Doing this requires discipline and analysis, but once the models are in place, managers can easily re-run them with little additional effort to help make intelligent and data-backed staffing decisions in real time.

ATS Workforce Management (WFM) is a comprehensive optimization, planning, and time and attendance software application that manages employee resource demand, streamlines payroll costs, and business analytics. ATS Workforce Management mitigates the risk of potential compliance errors and reduce costs with purpose-built solution capabilities, while encouraging employees to focus on activities that generate more value.

To learn more about ATS (HCM) Workforce Management capabilities, or to download demonstration, go to our website. And, to reach an account executive, call 866.294.2467.

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Scheduling With Spreadsheets, Really? Who Does That Anymore?

May 10th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Absence Management | Employee Scheduling | Employee Time and Attendance | Employee Time Tracking Software | Forecasting | Hospitality Industry | Time and Attendance Canada - (Comments Off on 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.

 

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Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

April 26th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Scheduling | Forecasting | Hospitality Industry | Labour cost | Overtime | Retail | Scheduling | Workforce Analytics | Workforce Scheduling Software - (Comments Off on 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.

 

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How To Streamline Payroll And Avoid The High Cost Of Overtime

July 29th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Forecasting | Hospitality Industry | Labour Analytics | Leave Management - (Comments Off on How To Streamline Payroll And Avoid The High Cost Of Overtime)

Business owners in small and large organizations are fearful about the proposed overtime rule. This bit of news is not sitting well with several businesses and, has caused sleepless nights for some executives, as they come to terms with trying to find ways to adjust in their daily operations. If your business is going to be affected by this proposed legislation, one of the best tools to use, to capture overtime is an ATS time and attendance solution. Payroll is one of the largest expenses of any business, regardless of size and automating employee time and attendance can be a good first step to controlling overtime.

Through the use of an ATS Time and Attendance solution, here are some ways your business can control overtime:

Overtime Equalization: In the retail, hospitality and healthcare space, overtime is almost unavoidable and that’s due, in large part to the nature of these industries. Therefore, accurately tracking and paying the correct overtime is paramount. ATS Overtime Equalization solution provides managers with timely visibility into key workforce performance indicators such as labour, overtime, and attendance. Real-time alerts notify managers when performance thresholds are breached; helping prevent labour issues such as excess overtime, budget variances and compliance violations.

Choose The Right Data Collector: Not all employee time clocks are created equal and, so selecting an employee time clock is as important as making sure you have the right time and attendance software for your organization. For example, putting a fingerprint reader in a very dusty environment or food processing plant, for is a recipe for disaster. ATS Time and Attendance data collectors are fully optimized, feature-rich employee self-service platform and are capable of serving the full spectrum of your requirements. Through the use of ATS time clocks, your business is transformed into “On the Spot” information that helps managers and supervisors control overtime and keep jobs on time and within budget.

How To Streamline Payroll And Avoid The High Cost Of Overtime

Real-Time Business Analytics: If a business is not using the right tools to control overtime, this can lead to an unhealthy balance-sheet. And, when left unchecked, overtime can become an uncontrollable payroll nightmare. While not completely unavoidable, reining in unnecessary overtime is critical to bringing down expenses and ensuring the most effective use of labour resources. ATS Time and Attendance Analytics allow for a complete view of your business landscape and includes actual versus budget hours. The intuitive dashboard contains future schedules, and alerts managers of preventable overtime situations and incidental overtime occurrences.

Bottom-line, getting a handle on your company’s overtime should be an important first step but the impact of overtime extends far beyond a balance-sheet. Controlling overtime is a healthy strategy for financially sustainable organizations in uncertain times.

To learn more, you can attend one of our monthly webinars or download a demonstration. We also have an active user-group on our LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus pages. To speak to one of our account executives call; 1-866.294.2467.

How To Streamline Payroll And Avoid The High Cost Of Overtime

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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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Healthcare User Group Time and Attendance Session

November 23rd, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Hospitality Industry - (0 Comments)

Earlier this month, we hosted our first time and attendance user group session and navigated through various areas of the software. Our market focus was the retail and hospitality industry. This was due, in large part, to the high labour costs that these industries face during the busy holiday season. We had a lively session with a wonderful group of attendees representing the following sectors: hotels, banquet halls, convention & conference facilities, quick serve, hardware and department stores. We plan to continue these each month featuring a different industry.

Our next session is right around the corner (Tuesday, December 6that 10:00 am EST) and will cover Workforce Management Software for the healthcare industry. We will discuss how the ATS web-based time and attendance software helps the healthcare industry keep track of wage changes and collective agreements. Space is limited so register now so, you can have the opportunity to sit in and participate with ATS software engineers and other attendees.

ATS web-based time and attendance software can be accessed anytime, on-demand and from any web browser. The solution gives healthcare operations, an efficient, centralized system with the power, flexibility, and scalability needed to improve productivity, control labour costs and enhance patient service and satisfaction.

To learn more follow Apex Time Solutions on Twitter. View online shows on SlideShare or follow us on LinkedIn.

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