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Benefits Of Cloud-Computing In The World Of Business

April 1st, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Overtime | Payroll | Software-as-a-Service (saas) Workforce Management Software | Tablet PC | Time and Attendance On-Demand - (Comments Off on Benefits Of Cloud-Computing In The World Of Business)

Cloud-based apps are popular because they offer a superior advantage over computer-based software. Some of the benefits of cloud-based apps include; the accessing of information anywhere using any device with an Internet connection. And for many consumers who are proponents of everything cloud, the ability to store music, games, documents, photos and other files through the cloud is a dream come true. By contrast, the business world, cautious by nature was a little apprehensive about cloud computing. And some, rightfully so, questioned if the pros outweighed the cons in a cloud-based time and attendance. To answer the question about the pros and cons of cloud-computing, you don’t have to look took far to see that many of today’s businesses, are embracing cloud-based time and attendance like never before.

Benefits Of Cloud-Computing In The World Of Business

Benefits Of Cloud-Computing In The World Of Business

 

One of ATS largest customers, in manufacturing healthcare, with 7 locations across Canada and the United States said it best;

“I wish our company had a more open mind to using a web-based time tracking system before. It’s only after implementing the ATS TimeWork that we began to see the benefits. Our employees no longer bombard their supervisors and our HR department with questions about time-off requests, scheduling and confirmation of hours worked prior to be paid, because, they can now do it online. Our financial controller is happy, because she can access the reports she wants at anytime and the best part of this system, is that our payroll department is no longer taking 2 and a half days to complete payroll. With 1500 employees our payroll and benefits personnel was spending too much time with our old-fashioned time and attendance system that could not keep up with the times and to top it off, the support was dismal.” Leggatt, VP of Operations-Owens Health Manufacturing

Benefits and cost savings of ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance include:

Up-To-The-Minute Information
ATS TimeWork provides information for proactive decision-making in real-time. And, with real-time information at your fingertips, workforce decisions shift from reactive to proactive. If overtime is straining the budget, managers can now use up-to-the-second data to access and quickly identify the problem and take immediate steps to fix the situation.

Ease-Of-Use and Flexible
ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance is infinitely scalable — and highly configurable framework to easily manage and monitor workforce productivity and absenteeism. ATS Time and Attendance can be accessed via mobile, PC tablets and has an intuitive and user-friendly platform that encourages accountability and compliance.

Award-Winning
ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance system is built from the ground up and takes advantage of modern cloud computing technology. With our award-winning multi-tenant model, you can run your business operations on a 21st century, scalable and affordable platform that delivers continuous innovation.

Service
ATS delivers 99.9% uptime — in effect exceeding the service levels of our nearest competitor. Our 99.9% up and renewal rate demonstrates that we deliver both the reliability and availability that our customers demand.

Implementation
ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance reduces the cost of installing, maintaining, supporting a Server onsite. Our cloud-based solution will get you and running in a matter of weeks not months, thus, allowing you to focus on business decisions rather than technology. And, as an organization, your total cost of ownership is lower throughout the lifetime your use of ATS TimeWork Cloud-Based Time and Attendance.

So, isn’t it time you said good-bye to your antiquated system and lackluster provider and move to the cloud? With ATS Workforce Management Solution, you get a single, comprehensive platform for business operations. Whether you are  in Toronto, Calgary, New York, Kamloops, Philadephelia or in south and central America, you have access to a powerful cloud computing application that: lower costs, gives you infinite scalability and reliability you can trust.

To download a brochure, see a demonstration, or to request additional information about our cloud-based time and attendance, go to our website. 

Benefits Of Cloud-Computing In The World Of Business

Benefits Of Cloud-Computing In The World Of Business

 

 

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Say Good-Bye To Stone-Age Software And Headaches

March 5th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Overtime | Payroll | Time and Attendance Software | TimeWork | Workforce Management Solutions - (Comments Off on Say Good-Bye To Stone-Age Software And Headaches)

In the mid 1990s, older generation time and attendance software applications served a purpose in many industries, and were popular with mid-sized and large companies. Implementation process involved installing a database on a single computer, usually that of the main user and keeping that PC on all night so, it could poll data from the time clocks. Data integration and on-going application maintenance in such environments was nothing short of a nightmare. Fast forward to the 20th century and, today’s growing enterprises have subsidiaries in many corners of the globe and need a solution that has real-time visibility across key business metrics and, need to optimize business operations.

If your company is one of the few still using an older software you are likely wasting money on a solution that is not meeting your needs and the chances of it improving is like wishing on a a star.

Say Good-Bye To Stone-Age Software And Headaches

The companies that have migrated from an outdated system to ATS time and attendance application enjoy:

Business Intelligence
Real-time business analytics propels ATS TimeWork dashboard and users of the system, have easy access to reports and key performance indicators (KPIs).  On-the-spot time and attendance data is analyzed and displayed from within the system.

Built-in Flexibility
As your business requirements changes, your time and attendance will keep pace. Upi can adopt new modules, and the flexibility of ATS TimeWork lets you do it all, quickly and easily. Updates are built with the data configuration from the start and forms a migration that is seamless and to your specification. Are you ready to move away from your old system yet?

Built-ready for today’s growing companies
Mobile-enabled, cloud-based and loaded with features including; Geofencing, employee scheduling, job costing, benefit accruals and overtime equalization. ATS time and attendance enable growing companies to immediately address the most pressing challenges –attendance, payroll costs and productivity across business metrics that is essential to managing growth in a dynamic business environment.

So, should you keep plugging away with your current time and attendance system, or is it time to explore a new solution? To learn more go to our website, you can also download a demonstration.

Say Good-Bye To Stone-Age Software And Headaches

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Managing Workforce Challenges In An Era Of Frequent Calls For Wage Increases

February 24th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Cloud Time and Attendance | Overtime | Payroll - (Comments Off on Managing Workforce Challenges In An Era Of Frequent Calls For Wage Increases)

When news broke that retail behemoth, Walmart was going to raise the minimum wage of its hourly employees to $9.00 dollars; this dominated the news cycle of the day.  There were some positive and not so positive comments directed at Walmart for its decision. One of the more positive comments came via Twitter from Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo and reads in part, “So happy for Walmart associates and proud of Walmart management. A great leadership decision by Walmart CEO, Doug McMillon.”

This news came on the heels of an earlier report in which the retail giant had promised to allow employees to make their own schedules. The retail and hospitality industry is synonymous with scheduling employees to work back to back shifts and having different days off each week- due, in part, to the fact that it work in based on business demands. And in a consistently tough job market, many workers (some of whom have business degrees) are opting for lower paying jobs rather than being unemployed, in order to pay for basic needs. Walmart, it appears is following in the footsteps of companies, like IKEA,  Gap and Starbucks.

Whether your company is a small, mid-size or a large enterprise, you have to manage payroll costs. And, what better way than to automate the process with a time and attendance system, designed to handle effective workforce scheduling, absence management, human resources and analytics into a single integrated workforce management system that can help your organization be more productive.

On a footnote, we will give the final word to Lydia DePillis, reporter for the Washington Post who wrote an article on the subject, that states in part;

“Finally, Wal-Mart may have realized that making its employees a little more happy is probably a good way to tamp down the labor unrest that’s started flaring up with greater frequency in recent months.”With the increase in a minimum wage, you retain good people,” Florida store manager Claudine McKenzie told me. “The higher people get paid, the more satisfied they are.” If it can do that in an environment in which everybody else has to raise wages too, then there’s no way  Wal-Mart doesn’t come out on top.”

For more information on workforce management, employee scheduling, and time clocks, download a brochure. To have one of our account executives call you go to our website.

Managing Workforce Challenges In An Era Of Frequent Calls For Wage Increases

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Does Your Company Have A Flexible Work Policy?

February 11th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Cloud Based Time Management Solution | Hosted Time and Attendance Solution | Labour Analytics | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Does Your Company Have A Flexible Work Policy?)

In 2013 when a leaked memo surfaced that Yahoo’s CEO, Marissa Mayer had directed one of the company’s HR executive to initiate a ban on the ‘work from home’ policy, the tech world went berserk. Several people within the tech industry are used to the flexible policy of working from home and so, it came as no surprise that the news was met with a heavy dose of resentment and bloggers galore took to social media and posted blogs all venting their disagreement with Yahoo’s policy. Whether your company is for or against the working from home policy this practice is not going away, in fact, it is increasing in numbers by some well established companies.

An article titled Office ‘Hoteling’: ‘Some Companies Offer Reservations, but Some Workers Have Reservations’ by Amy Whyte for workforce.com it states in part;

“Though hoteling has been around for some time — Crain’s Chicago Business reported on IBM’s switch to a desk reservation system in 1994 — the trend has recently picked up steam. “Big Four” accounting firms Deloitte and EY, formerly Ernst & Young, are among companies that have adopted office hoteling in the past year. Instead of assigned desks, companies like American Express Co. are offering employees storage lockers to hold their files and supplies. Rather than being tethered to landlines, employees at GlaxoSmithKline carry laptops equipped with Internet phones.

Even the federal government has gotten in on the trend with the U.S. General Services Administration using hoteling as part of its efforts to reduce federal office space and increase efficiency and collaboration. Charles Hardy, the GSA’s chief workplace officer, said the hoteling model has enabled it to assign 3,400 people to its headquarters, a building that previously only housed 2,200.”

A flexible work policy that includes employees working from home is not for every company. Just imagine an outside sales rep that is required to drive 2 hours or more each day, 5 days a week to sit at a desk and make cold calls to prospective customers. A company may have valid reasons for having this rep drive in to work each day. Perhaps the sales rep is below her quota and, so by closely managing this person, she might yield the desired result. With the advancement of internet phones, a cloud-based customer relationship management software (CRM) for a rep to add his notes and communicating by e-mails his superior and colleagues all day long, why would any company ask a sale rep to drive in each day to make phone calls?

In conclusion, companies who, for various reasons believe employees are better managed in an office will most likely frown upon a flexible work from home policy. In contrast, other companies who do not want to be burdened with bricks and mortar costs and see the value in such a policy will embrace this modern way of working, albeit with employees who do not need to be tethered to a desk. If you happen to work for a company that do not believe in a flexible work from home policy and you decide to approach your superior about it, make sure you have all the facts to back up the reasons why you should work at home. Change takes time.

To learn more about ATS go to our website. You can download product brochures and also register for one of our upcoming webinars.

Does Your Company Have A Flexible Work Policy?

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Maximizing Productivity with ATS TimeWork OnDemand

January 27th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Scheduling | Leave Management | Overtime | Payroll | Retail - (Comments Off on Maximizing Productivity with ATS TimeWork OnDemand)

In today’s highly competitive, global economy there is so much that depends on how your business adapts. Getting more from your operations—and spending less—can make the difference between profits, or a loss. As an ATS customer you have access to a powerful cloud-based application for your enterprise with a unique cloud interface to help you better forecast, schedule, track, deploy and measure your workforce. And, with fast and secure global employee record transaction, within the same system— that means a more productive workforce.

The Power of ATS TimeWork On-Demand is specialized by Industry and includes:

Retail & Hospitality
Harness real-time analytics and insights, based on up-to-the-minute data capture. With ATS Time and Attendance you get the visibility you need to optimize everything across your supply chain.

Manufacturing
Streamline your entire production cycle, through the use of ATS comprehensive workforce management solutions. Deliver quality products on time using job costing capabilities that encompasses the entire manufacturing production line.

Public Sector
ATS combines deep public sector expertise with best-in-class government workforce management software solutions to help transform the business of government. From our own industry-leading TimeWork leave management, geofencing tracking for offsite workers, to KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) solutions— ATS has the skills and experience to help government offices improve efficiency, while modernizing their public sector time and attendance systems. Our implementation approach includes a detailed requirements analysis, configuration, class-room and online training sessions.

Healthcare
ATS Time and Attendance for healthcare supports employee scheduling, best practices, and better resource utilization. The industry-specific solution, delivers a robust set of best-in-class workforce management functionality that enables you to increase productivity, accelerate business performance, and lower your cost of ownership.

Financial Services
Within the financial service sector, ATS Time and Attendance helps; banks, wealth managers and advisory services providers to; take full advantage of the cost containment within ATS TimeWork while mitigating risk and staying compliant work-rule policies including holiday and overtime rules. ATS TimeWork On-Demand helps you control labour costs and increase workforce productivity.

ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance help you better engage customers, monitor labour output, support the implementation of internal controls, control unnecessary payroll costs, streamline operations, and improve financial integrity.

To learn more, register for a live webinar or download product brochures and learn how ATS TimeWork On-Demand can help improve business performance.

Maximizing Productivity with ATS TimeWork OnDemand

 

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All That Glitters

November 19th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Labour Analytics | Leave Management | Payroll | Workforce Analytics | Workforce Management Solutions - (Comments Off on All That Glitters)

Trying to find the right business management solution for your company? Then ignore the dazzling demos with marketing personnel promising the moon. Organizations like yours are looking for ways to win new customers, increase profits, and eliminate inefficiencies. When you hear promises of gold-plated employee time management systems (they do not exist) accompanied by prices that are simply too good to be true- it’s time to start searching for an alternative.

At ATS, we have some of the leading experts in the time and attendance field and a solution that will help your company:

Access the type of labor analytics that your CFO has been asking for a long time. Now, with ATS time and attendance your company can access features for human resources, payroll and operations management. Additionally, the solution has industry capabilities for manufacturers, retailers, service industries, healthcare, and public sector organizations.

Empower employees with ATS Self-Service portal and give them access to request vacation and other time-off requests, view overtime hours and bid of shifts. By allowing managers and employees to access and manage information and transactions in a paperless environment, you can streamline business processes, decrease costs, and improve service to your customers.

ATS Implementation Specialist will build a recommended configuration that is central to our methodology and based on your specific business requirements to help you reach maximum effectiveness.  This holistic approach encompasses; system configuration testing, integration process execution, training and preparation of user-acceptance testing, execution and deployment.

While we do not promise glitter, we will deliver an award-winning product, backed by unwavering, gold-standard service unlike anything you have ever witnessed before.

Let’s start the conversation by phone at 866.294.2467 or, you can view a demonstration online for yourself.

All That Glitters

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Delaying Implementation Can Rob Your Company Of Some Key Benefits

November 5th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Hosted Time and Attendance Software | Payroll | Software-as-a-Service (saas) Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Delaying Implementation Can Rob Your Company Of Some Key Benefits)

Some companies will delay an implementation in the hope that the issues they are experiencing with their legacy system will magically disappear. Sometimes the psychology of change is too difficult to overcome-especially, since it is going to involve retraining users and having to adapt current business practices once the new system is in place. Once your company, have gone through the process of selecting a vendor, it only makes sense to continue go through the next phase of deploying your new system. That being said, we recognize that unforeseen circumstances can occur at any given time that will delay your plan.

If the delay, however, is simply an inability to overcome change, here is range of benefits your company could be missing out on, namely:

Efficiency:  Standardize and automate time collection processes so that your payroll practitioner does not have to chase production supervisors each week to verify employee arrivals and departure.

Real-Time Data:  Report on attendance with up-to-the-minute workforce analysis and gain insights into real-time metrics. Thus, you will streamline processes after analyzing the data to improve your company’s overall efficiencies.

Competitive Advantage:  There is a good chance your competitor is using a time and attendance to streamline payroll costs and in a global economy, it’s not enough to just keep pace- today’s companies need to stay ahead of their competitors. Using paper time cards will not help your business in a competitive landscape, but using of a 21st Century ATS time and attendance system will.

Cloud-Based deployment:  Using ATS TimeWork On-Demand allows you to access your time and attendance, anytime, anywhere. It also removes the burden of managing internal IT infrastructure such as servers and application updates. With the access to real-time accurate data, management can make informed  and on-the-spot decisions.

Business growth: Some of the important benefits of an ATS time and attendance system includes, increase in workforce productivity, decrease in costs associated with manual time entry, increased ability for forecasting and planning, erasing information silos through proper data integration and lower payroll costs.

As the pace of the economy continues to trend upwards, businesses are feeling the burden of inadequate software solutions that is not keeping pace with their evolving needs. And, as a result, these companies will resort to other means of collecting data, namely, manual time collection which can lead to double entry and payroll inaccuracies.

To learn more about ATS time and attendance solution go to our website.

Delaying Implementation Can Rob Your Company Of Some Key Benefits

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HR Professionals, It’s Time To Toss Out The Spreadsheets

November 3rd, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software - (Comments Off on HR Professionals, It’s Time To Toss Out The Spreadsheets)

HR Professionals are busy individuals and if you ask them they would welcome automating many of the manual tasks that they grapple with everyday. Now, just imagine introducing a comprehensive time and attendance system, complete with an HRIS module that merges daily functions and payroll processes, embedded with real-time analytics and benchmarking. Now, you are talking HR language!

ATS TimeWork time tracking solution offers an HRIS solution for both on-premises and cloud-based deployment. ATS TimeWork, best-in-class time and attendance system offers easier processing, with robust business intelligent tools that help companies stay in compliance with North American Federal and provincial laws and plan strategically for their organizations.

ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance software aids in protecting a company’s most valuable asset – its people. Our attendance and HR software module include, but are not limited to:

  • Reports: analytic reports, can be previewed, printed, and exported to various formats, to help you improve your company’s analytic capabilities.
  • Time-Off Requests and Leave Management: A comprehensive set of features provides for all types of time-off such as jury duty, medical leave, paternal/maternity leave, and bereavement
  • Canadian Government Compliance & Reporting Capabilities: Manage essential data for government reporting and reduce compliance risks
  • Benefit Management: track eligibility for employees, dependents, beneficiaries
  • Attendance Management: manage employee time and attendance with ATS TimeWork integrated tracking system

Don’t forget to share this blog with your HR professional and you are sure to get a big smile, especially, if they are using excel spreadsheets to track employee vacation balances and a range of other tasks.

To learn more, contact us for an online demo, or download a brochure to share with your internal management team. You can also join the conversation on our LinkedIn Group.

HR Professionals, It’s Time To Toss Out The Spreadsheets

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Can You Imagine A Job That Offered Unlimited Vacation Days?

September 30th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Leave Management | Payroll - (Comments Off on Can You Imagine A Job That Offered Unlimited Vacation Days?)

When word got out that Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group had decided to grant unlimited vacation time to some of his employees, the blogosphere went nuts. In fact, many questioned Mr. Branson’s logic and perhaps sanity. Running a multi billion dollar corporation is no small feat and it is safe to say, Mr. Branson, probably applied some sober thought to this decision before embarking on it.

His reason behind this decision can be found on his website. We extrapolated some excerpts from his website, which provides a deeper understanding as to how he arrived as such a decision. “Flexible working has revolutionized how, where and when we all do our jobs. So, if working nine to five no longer applies, then why should strict annual leave (vacation) policies? 

In the past few years, Netflix has become the runaway market leader in the streaming video sector. One clue as to how they intend to remain there this time comes from a very well-advised and downright courageous initiative they adopted that rewrote the book – or to be more precise, threw it away – on something very near and dear to the hearts of most workers around the world: their annual vacation day entitlement.”

I first learned of what Netflix was up to when my daughter Holly read a Daily Telegraph article and immediately forwarded the piece to me with a clearly excited email saying, ‘Dad, check this out. It’s something I have been talking about for a while and I believe it would be a very Virgin thing to do to not track people’s holidays.’ She then went on to say, ‘I have a friend whose company has done the same thing and they’ve apparently experienced a marked upward spike in everything – morale, creativity and productivity have all gone through the roof.’ Needless to say I was instantly intrigued and wanted to learn more.”

While it is not possible for many companies to provide unlimited vacation time to their employees there are numerous companies that employ flexible vacation practices. As the saying goes, a well rested employee is a productive employee.

 Can You Imagine A Job That Offered Unlimited Vacation Days?

 

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Workforce Statistics And Job Recovery, What Recovery?

September 9th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Labour Forecasting | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog - (Comments Off on Workforce Statistics And Job Recovery, What Recovery?)

The latest job numbers from both the US and Canada paint a gloomy picture. Some experts contend that the reported numbers show how much catching up the economy has to do after the great recession. So, is there any end in sight to these gloomy numbers? Regarding payroll, in its most recent report the US department of labor states:

“Payroll employment increases in August (+142,000); unemployment rate changes little (6.1%) Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.1 percent. Job gains occurred in professional and business services and in health care.”

And on productivity, it states in part, “Productivity increased 2.3 percent in the nonfarm business sector in the second quarter of 2014; unit labor costs decreased 0.1 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity increased 3.3 percent and unit labor costs decreased 1.6 percent.”

Are these the type of numbers we can expect to see in the upcoming months or is this just an anomaly? Some experts suggest that the job reports are inaccurate, and that statisticians, are not using the right forecasting tools hence, the numbers do not equate to the true unemployment figures.

One thing’s for sure with employment at an all time high for recent graduates and many older workers, let’s all hope we do not slip back into a recession anytime soon.

 

Workforce Statistics And Job Recovery, What Recovery?

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