Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software

How to Remain Compliant and Manage Pay During a Pandemic

Since the early days of COVID-19 pandemic several industries like grocery and retail jobs were deemed essential services while some others were furloughed or moved online. As some businesses slowly reopen it can be nerve-racking to head back into the office, while a global pandemic is still looming over everyone’s head.

Here are some useful tips, companies can take to help their employees adjust to the new conditions, and also ease their fears, as they slowly reopen:

Temperature Check Time Clocks
Some of ATS customers have migrated to a contactless and temperature check biometric time clocks. These data collectors offer an automatic, touch-free tool for accurate employee temperature screening. And, with real-time results, Payroll and HR leaders can create a policy for failed temperature checks to ensure a safe environment and a consistent experience for all employees at the point of entry to the workspace.

Pandemic Pay/Shift Differential
The high volume of shutdowns caused by the global corona virus pandemic has triggered organizations to consider salary continuance options to help employees through this difficult time and to retain their talent. While some industries, like grocery, healthcare and retail chains have eliminated pandemic pay, others have added shift differential to bolster employees pay. Whichever option you choose, ATSTimeWorkOnDemand will ease the burden for HR by seamlessly applying these pay codes through our software configuration.

Working from Home and Managing Childcare
The shut down of schools in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, had many parents working from home with their children-managing professional priorities, while helping their kids with school work. Some of ATS customers have made use of online timesheets and project tracking solutions for these remote workers.

Leave Management
While some parents are able to stay home with their kids, others are not so fortunate, and without access to childcare, like some of their colleagues, will likely find themselves in a stressful situation. HR can encourage these parents to request time-off by making use of existing vacation time they have accrued. This simple act, could alleviate some of the stress, these employees are trying to manage. And, don’t forget the employees who do not have children, they could also benefit from taking time-off, to deal with the stress of COVID-19.

ATS Workforce Planning
With COVID-19 showing no signs of abating, companies can make use of ATS Workforce Planning for employees who want some flexible options as they manage work and at life at home. ATS Workforce Planning gives managers a real-time schedule that changes with the organization’s needs. With ATS Workforce Planning managers gain immediate insight into how many staff members to schedule at any given time and optimizes planning breaks, setting vacations, adding time for training and addressing unplanned absences.

Bottomline; maintaining compliance, keeping track of employment agreements, and internal policies during these trying times can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. ATSTimeWorkOnDemand HCM suite is a comprehensive workforce management application with a— future-ready platform that addresses the unique requirements of a company. In short, we have got your covered.

To learn more, you can download a demonstration of our product or to reach us by phone, call: 866.294.2467.

ATS Workforce Planning, ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, Covid-19, Grocery, HCM, Healthcare, Leave Management, Pandemic Pay, Payroll, Retail, Shift Differential

Tracking Leave Management During A Pandemic

During this ever-evolving challenging time, organizations should be prepared for additional leave requests from their employees. Federal, provincial and local governments, are quickly amending or passing laws in response to COVID-19 outbreak, to protect workers who need time off. And, as this pandemic drags on, with no end in sight, organizations can expect, from workers —additional stress, feelings of fear and uncertainty.

If you are using paper and pen to track your employee time-off requests, during this pandemic, there is a better way.

With ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, employees and supervisors can:

Employee Self-Service Portal

Employees can request time-off, view hours worked for the week or period.
Find out if their request for time-off was granted or denied by their supervisors
Key in their start and end time from any computer or mobile device

Supervisor Portal

HR, supervisors and operational managers can review time-off requests in real-time and respond accordingly.
Supervisors can enter time-off for themselves directly, without an approval process. However, if you want supervisors to submit their time-off, for approval, to the managers they report to, you can simply change their access rights.

Notifications

Supervisors, managers and super-users can push notifications from the dashboard to their mobile device. They can also select their preferred notification from their ATSTimeWorkOnDemand Dashboard.

Vacation and leave management Balances

Leave management balance are hours from existing edit time card that have been deducted.
Future benefit accruals have notbeen added.
Time-off hours in the edit time card that have not been deducted.

Available Benefit Accrual Balance

Time-off hours accrued between now and when the time-off occurs have been added.
All future time-off hours that have been deducted.
Any hours from existing time-off dashboard that have been deducted.

ATSTimeWorkOnDemand Payroll Ready

With ATSTimeWorkOnDemandHR ESS, you can integrate, automate, and streamline your entire payroll process while providing in-depth reporting options and ensuring accuracy.
Integrated payroll engine interface that simplifies your entire payroll process while providing in-depth reporting options.
Access and make amendments to compensation and Benefit Accruals

Companies that implement ATSTimeWorkOnDemandHR will be positioned to maximize efficiency and cost savings by —streamlining processes and freeing up the HR department from manually tracking and managing employee requests. The Employee Self-Service features of an ATSTimeWorkOnDemandHR can positively impact employee engagement by actively involving them in their own vacation planning, overtime requests and benefits decisions.

To learn more about ATS you can register for our next webinar Embracing The Future of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning. To download a demo of our time and attendance app or reach us by phone call; 866.294.2467.

You can also read:

Time and Attendance to Manage Your Remote Workforce

Here are a few Contactless Punching Options for your Organization

How To Maintain Employee Engagement During COVID-19

ATSTimeWorkOnDemand, Benefit Accruals, Covid-19, Employee Self-Service, HR, Leave Management, Payroll

5 Benefits of Employee Self-Service

Every executive knows that talent is a company’s most important asset. And, managing that talent effectively can help improve company performance. Giving employees more autonomy around benefits, time-off requests, and other essential employment information can help accomplish this goal. When you offer a broad range of HR self-service options, your employees are more likely to develop a sense of ownership, and your HR department can stay focus on more strategic issues, rather than manual administrative details.

Want to eliminate your company’s use of paper for requesting time-off? Here are 5 benefits of employee self-service with ATS TimeWorkOnDemand:

Reduce administrative time and ease compliance: Rapidly request, review, and approve time off, shifting your time from administrative tasks to more productive ones. Time-Off requests are checked against company policies in real time to enforce rules like minimum balances or black-out periods.
Empower people: Employees can manage their absence requests any time, anywhere, using a computer, tablet, or mobile device.
Accurate, consistent leave management: Accurate and consistent leave of absence management minimizes the risk of employee grievances. Automated electronic administration of leave eligibility and requirements ensures cases are managed accurately, consistently, and thoroughly — every time.
Time and attendance: Employees can update their own availability, request time off, view schedules, clock in and out, and trade shifts – letting them better manage their work-life balance.
Automatic updates: Any update made to an employee’s HR record seamlessly flows across the application in real-time. There is no need for any duplicate data entry.

ATS TimeWorkOnDemand employee self-service automates the administration and tracking of paid and unpaid federal, provincial, and employer-specific leave policies and can be configured to match the needs of your organization to maintain balances, reduce manual process errors, and control absence costs. And, by removing manual tasks from the traditional leave management process, ATS employee self-service ensures accurate data and full visibility, is enabled when tracking and managing employee leave.

To download a demonstration, or to register for one of our bi-monthly webinars go to our website. And, to reach an account executive by phone, call; 866.294.2467.

ATS TimeWorkOnDemand, Employee Self Service, HR, Leave Management

Want Happy And Productive Employees? Avoid These Mistakes

Some companies extolled the virtues of their corporate philosophy in print and through the recruitment stages as an organization that cherish talent. It’s one thing to brag about how wonderful you are as a company, but it’s something entirely different if those things you talked about during the interview process, to lure good talent, do not materialize, once these candidates, become employees of your organization.

In writing for The HR Digest, Diana Coker dispenses some advice that you should heed in an article titled Dumb HR Policies That Demotivate Employees. Here are some of the things to avoid:

Merging Sick Leave and Vacation
This is one of the stupid rules most offices are still upholding till date, despite deep sensitization on this policy. Forcing your employees to take their vacations because they are sick is the dumbest thing any manager would do. As a manager, would you personally like to have your precious vacation because you are sick? The answer is NO if you want to be sincere. We all plan our vacations and deserve the best moment from it. Offices that merge sick leave and vacation will not only demotivate but encourage their employees to come to work sick, which means low productivity as well as exposing the healthy workers to the sickness if it’s contagious. At the tail end, the sickness goes round to everyone susceptible to it – going round to individuals that would still bring them to the office for more decrease in productivity. If an employee is sick and cannot go home because it would take away his or her vacation, they’ll force themselves to work demotivated.

Banning Social Media
Recognizing social media as a channel for pleasures and distraction is already offensive and deprives your employees of a social life. Freedom to social media like Facebook or LinkedIn can help your employees to gain access to information that would help improve their performances. You can put it that banning social media limits your employee. Even if the employees are not being very professional as you want, getting their job done should be a criterion. Some employees go worst by banning internet use, that’s completely outrageous and a fight to force down productivity. Instead, keep your employee’s attention focused but don’t take away the trust.

Crushing self-expression
I still can’t believe that some offices still keep up with this policy. Can employees not display personal belongings on their desk? That’s one of the dumb HR policies that shouldn’t have made it to the 20th century. It’s true that work environments deserve some level of sanity, but at the same time, people deserve to be who they are. This policy creates anxiety at work; it increases stress and renders break times invalid. Allow your employees to create a homey atmosphere. That helps them to be happier at work which improves productivity.

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Facebook, HR, Leave Management, LinkedIn, Productivity

Want To Remain Nimble And Increase Profits? Cloud Is The Way To Go

Every company wants to maintain its competitive edge by making sure its payroll costs is not too high while always looking for ways to increase its profits. Sometimes, that’s easier said than done. For example, a drastic cut to a company’s workforce or outsourcing of a department, might lead to decrease customer satisfaction and low employee morale. In other words, while it’s not impossible to achieve both objectives, it is sometimes easier on paper than in reality.

If your company is using a cloud-based business management software, the possibilities are endless. Today’s workforce is different from yesteryear and successful companies regardless of size or industry, know only too well, that in order to keep their position at the top they must find ways to improve productivity and streamline payroll costs. And, with the right cloud-based time and attendance solution, companies can do a whole lot more.

Want To Remain Nimble And Increase Profits? Cloud Is The Way To Go

Here are 3 ways companies can remain nimble and increase productivity and profits:

24/7 365 Days A Year-Availability:
In today’s every increasing competitive business landscape, not having access to data whenever you need it, equals lost decreased productivity and profits. The right cloud computing application is available no matter where your finance, payroll and HR managers are. As long as their device is connected to the Internet, they can gain access to data in real-time, respond to employee vacation and other leave management requests.

Adhere to compliance needs:
Changes in compliance and other workforce regulations continues to shift and companies need to ensure they are using a software application that is update all the time and meet the complexity of these changes as they occur. In a world of Big Data, cloud computing, using an application like ATS TimeWork OnDemand you get immediate compliance updates that’s pushed out automatically to the entire organization- as soon as they’re available. In short, this simplifies the process of keeping your time and attendance solution up-to-date and it also ensures that all users has access to the most current information and tools to do their jobs effectively.

The Cloud Propels Productivity:
When IT resources are focused on maintaining and fixing old Servers with existing antiquated solutions, they are essentially always playing defense. By deploying ATS cloud-based time and attendance your IT resource can focus on spending their time on other important initiatives.

In closing, when compared to on-premise solutions, cloud computing applications like ATS TimeWork OnDemand will help to grow your business profitably, and will provide your compare with more reliable information all in -real-time, drive faster decision-making, and thus, enabling you to quickly meet changing market demands to stay ahead of all your competitors.

To learn about ATS TimeWork OnDemand, go to our website. You can also register for a bi-weekly webinar or download a demonstration.

ATS TimeWork OnDemand, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Employee Vacation Request, HR, Leave Management, Payroll, Productivity

A Leap Of Faith Can Help Your Business Leverage The Benefits Of The Cloud

Change is often difficult for some organizations, in part, because fear of the unknown is at the heart of the decision making process of some businesses. By now, cloud software solutions should be no stranger businesses especially, when you consider how ubiquitous it has become. Yet, despite that, a small percentage of businesses still stick to their pen, paper and desktop software.

A Leap Of Faith Can Help Your Business Leverage The Benefits Of The Cloud

Here are some of the things you can look forward to, if you decide to take the leap, and embrace a cloud computing technology.

Say good-bye to that filing cabinet
Storing employee reports in a filing cabinet? Just think about the amount of time, your payroll practitioner spends manually editing employee hours, chasing down department managers to confirm employees’ time- and then having to store that information in filing cabinet for future reference. Why bother? The cloud gives you the power to get up-to-the-minute reports all of which can be accessed, anytime, anywhere, 365 days a year.

Employee time-off requests
The days of employees walking to the HR office to submit a vacation request is quickly becoming a thing of the past and with good reason. With the surge of cloud computing apps that employees can access through their mobile device or workstations, requesting a day off makes the cloud an attractive proposition.

Vacation pay, overtime and accrual benefits
Spreadsheets can be a good tool for other tasks, but using it to track vacation, over time and accruals? With a cloud time and attendance, there is no need for spreadsheets. An ATS Time and Attendance Leave Management module automates the enforcement and tracking of provincial, federal, state, and employer-specific leave polices and requirements for a variety of qualified leave types, including family medical leave, and other related absences and provide notifications for managers and employees provide real-time updates on eligibility and case activities.

It should be noted, that resistance to change is inherent in all of us, even the ones who claim to be agents of change. If you are interested in learning how you can take a leap of faith and leverage the benefits of the cloud, you can register for one of our webinars, download a demonstration or contact ATS at 866.294.2467.

A Leap Of Faith Can Help Your Business Leverage The Benefits Of The Cloud

HR, Leave Management, Overtime, Payroll, Time and Attendance

Canadian Federal Government Is Contemplating New Leave Management Policy

The Canadian federal government recently mused about the possibility of updating parental leave, specifically for new dads. It made news and, for those who love and hate the idea both came out in full force and articulated their respective arguments through a variety of social media platforms. Whether you are or against it, one thing is clear, time is changing. This would perhaps be unheard of some 30 or 50 years ago. In actuality, there is nothing new about such a leave, because in the province of Quebec, new dads can take up five weeks leave while the province covers 70% of their salary.

The role of fatherhood has changed dramatically in the last several years. Josh levs a journalist for CNN wrote a book titled “All In” after he approached his employer to request time-off for the birth of his new baby. During an interview with Brigid Schulte of The Washington Post, he revealed, in part, “I’d been covering parenting issues for CNN, and then all of a sudden I was in the news. I was doing stories and columns on fatherhood, then my wife was about to have our daughter. My employer, Time Warner, had an extremely unusual policy: anyone could get 10 weeks of paid leave to take care of a new child – except the man who’d impregnated the mother of his child. Me. The biological father.”

Canadian Federal Government Is Contemplating New Leave Management Policy

So, will this type of leave management affect Canadian businesses? All indications are this is in the infancy stage. However, if you are one of those businesses who currently track employee vacation, and other time-off requests through a series of spreadsheets, it’s not too late to make the switch to an automated time and attendance system that will automatically track your company’s leave management.

ATS Time and Attendance Leave Management System automates employee time-off request. With ATS Leave Management System employers can accurately enforce leave management policies, and approvals based on an organization’s unique business processes.

To learn more about ATS Time and Attendance Leave Management System, go to our website to download a demonstration or a brochure. To reach an account executive by phone, call 866.294.2467.

Canadian Government, CNN, Leave Management, Quebec, The Washington Post, Time and Attendance, Time Warner

How’s That Spreadsheet Working Out For You?

Over the last several years, the issue of overtime has become, somewhat of an albatross for some companies but, in reality it does not have to be. When you consider how easy it is to automate employee attendance. And, with the advancement of cloud computing it has now become inexpensive and faster to deploy a time and attendance solution that will accurately track overtime hours. So, why do some companies consistently rely on paper time sheets when they can save costs by using an attendance system?

A recent article written by Eric B. Meyer for Eremedia says that although, the new overtime rules by the department of labor may not be enacted until the end of 2016, there are some steps that companies can take ahead of this law. They include:

 “Ensure that non-exempt employees receive minimum wage and overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a work week.
 Double check employee classifications to confirm that exempt employees truly are exempt (and vice-versa).
 Do you have independent contractors? Or are they employees whom you’ve simply labeled independent contractors? Now, may be a good time to vet that.”

Tracking employee overtime through the use of spreadsheets is a time-consuming process, but don’t fret, there is a better way. ATS TimeWork OnDemand is a cloud driven time and attendance application that delivers, on-the-spot predictive analytics, of employee attendance at your fingertips. And with ATS TimeWork OnDemand, you get:

Benefit Accruals-Choose to accrue employee hours daily, weekly, or bi-weekly—or even monthly—and based on time passed or employee’s time logged.

Alerts-You can get automatic alerts sent to your mobile device so you know when an employee punch in or out and warnings about employees that are approaching overtime so you can take necessary action.

Leave Management-Your employees can now request any time-off from their mobile device or any workstation with Internet connection.

We’ve only scratched the surface of the many things that ATS time and attendance can do. If you are interested in learning more, register for an interactive webinar, ‘Controlling Overtime Pay through Automation’ on Friday, November 27th at 1:00pm eastern.

To download brochures, go to our website or call (866) 294-2467.

How’s That Spreadsheet Working Out For You?

Accruals, Cloud Computing, Leave Management, Overtime, Time and Attendance

Want A Better Return On Your Labour Investment? Deploy A Cloud-Based Solution

Controlling labour costs is a major concern for every organization, regardless of industry or size. And, using outdated, time tracking software to control labour cost, can hamper productivity and put your company at risk, for failing to meet proper workplace compliance requirements.

ATS TimeWork OnDemand is a cloud-based workforce management solution that adapts to the ever-changing business landscape. ATS TimeWork OnDemand takes the complexity out of tracking employee attendance. It simplifies every part of your business operation, leaving you lean and ready for whatever comes next, wherever you are in the world.

The unique capability of ATS TimeWork OnDemand includes:

Workforce Planning
ATS Workforce Planning allows employees to submit availability, request time-off and view their working hours from anywhere, on any device that’s connected to the Internet. ATS Workforce Planning uses predictive analytics to generate that forecast-demand scheduling, based on history, availability and seniority. With the click of a mouse, managers can predict the number and type of employee necessary to meet anticipated business demand.

Absence Management
ATS Absence Management helps organizations meet the complex challenges of employee attendance and, adheres to payroll best-practices – thus, increasing payroll cost visibility and control, while improving workforce compliance. With ATS Absence Management you reduce the administrative headaches and compliance risk associated with leave management laws – not to mention sick time, late arrivals, early departures, and extended breaks – all in one place.

Real-Time Analytics
You can empower your operational executives and department managers, with role-based data that is easy to use and understand. Intuitive dashboards makes it simple examine attendance trends and patterns. And with such up-to-the-minute data at your fingertips, it makes you can easily drill down into data to uncover root causes and take appropriate action.

Employee Data Collectors
ATS data collectors enable you to track, manage, and control employee time and attendance. These employee time clocks are blue-tooth enabled and equipped with biometric capability with fast processing power.

Leave Management
ATS leave management is a powerful, cloud-based multi-level approval tool that can be used by all managers and HR personnel. The solution sends out instant email alerts for pending leave applications. The solution is highly configurable and can also be easily integrated with other ATS solutions including, such as payroll and employee recruitment.

Want to learn how other companies use ATS Workforce Management Solution to get a better return on their labor investment? Tune in this Friday, October 23rd at 1:00pm for a live and interface webinar.

To get your personalized demonstration, call us at 866.294.2467 or go to our website.

Absence Management, Attendance OnDemand, Cloud Based Time and Attendance, Employee Recruitment, Leave Management, Workforce Management Solution, Workforce Planning

Should We Put A Policy In Place With Our Time And Attendance Solution?

ATS project managers often get asked this question during customer site-visits and prior to the implementation of our time and attendance solution. The answer to this question is always a resounding yes. Whether you are replacing your current time and attendance system or implementing one for the first time, a set of guidelines is a good way to achieve compliance. Here are some additional tips you can use in your company’s new policy:

Define and set expectations
Let employees know how much leeway they have with lateness and absenteeism and make sure this is configured within the system. Having a time and attendance system in place should not be viewed as “Big Brother” mentality and the more open you are about it the greater the compliance you can expect from employees.

Employee feedback
When crafting a time and attendance policy, your best ally are your employees. Get them involved by seeking feedback. You’d be surprised at how engaged employees can be when their suggestions are solicited by management prior to the deployment of the system.

Leave Management
It’s important to clarify terms and conditions for paid and unpaid time-off to include; leave of absence, vacation, jury duty, medical and family leave. ATS Self-Service portal is a good tool for employees and managers alike.

ATS team has deep industry experience have performed numerous deployments over the years and so, it’s likely some of our team members can provide your organizations with tips on what type of information to include in your policy.

To learn more register for one of our monthly webinars, download a demonstration or simply contact us by phone at; 866.294.2467.

Should We Put A Policy In Place With Our Time And Attendance Solution?

Absenteeism, Employee Self Service, Leave Management, Time and Attendance, Vacation

How to Remain Compliant and Manage Pay During a Pandemic

Tracking Leave Management During A Pandemic

5 Benefits of Employee Self-Service

Want Happy And Productive Employees? Avoid These Mistakes

A Leap Of Faith Can Help Your Business Leverage The Benefits Of The Cloud

Canadian Federal Government Is Contemplating New Leave Management Policy

Should We Put A Policy In Place With Our Time And Attendance Solution?

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