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While governments are taking action to prevent the spread of COVID-19, working remotely, will be the new normal for tens of thousands of office workers across Canada, the US and around the world. In short, this means, many office-based employees are now predominantly, if not 100% will be working remotely for the foreseeable future due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It will therefore, be up to the companies – and in particular, their HR departments – to ensure that employees feel supported through this unprecedented situation. And, while the transition of working remotely, might be easy for some (especially those who may have been working from home, pre-COVID-19) employees – for others, it can be particularly daunting.

Here are 5 steps, business leaders and their HR teams can use to ensure the effectiveness of their remote workforce:

1.Be open to flexible work policies: Employee value flexible work schedules. Some of them may have their children at home and are balancing helping their kids with online learning while also working. If employees have the flexibility to take a reasonable amount of time to look after their kids, when it’s convenient, could mean that your employees will be happier, less stressed and more productive.

Resist the urge to install keystroke tracking devices on the laptop of employees. This will only create mistrust and resentment from your workforce. Instead deploy a flexible online timesheet that employees can use to input their time and request time-off. And, if an employee is not able to start promptly at 9:00am, because of some unforeseen circumstances at home show some empathy. The manager and the employee, can perhaps arrange another day when the employee can make up the time.

2.Figure out the best way to boost productivity for employees: Sometimes daily calls and emails while good, might not always work. Change it up, by encouraging employees to look up some free online learning courses.  For example, LinkedIn, has a list of online courses designed to boost productivity while working from home.

3.Establish regular manager check-ins: The daily call-ins, could take the form of a series of one-on-one calls, or a team call to instill collaborative team effort. Make sure that the calls are regular and predictable, and that they are a forum in which employees know that they can consult with you, and that their concerns and questions will be heard.

4. Create Social Interaction Channels: As a species, we are social beings and enjoy fellow human interaction.  Managers, should therefore, structure ways, for employees to interact socially on a variety of topics. In other words, ‘water-cooler’ type of conversations. An example, might be to devote some time at the beginning of team calls to discuss non work-related items (e.g., ‘How was your weekend’? And, ‘are you watching any new shows on Netflix’?

5. Share wellness tips, offer encouragement and emotional support: Encourage employees to take their full lunch break and perhaps go outside for a walk. Some employees may not take a lunch break, fearful of what their manager might think.

In the wake of Covid-19, many employees have gone from working in an office to being 100% remote-and that, in and of itself, could raise employees’ anxieties and concerns. Managers should offer encouragement during one and one or team chats to employees. With remote workers not getting any face-to-face communication with their teams, mental health wellness becomes even more important.

COVID-19 is arguably one of the biggest changes, the modern world of work has had to navigate through so, this has been a challenge for many business leaders and their HR teams across the world.

To learn more about ATS you can register for one of our bi-monthly webinars. To download a demo of our work from home time and attendance application, go to our website. And, to reach us by phone call; 866.294.2467.

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Ok, So The Honeymoon Is Over With The New Job. Now What?

April 30th, 2019 | Posted by ATS in Benefit Accruals | Career | Employee Productivity | Employee Self Service | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Ok, So The Honeymoon Is Over With The New Job. Now What?)

Starting a new job often comes with a wave of new excitement, meetings are new and fresh and your boss is patient, supportive and positive. Your motivation and energy level may be higher than they have been for a long time. And, for many employees, happiness is at its highest point during the first six months with a new employer because of it.

As time passes, your motivation decreases. You begin, to doubt the company’s goals and ways of doing business, and worse you start to disagree with your boss. In the past you were keen about sharing ideas with the company, but now you keep those ideas to yourself. You also begin to realize that you cannot change your boss or this company anyway, so what’s the point? Meetings are useless and annoying as far as you are concerned.

In an article titled, This is how to stay fulfilled at your job, even as the years goby Jillian Kramer, from Glassdoor are six tips for those who have become disillusion with their jobs after a period of time. These tips include:


1. Switch things up

You may have to do the same things, but try not to do them the same ways. “Try to work on different tasks or use different strengths in your job instead of always doing the same thing in the same order,” Crawford says. “Using different strengths are important to fulfillment.”

2. Become a mentor

According to millennial career coach Jill Jacinto, “Sometimes it helps to pay it forward to remind yourself why you fell in love with your career when you did. Helping someone with her career will energize you and give you a chance to learn from a younger generation too.”

3. Learn something new

Before boredom–and dissatisfaction–can set in, it’s time to learn something new, says Crawford. “Take an online course or learn about new software that would be beneficial to your line of work,” she says. “Stay up to date. Staying in the know helps keeps you sharp.”

4. Network with others

“Sometimes meeting with fresh faces can inspire you,” says Jacinto. So, attend a conference, reach out to your LinkedIn network, or send an email to a former co-worker. “Sharing your career story and hearing [another] perspective can help spur creativity and partnerships.”

5. Talk with your boss

It might be easy to wait for annual performance reviews to talk to your boss. But don’t, says Crawford. “Let them know your professional goals, and ask to take on new projects and for feedback about your overall performance,” she says. “They will keep you in mind, and plus, this provides the opportunity to work on tasks that contribute to your overall happiness.”

6. Practice self-care

“Self-care is very important and something that is too often dismissed,” says Jacinto. And so, to stay happy at work, “make sure that work isn’t getting in the way or preoccupying your thoughts–take that beach vacation, attend weekly Pilates classes, get a massage, or go on a hike. By regularly making self-care a part of your routine, you are allowing yourself to check out, but also to feel refreshed and inspired for when you get back to the office.”

Bottom line, while the responsibility lies on the shoulder of employers to make sure they have a happy and productive workforce, you can also be proactive if you are not happy at your job. Sometimes it’s just figuring out what attracted you to the job in the first place and whether you can rekindle the initial wave of excitement you had for the job, when you started. That said, when a job becomes unbearable, to the point that you are not looking forward to it each day-a wholesome change like finding a new job, might be your best bet.

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What Is The Point Of Ghosting Potential Candidates Anyway?

September 18th, 2018 | Posted by ATS in Careers | HR | Recruitment | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on What Is The Point Of Ghosting Potential Candidates Anyway?)

The practice of ghosting in the world of work equates to some recruiters leaving job candidates guessing whether they are going to be hired or not, because the recruiter, has decided its best to simply ignore the candidate’s emails or phone calls. In other words, the candidate will eventually get the message that the company is not interested in their services. Wow! Who would want to work for company like that?

What Is The Point Of Ghosting Potential Candidates Anyway?

Of course, this worked well for the companies that employed this practice, for several years, until, the workforce demographic started to change with millennials, turning the tables on some companies and started doing the ghosting themselves.

In Riia O’Donnell article, Are your applicants ghosting you? Written for HR Dive succinctly describes this phenomenon. It reads in part;

“Ghosting has come full-circle. Dozens of websites are devoted to the complaints of candidates who’ve been ghosted by employers — never receiving acknowledgement for their application, no callback after an interview, being left hanging for a hiring decision. And now employers are seeing the same actions (or non-actions) taken against them.

Recruiters who hire for almost every level of employee, from entry-level to management, are experiencing the phenomenon. It runs the gamut from applicants who never respond to initial calls; those who miss interview appointments; candidates who hem and haw over offers, promising to ‘get back to you soon’ with an answer; and those who simply vanish off the face of the earth, never reporting for their first day on the job.In relationship-speak, ghosting is clear: no response is the response. As the market tightens, with competition getting even more fierce, ghosting may be a new paradigm.

How common is ghosting? The phenomenon may be learned behavior from when employers would ghost candidates. It may be that some candidates and employees believe its acceptable business etiquette. In a recent piece, LinkedIn suggested ghosting may be partly due to inexperience. Younger workers who aren’t accustomed to multiple job offers may simply not know how to say no politely and professionally.

To save time, some recruiters are starting to act like doctors or airlines, LinkedIn said — double booking interview slots, particularly for entry-level openings, in anticipation that up to half the candidates will no show. Others recommend hiring managers remain in a continuous recruitment mode to adjust for those who will walk off the job without notice. This, of course, could lead to more candidates being held at bay, which of course could lead to them believing they’ve been ghosted: bad manners coming full circle.

At its core, ghosting is a lack of communication. To minimize the chances of it happening at your company, it’s important to communicate in a way that invites job seekers and employees to be forthright. If a candidate can’t make the interview or won’t accept the offer, a recruiter can let them know he or she understands, but that the company would appreciate the honesty and professionalism of an upfront word. Another tack may be to gently let candidates know they would be eliminated from consideration for any future openings if they failed to make the interview or accept an offer without notification.

Bottom line: Job hunting is hard work and recruiters and hiring professionals alike should do a better job of communicating with job seekers. And, job seekers are not innocent themselves, since some of also practice ghosting. In the end, no one wins when both sides engage in the practice of ghosting each other.

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To learn more ATS, register for one of our weekly webinars, or download brochures or a pre-recorded demonstration. To speak to representative, call; 866.294.2468.

Want Happy And Productive Employees? Avoid These Mistakes

February 13th, 2018 | Posted by ATS in Employee Productivity | HR | Leave Management | Productivity | Talent Management | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on 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.

Want Happy And Productive Employees? Avoid These Mistakes

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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Google Is On The Verge Of Shaking Up The Recruitment Industry

July 20th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Google | Machine Learning | Recruitment Software - (Comments Off on Google Is On The Verge Of Shaking Up The Recruitment Industry)

When Google announced it was entering the recruitment space, some wondered why? A behemoth like Google would have done its due diligence before deciding to use its power to offer job seekers and employers alike a difference choice.

 

Google Is On The Verge Of Shaking Up The Recruitment Industry

In her article,  for HR Dive, titled Google for Jobs now open to site owners and job seekers Valerie Bolden-Barrett writes in part;

“Google for Jobs is a potential game-changer for employers and job seekers that stands to revolutionize recruiting. Right now, the new search largely pulls from major recruiting websites to formulate search results — but this new behavior could change how the big job boards work. They were already keeping an eye on changing behaviors from applicants that opted for mobile capabilities. Google could further disrupt the marketplace.

Much like LinkedIn and Glassdoor, which forced employers to reconsider external channels of input, Google for Jobs could herald changes in recruitment strategy. Google’s use of AI and machine-learning in the process is nothing less than what’s expected of an innovative high-tech company, and is largely in-line with what experts predicted for online recruiting going forward.”

It has also been reported that the new job search engine will have filters to narrow down jobs. For example, a candidate can sort by full-time or part-time, the job titles, category and posting date. And, that Google will also add a filter for commute times, so candidates do not have to apply for dream positions that require sitting in traffic for two hours.

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The Herculean Tasks Of Removing Biases From Hiring Decisions

July 6th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Careers | HR | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on The Herculean Tasks Of Removing Biases From Hiring Decisions)

A great deal has been written about removing biases when interviewing candidates for jobs, but to some degree it’s easier said than done. All human beings have their own set of biases on a range of things that include; gender, race, religion, class and it’s influenced when hiring employees or simply offering a promotion. The fact that this is being discussed in many online forums is good first step, but, this type of paradigm shift will take perhaps a generation or two for significant change to take effect. Change, after all, is always a difficult proposition for humans.

The Herculean Tasks Of Removing Biases From Hiring Decisions

Will Yakowicz, Staff writer for Inc, article titled How to Remove Gender Bias From the Hiring Process offers three tips. These tips are derived from a posting in Harvard Business Review by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox.

The gender bias tips are as follows:

“Make gender bias a business issue.
If the results of the test don’t bother you initially, think about the fact that under- qualified men were hired over more talented women. Wittenberg-Cox says you should reframe gender bias as a business issue, not a women’s issue. “If managers are choosing less qualified men over more qualified women, the company is clearly losing valuable talent,” she writes. “Even if hiring managers are choosing equally qualified men, if they’re doing it in dramatically greater numbers (as the study above shows they do), the company is still missing an opportunity to build the kind of balanced workforce that we know produces more creative results.”

Change people’s minds
Wittenberg-Cox says leaders need to start educating themselves and managers about the issue of gender bias instead of putting the burden on women to change themselves. “You can expect all your women to suddenly change their behavior and start overselling their skills, as the men in the study above did–but frankly, do you really want them to?” she writes. Research shows when women boast about their skills they are perceived negatively, instead of as confident and ambitious. You need to teach your staff, male and female, about the different behaviors men and women exhibit and how to effectively and accurately perceive them.”

Change your hiring systems
If gender bias runs deep in the corporate world that means HR policies are often rife with bias too. Wittenberg-Cox writes that many large companies consider “ambition” to be an important character trait for their leadership candidates. When candidates are seen as “ambitious,” they’re usually boasting, or overselling their talents–a trait studies have shown to be predominately male, she writes. Hiring managers typically believe erroneously that the most self-promotional candidates are objectively the best. “This does not make room to develop the majority of today’s talent for tomorrow’s world. Nor allow a variety of leadership styles to co-exist,” she adds.”

Social media and online career job boards, while all great tools can also hurt prospective candidates. Many of today’s hiring managers will scan sites like LinkedIn to view a candidates profile and formed an opinion about the person before they walk through the door for an interview. And in some cases, based on what they see online, these hiring managers might cut candidates from consideration. Thus, asking people to eliminate or at least, separate their biases from the hiring decision is not as easy as it sounds.

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According to Webopedia, “Cloud computing is a type of computing that relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications”.  For many businesses the traditional way of accessing information involves accessing applications downloaded on a physical computer or server in their building.  In the world of cloud computing, businesses can access the same kinds of applications, but this time they do it through the internet.

When you update your LinkedIn status, you are essentially using cloud computing. Do you pay any of your your bills or access any app by phone? If so, you are in the cloud. Many small and large businesses rely on cloud computing to solve their business challenges. And, this type of technology has become a competitive advantage, for many smaller companies, who previously saw large corporations deploy cloud applications with a great deal of success.

But why are so many businesses now moving to the cloud? Simple, the benefits of the cloud helps improve cash flow and increases workforce efficiency. Here are some additional benefits:

Scalability
Smart CIO and IT Managers who have done their due diligence have embraced the cloud. Many of them are now encouraging their CEOs to deploy the cloud over on-premise solutions. For example, cloud computing allows you to scale up or down based on your needs. This unprecedented level of agility can give businesses using cloud computing a distinct advantage over their competitors.

Improve Cash-Flow
Business executives are not fond of tying up a lot of their capital in IT projects and they should not have to. With a cloud computing application like ATS TimeWork OnDemand, the pay-as-you-go, subscription-based model eases cash flow. And, the quick turn-around time of database set up, and deployment, is sure to make most naysayer business executive embrace the cloud computing.

Access 24/7, Anytime, Anywhere
With an Internet connection, regardless of where you are, you can access ATS TimeWork OnDemand. The beauty of cloud computing means, you are not restricted with which device you can use; whether it’s a Smartphone, tablet or workstation you can still access the cloud.

Any of the benefits mentioned is enough to convince many business executives to give cloud computing some serious consideration. And after talking to customers who are using ATS TimeWork OnDemand, we are pretty sure they will make that move.

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Benefits Of Cloud Computing? There Are So Many, Where Do We Start?

Organizations face many challenges, including; retaining a competitive edge, managing employees and keeping them productive and motivated, keeping cost low and increasing customer satisfaction. And, with all this to manage, you are likely not thinking about the negative impact your current time and attendance is having on your business. Here are five ways, your time and attendance system may be having a negative impact on your business:

Your company is losing money
If your current time and attendance is paper-based, there is no doubt you are wasting money by having someone manually calculate employee time, vacations, statutory holidays and host of other things that could easily automated. If you are using some off the shelf or outdated time and attendance solution, you will, at some point, have to pay for new versions, annual maintenance and software bug fixes. Wouldn’t it be nice, if you could have a solution that did not include these ongoing costs?

Limited Choices
You believe that the current version you have works. In other words, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Sometimes, these words tend to be the last ones uttered before the system breaks down, or you come to the realization, that your system is not keeping pace with your business.

Do You Feel Trapped With Your Time And Attendance System?

Lack of Integration
Let’s say you have a mid-size company with 500 employees, wouldn’t it be awesome to have a time and attendance solution that’s intuitive, and can integrate to your; financials and job costing, payroll, human resources information system (HRIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM)? Moreover, your company cannot take advantage of real-time analytic reporting if you are using an outdated time and attendance solution. A 21st century cloud-based time and attendance solution connects to mobile devices and is available from anywhere, at anytime propels your business further and provides greater efficiency.

Upgrading will be a piece of cake or, so you think
Upgrading can sometimes cost the same as what you spent a few short years ago on a new time and attendance system. Also upgrading to a new solution will likely require stakeholders to ensure the business requirements are met. After all, your business requirements have likely changed from a few years ago when you first implemented the solution. In short order, that quick upgrade you were going to get, might end up lasting longer than you had planned for.

Customized System
If your current system is customized, it can create problems with upgrading or its ability adhere to bug fixes – more often than not, this can lead organizations to defer upgrades, sometimes indefinitely. Who wants to be stuck with a time and attendance system that is so heavily customized that it prevents a company from taking advantage of newer versions? With an ATS cloud-based time and attendance upgrades are built-in and takes place without interruption to your company’s business operations.

Deploying a best-in-class time and attendance solution based on today’s technology, enables businesses in various industries, to adhere to multi-jurisdictional and legal compliance differences at the local, provincial, federal and state level. ATS TimeWork OnDemand provides real-time visibility, streamlines payroll costs, increase workforce productivity and gives you access to multiple levels of consolidated reporting and enterprise-wide Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), all displayed in real time, on dashboards.

To learn more, go to our website and register for a free webinar, download brochures or a demonstration. You can also join the conversation through LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter.

Although we are in the month of February the year still feels new and depending on where you live in North America your area is either very cold or you have snow on the ground or both. Yikes! From time to time we post articles from other sites that we find informative. ATS social media and marketing team found a site by Sarah Landrum titled “Punched Clocks.” And, because ATS provides workforce management solutions with accompanying hardware that’s referred to as “Punch Clocks,” “Time Clocks,” or “Data Collectors,” the name of the site was quite fitting.

This particular blog by Sara Landrum is titled “15 Job Search Sites To Help You Find A Job”. The list includes:

LinkedIn
This website is a nice way to ease into the professional world. It’s specifically made to enhance people’s professional relationships. It runs on a platform similar to Facebook, where you can friend-request people you know and view their profiles to learn more about them.

Indeed
With more than 800,000 new listings posted on the site every week, Indeed claims to be the biggest career site out there.

Twitter
One of the most overlooked job-hunting sites is right in front of most of our eyes every day. Recruiters and big companies are starting to tweet out recent job openings or challenging jobs that need to be filled immediately. Often, they will provide links to position descriptions and application instructions. You can download an app, such as Tweetmyjobs, that will send Twitter alerts to tell you who’s hiring.”

You can browser through the entire list of job sites on Sarah Landrum’s blog.
Job searching have changed in the last several years with the proliferation of social media and other online tools including, Workforce and Human Capital Management Software which also has embedded recruiting tools for today’s employers. And, in a somewhat shaky economy employers are in search of candidates that can help them grow their business and provide optimal customer service.

So whether you are actively looking for otherwise, you will find these sites very informative.

To learn about ATS you download a demonstration and to attendance live webcast, go to our website.

 Job Search Sites That Might Just Help You Find That Perfect Job

ATS webinar series are designed for companies researching and evaluating the capabilities and functionality of Workforce Management Solutions. During the demonstration, you will gain valuable insights into specific features and functions that address the unique business requirements of manufacturing, healthcare, retail, life sciences and hospitality.

These in-depth demonstrations are interactive and you will learn how ATS has helped rapid-growth companies to improve operational performance by streamlining payroll costs, accelerating global financial consolidation with analytic reporting, and eliminating disjointed and manual based time tracking processes.

All of our webinars feature a CEO/COO, finance or HR executive guest speaker from a from a mid to large size company, who will outline how they transitioned from manual time tracking to modern cloud-based time and attendance.

Our attendees include:

 CEOs/Chief Operating Officers
 CFOs/ Financial controllers
 VP/Director/Manager of Human Resources/Payroll Managers
 VP/Director of operations/manufacturing
 VP/Director supply chain

To learn about ATS, you can take advantage of our library of learning materials and stay up to date on the latest in business software and best practices.

You can also join our LinkedIn business group or follow us on Pinterest and other social media channels. To reach one of our account executives, call (866) 294.2467.

Why Should I Register For ATS Workforce Management Software Webinars?