Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software

Do You know How To Reduce Your Company’s Overtime Risks?

A recent report citing some of the biggest culprits of either avoiding paying overtime or simply not paying it at all to employees have created a heated debate between those for or against the proposed legislation. Overtime has always been a hot button issue for some companies in part, because they either use archaic methods or simply do have the proper tools to track this work rule policy. In Canada, there are a few class action lawsuits that have made national headlines.

Automating and tracking of overtime is perhaps one of the easiest things to do with a time and attendance solution. By automating your data gathering, you reduce the amount of time that is being spent by HR or payroll personnel and also reduce your compliance risk.

Benefits to Automating Your Company’s Overtime Rules:

Efficient Task Completion- Whether your company has with 50 or 10,000 employees, ATS TimeWork On-Demand streamlines employee time capture. ATS TimeWork On-Demand delivers an immediate return on investment while building rich data for the forecast engine. The solution matches your company’s work-rule policies and tracks attendance and total hours worked. Workforce analytics helps managers see data in real-time. You can establish routine jobs and tasks that fall outside of the normal schedule such as call-ins, plant shut-downs and seasonal changes.

Analytic Reporting at Your Fingertips– Get up-to-the-minute results and assess attendance trends From key performance indicators (KPI’s), to defined thresholds and compliance tracking to daily, weekly and business forecasting trends, you will have the critical information as soon as it’s available. Then drill down based on exceptions to better manage the plan and make informed decisions.

Real Results, In Real-Time- ATS customers have seen measurable results in as early as three months. Thousands of companies rely on ATS TimeWork On-Demand to track employee time, reduced overtime and increase productivity. By deploying ATS TimeWork On-Demand, companies can utilize other benefits of the system that helps managers to; match schedules to budgets, track lateness and absent employees for legal and disciplinary reasons and following which departments eat up the most overtime.

To learn more or to take a test drive, go to our website. You can also contact us at 1.866.294.2467.

Key Performance Indicators, Overtime, TimeWork On-Demand

Webinar| How a Cloud-Based Time and Attendance can Drive Business Growth

Topic: How a Cloud-Based Time and Attendance can Drive Business Growth
Date: Friday, March 21, 2014
Time: 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (10:00a.m.-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time)

Getting an accurate view of the business is often a challenge for growing businesses. Data is often fragmented across multiple systems and spreadsheets are time-consuming, error-prone and hard to maintain. ATS TimeWork time and attendance, gives manufacturers the power of real-time reporting and analysis—integrated right into Payroll, ERP and HR applications that managers use every day—to drive true operational insights.

In this live product demo, you will learn how to ATS TimeWork manages the complexities of job tracking, providing anytime anywhere visibility into all aspects of the business.

You will learn how to:

Obtain real-time reporting analytics
Track employee time against jobs
Power of an automated workforce management software vs spreadsheets

Who Should Participate
Plant Managers, VPs of Finance, Financial Controllers, HR and Payroll Managers

To register, go to our website.

Cloud Based Time and Attendance, ERP, Job Tracking, Payroll, Workforce Management Software

Break Down the Silos with a Time and Attendance System

During a customer’s site visit to understand their business requirements, it’s not uncommon for ATS business analyst, to experience cultural and/or data accessibility silos. In fact, it is almost expected but the most gratifying of all, is how these barriers are broken after the implementation of ATS TimeWork On-Demand Time and Attendance Solution.

More often than not, silos are created when different departments and/or locations use different business management software, standards and technology for inputting and analyzing employee time and attendance data. The HR and payroll departments may be using the full capabilities of a workforce management solution, while the production department is pulling data from Excel and never reconciling the two. This type of inconsistency creates silos of non-standardized data that companies cannot rely on to make sound business decisions.

The implementing of a robust employee time management solution that’s used by all locations and departments increases the reliability of business data and also helps to break down departmental silos. By using an automated employee time clock solution companies can start sharing workforce data and other data analytics across departments and locations.

Following are three workforce productivity improvements you will notice upon implementation of an ATS time and attendance solution:

Eliminate IT cost and complexity with ATS TimeWork On-Demand proven, cloud solution that eliminates the cost of managing, maintaining, and upgrading business applications.
Improve business efficiency by eliminating redundant data entry and the time, cost and errors associated with using separate systems for production, payroll, warehousing, and finance.
Gain a comprehensive real-time view across the company with flexible, on-demand reporting.

When the right amount of business process organizational changes are initiated, ATS workforce management software can increase collaboration within your organization, and dissolve silos caused by communication breakdowns.

Find out how today’s company’s are using ATS TimeWork On-Demand cost-effective solution to gain competitive advantage and grow their business.

Employee Time Management, Excel, HR, Payroll, TimeWork On-Demand

Evaluating a new time and attendance solution? Try to avoid these common mistakes

At ATS, we have worked with numerous companies in industries that include: retail, hospitality, manufacturing & distribution, healthcare, construction and government. Based on our experience, when deploying a new time and attendance system, its best to forget the constant references of “how the old system worked” and focus on how the new solution can meet your current business requirements. Naturally, it is expected there will be a couple of reports or features that worked well in the old system. However, one of the reasons for evaluating a new solution is because the old one could not meet all your needs.

In no particular order, here is a list of some common mistakes to avoid when searching for a new time and attendance software:

“I want a new system that works like our current one”
Sometimes this just means it’s hard to accept the change. Some people get comfortable with their current system works (warts and all) and can be unwilling to learn a new system.

“I do not know what I want but will when I see it”
Not knowing what you want and just going about inviting vendors to give software demonstrations can create challenges. We suggest companies prepare a list of their business requirements including some “must haves” and/or “showstoppers” if applicable. This list should also include realistic goals, i.e implementation timeline, training etc. This will make the selection a bit easier.

The beauty contest
It’s very easy to get bamboozled by bells and whistles. Try to look beyond the glitz and choose a solution that is robust its calculation of your company’s pay and work rules. Ten different software demonstrations can get confusing and at a certain point, they all start to look the same. Try to keep it to a minimum of three vendors and a maximum of five.

“Here is how we do it in our current system”
This represents the importance of creating a list of requirements. While you may not find all the features of the old system in your new time and attendance, certain things like specific reports can be created if known in advance.

“We want the best price”
While we are not suggesting you “mortgage the farm” to obtain a functional system, purchasing a time and attendance solely based on price is a sign that your company’s requirements could be taking a back seat. In fact, if the solution can meet you organizational requirements, then the next steps should be ensuring the price is within your budgetary expectations.

To download a complete guide on “how to choose a time and attendance solution” go to our website. To join our group discussion, go to our LinkedIn and Twitter page.

Evaluating a new time and attendance solution? Try to avoid these common mistakes

Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Software, Time and Attendance Solution

‘Tis The Season To Automate Holiday Pay and Hours of Work

If you are in the food manufacturing, retail or hospitality industry, chances are, it’s the busiest time of the year for your company. And with the busy holiday season many employees are asked to work extended shifts, extra weekends and overtime. This can be a win-win both employee and employer. However, trying to remember which employee exchanged shifts or how much overtime pay employees have accumulated is sufficient to drive any business executive bonkers.

Here are 5 ways ATS TimeWork On-Demand can help your company automate holiday pay:

Workforce Management Software-ATS TimeWork On-Demand is a leading time and attendance solution that helps companies reduce payroll costs, automate overtime and premium pay, minimize compliance risks and increase workforce productivity.

TimeWork Absence Management- ATS absence management allows you to manage time-off requests and absence policies through employee self-service automation. Companies can improve the time tracking and reporting of time-off requests, view balances, accrued overtime, employees schedules and accruals in real-time with seamless unification to ATS TimeWork On-Demand.

ATS Human Resources Management- helps you manage employee information including: training & skills inventory, benefits information, performance administration, occupational health and safety. ATS HR management is designed to help you organize and maintain your workforce.

Workforce Analytics-ATS TimeWork analytics empowers companies to make more informed decisions on critical business issues. ATS forecasting and budgeting module contains predictive models to help companies understand business trends.

Data Integration- ATS TimeWork is a proven integrated platform, designed for building integrations to and from our time and attendance software solution. All integrations are deployed and managed in the ATS cloud based solution.

To learn more, go to our website or call 866.294.2467.

Employee Scheduling, Employee Self Service, Hosted Time and Attendance Software, Human Resources Information Systems, Overtime

Workforce Management Software Implementation Best Practices

The implementation of a workforce management solution should be given serious consideration, once you understand how it will solve your business challenges. Things that should be considered ahead of the implementation include: Your company’s’ project leader, ROI and realistic timelines. In our experience, the one area that is overlooked is the expected completion date. A rule of thumb is to always add an additional week or two to the expected ‘Go-Live Date.’ While both vendor and customer have good intentions, we all know implementations do not go as planned. Now, if your implementation is delayed by 3-6 months that’s entirely different story altogether.

Deployment of a workforce management solution is a major undertaking, but the process doesn’t have to be painful. If planned and executed properly, your workforce management system should be a smooth process and you should start seeing improved efficiency across your business in short order. Here are some time and attendance best practices to consider when selecting and deploying a solution.

Select The Best Workforce Management Solution For Your Business

Time and Attendance solutions encompass a variety of functions but no two applications are the same, despite what you might hear to the contrary. Technology is moving at a rapid pace so choose a solution this is both current and scalable.

Some companies choose to build their own software solution with the aid of in-house IT personnel. The cost and complexity of taking on such a huge project can tie up IT resources for months and sometimes years.

The other alternative is ATS TimeWork On-Demand. ATS time and attendance hosted by ATS. This means you don’t have to make expensive upfront investments in IT hardware and servers, or allocate personnel to managing it. Cloud-based implementations are much faster and easier to deploy than on-site deployments. The maintenance is also much easier since the provider is responsible for keeping the technology up to date. With cloud technology, product enhancements are painless—customizations and integrations automatically update with system upgrades—so you can always be assured that your business is running with the most advanced capability.

To download a demonstration, go to our website. You can also contact by phone at 1.866.294.2467

Cloud-Based Solution, Implementations, Time and Attendance, TimeWork On-Demand, Workforce Management Solution

Generation Y and Today’s Workforce

October 30th, 2013 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Telecommuting Employees | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | TimeWork - (0 Comments)

A great deal has been said about Gen Y and how they are shifting the working landscape. Among other things, some have said they expect the big salaries but, do not want to do the work that goes along with these salaries. You only have to type in work + millennials in any web browser and you will find a plethora of sites with wide ranging perceptions about this group. In actuality, what this group of workers has done in the last several years is challenge the status quo especially in the corporate world. For example, many in the Gen Y group:

Do not purport to the daily grind of being stuck in traffic 2-4 hours each day for a 9-5 job. They believe if telecommuting can be substituted for 2 out of the 5 work days, it can increase productivity.
Are ambitious and like to be recognized as such, despite views to the contrary. Some of them are so fed up with how difficult it is to find a job after graduation that they are becoming entrepreneurs at a record pace.
Are adopters of the digital age and believe manual tasks can be completed easily and quickly through automation.
Likes to work in environments that are fun, offer perks over pay and will not bow to the pressures of having to “kiss up” to get a promotion.
Thinks that “working 60-70 hours each week and going to sleep with a smart phone beside you in the event, your boss calls is insanity.” These are the words of a Gen Y worker who said she witnessed this at a large firm and felt peer pressure to do the same.

The article “What Millennials Hate And Love Most About Their Jobs” sums up what most Gen Y think about today’s workplace. In every generation, there are good and bad apples. Generation Y is the future and should be celebrated as such. The ones that refuse to work and want to live in their parents basements until they are 40 or older are in the minority.

To learn more about ATS go to our website. You can also follow us on Twitter or join our LinkedIn business group.

Automation, Millennials, Telecommuting

Is Absenteeism Making a Dent in Your Company’s Profits?

A recent article by the Conference Board of Canada on the cost of absenteeism to companies, reads in part, “The average Canadian worker was absent the equivalent of almost two full work weeks in 2011.” The article also goes on to say that “the direct annual cost of absenteeism is based on survey data provided by organizations to the Conference Board. Organizations estimated that the direct cost of absenteeism averaged 2.4 per cent of gross annual payroll – which translated to a loss of $16.6 billion in 2012.”

These numbers are staggering and beg the question, if absenteeism is such a problem in the workforce, why do some companies choose not to embrace advantages of a time and attendance system? The answer may lie not fully understanding its benefits.

Here are 5 ways your company can derive the benefits of an ATS time management solution:

Streamline Manual Time Tracking Processes and Increase Productivity
ATS workforce management software integrates all your payroll calculations and business processes within a single integrated database system. The application simplifies overtime, vacation tracking and other pay codes. All users share a common reference system and application interface, reducing the learning curve and enabling users to easily switch roles or take over functions without additional training. Once data in entered into the ATS time and attendance system, produces real time data analytics wherever it is needed throughout your company. With ATS time and attendance solution, your company will achieve a consistent flow of information from data capture, payroll and human resources to business intelligence, employee scheduling and benefit accruals.

Activate Modules as you Expand
ATS TimeWork time and attendance evolves with your enterprise. Easily activate new functions when you need them, connect additional users to the system or quickly bring new sites on board without the need for custom interfaces. Keep your system constantly up to date with simple, secure update procedures; ATS time attendance ensures the distribution of modifications across all connected workstations.

Eliminate Costly Server Installations
ATS hosted time and attendance minimizes both costs and installation time eradicating the need to install software on servers or workstations. Avoid the cost of a large in-house IT team; the robust, intuitive design of ATS TimeWork ensures consistent, reliable day-to-day operations.

Combine Best-Of-Breed Functionality and Low Cost of Ownership
Provide your company with the best functionality in your industry while dramatically reducing your time tracking costs. Mid-size companies face the same issues as larger enterprises in managing complex, industry-specific processes and servicing their customers. ATS time and attendance provides comprehensive, integrated workforce management system without the need for costly custom developments and months of professional services. Industry-specific and scalable, ATS TimeWork is the best employee time management application aimed to meet your most elaborate business processes, while minimizing any associated costs of installing, operating, maintaining and growing the system.

Business Analytics for Informed Decision Making
Get the most value from your ATS time management solution with the least amount of effort. ATS TimeWork business analytics provides regular updates to relevant information to give you real-time visibility across your organization. The ATS TimeWork business analytics is a powerful, easy-to-use business tool that drives smarter decisions in every departmental area of your organization.

To learn how your company can track absenteeism and increase productivity download a whitepaper or an online demo.

Is Absenteeism Making a Dent in your Company's Productivity?

Absenteeism, Conference Board Of Canada, Payroll, Time and Attendance Solution, Time Management Solution

Why is Workforce Management Software Implementation so Critical?

Sometimes the answer lies in the structure of organizations. The software project starts out being well scoped for contingency with well laid plans for its completion. However, the process of getting these projects signed off by decision makers, gets derailed due to competing resources. By the time an agreement has been reached, a set of unrealistic expectations have been set all around by third parties and other stakeholders. At this point the combination of unrealistic expectations and insufficient resources to complete the project means that failure is all but inevitable.

When properly implemented, a workforce management solution can help to alleviate many problems that plague businesses. A properly implemented workforce management solution pulls data from different sources, facilitates better decision making and communication between departmental managers.

Some of the most common reasons given for failure of a workforce management software implementation includes: An insufficient scope of the project, unrealistic budget expectations and poor planning. The poor project planning at the outset leads directly to a lack of realism when budgets and timescales are being discussed.

ATS Implementation Methodology provides a framework that helps you keep your business software current in a coherent way. Under the direction of our implementation experts and project managers, our proven methodology enables you to implement your new ATS TimeWork time and attendance solution quickly- and achieve measurable success. We make every project phase fully transparent and provide complete cost and schedule control. ATS unique methodology ensures you a worry free experience.

The ATS Implementation Methodology is based on years of experience in refining and improving the phases and procedures which constitute implementation best practices, and Project Management standards. In addition to pre-implementation and post-implementation procedures, it consists of five phases that are repeatable from customer to customer: initiate, design, build, deploy, and closure. ATS professional implementation personnel guide the entire process-from project kick-off, to creating a solution concept, to building the actual components, to production cut-over and go-live, and finally to formal handover of the solution. As a result, every implementation is completed on time and on budget.

To learn more, go to our website. You can also follow us through GooglePlus, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Implementation Methodology, Time and Attendance Solution, Workforce Management Software

ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance FAQs

Many of ATS customers don’t have time to browse through the “How To” section of ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance. We thought creating this online forum would help. Of course, getting in touch with the ATS support team can be done rather quickly through a phone call, contacting a local rep in your area or submitting a request to our support department.

Here are answers to some of the most frequent queries about TimeWork Employee Management Dashboard Section:
Employee Management-The Employee Dashboard is where you will add, edit, delete, and maintain all pertinent data and information on your company’s employees. We suggest filling in as much information as possible on your employees. By doing this it will give you comprehensive reporting and tracking of employee hours and other related information. For example, The Employee Dashboard is set up with several sub-sections; Time & Attendance Profile, Employee Pay Rate, Timeclock, Human Resources Personal Information, Human Resources Profile, User Fields and Contact Information. Each of these sub-sections in the Edit Employee window can be accessed one at a time by clicking your mouse on the associated “tab.”

Employee Report-The Employee Report option is used to generate a report of employees entered in the ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance software. All information of each employee is listed. There are several items that you can enter to control what order and which employees are displayed. There is also a summary option which will print the report in a revised format.

Import Setup-This screen allows you to configure the importing of employees. Options available include such things as default field mappings, and default parameters to use on required data.

Import File Format Include:

Fixed ASCII- Each employee is on a separate line. Individual fields (Employee ID, last name, first name) are defined to start and end at specific columns.
Comma Delimited- Each employee is on a separate line. Individual fields are separated by a comma

Import Layout Report-This report is used to document the format that would be expected of the employee import file. Generally this report is used when you want to create an employee import file from another application. The output of this report will be affected by the configuration specified in the Import Setup screen.

Import Employee-This screen allows you to select a file containing employee information to be imported and perform the import. Additionally, you can perform a test to see if the import will be successful by selecting the “Validate Import File” option. The results of the import operation can be viewed in the Import Result Report.

Import Result Report-This report outlines the results of the importing of employees from an external import file. It will display information regarding the success or failure to import employee information, as well as what was updated.

In the upcoming questions and answers we will cover; Timecard Management, Labour Analytics, Payroll Management, Employee Scheduling and Data Collection.

To learn why leading companies choose ATS Time and Attendance solution go to our website. You can also join the conversation on our Workforce Management Group discussions through LinkedIn.

Employee Payrate, Employee Scheduling, Human Resources, Labour Analytics, Payroll Management

Do You know How To Reduce Your Company’s Overtime Risks?

Break Down the Silos with a Time and Attendance System

Evaluating a new time and attendance solution? Try to avoid these common mistakes

‘Tis The Season To Automate Holiday Pay and Hours of Work

Generation Y and Today’s Workforce

Is Absenteeism Making a Dent in Your Company’s Profits?

Why is Workforce Management Software Implementation so Critical?

ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance FAQs

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