Best-in-Class Workforce Management Software from Industry Experts
Header

How long should your organization keep employee attendance records? This will depend on the province or state in which a company operates. For example, on the website of the province of Manitoba, reads in part; “Employers and employees need to keep accurate records of the hours worked and the amount paid for those hours. Employers must pay employees for all hours they work and explain how the pay was calculated. Employment Standards requires employers to keep pay records for three years”.

How Long Should Payroll And HR Practitioners Keep Attendance Records?

Here is another example from the province of Ontario website “Employee and Retention Records, must be kept for three years after the day or week of work. If an employee receives a fixed salary for each pay period and the salary does not change (except if the employee works overtime) the employer is only required to record:

  • The employee’s hours in excess of those hours in the employee’s regular work week

And

  • The number of hours in excess of eight per day (or in excess of the hours in the employee’s regular work day, if it is more than eight hours).

Employers are not required to record the hours of work for employees who are exempt from overtime pay and the provisions for maximum hours of work.”

If you are small or mid-size business with 50-200 plus employees and tracking employee time and vacation pay with spreadsheets, it will take you an awfully long time going through paper records to verify hours worked in the unlikely event, you are audited. Your HR and payroll managers are the key to helping you solve these issues and are more than likely up to date on work-rule compliance.

So, what’s the best way to solve this issue? Help your payroll and HR staff by automating employee time keeping with ATS TimeWork OnDemand, that’s fully powered by the cloud. With ATS TimeWork OnDemand, you can:

 

Access Employee Attendance Records Anytime, Anywhere:
With ATS TimeWork OnDemand, all you need is an internet connection, and you can access ATS cloud services using any device.

Flexibility
CIOs and IT Directors marvel at the ease of use in accessing ATS TimeWork OnDemand through the web. ATS TimeWork OnDemand is ideal for businesses with growing or fluctuating bandwidth demands.

Capital-expenditure Free
ATS TimeWork OnDemand cuts out the high cost of hardware. You simply pay as you go and enjoy a subscription-based model that’s kind to your cash flow. And best of all, you no longer have to shift through paper records to find employees record, it’s always readily available when you need it.

So, how do you get started? Simply, download a demonstration to see the solution in action for yourself-afterwards, you contact us by phone at 866.294.2467 to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Tracking and monitoring the time of employee hours sound straightforward, but in reality, it can be a quite difficult process to manage. The complexities and globalization of today’s organizations, translates to increasing regulations, and these are just a few of the factors contributing to challenges in time and attendance tracking. Knowing when your employees are working or not, is only the starting point; and, along with daily employee activities, you also have to carefully maintain accurate readings of overtime hours, statutory holidays, vacation days accumulated, and sick days used.

In an effort to increase accuracy and productivity—and decrease costs—many of today’s organizations are not only integrating sophisticated time and attendance applications with their existing applications but they’re also carefully considering how to collect employee data to feed these applications. The right time and attendance data collector can help you automate time-consuming payroll and HR processes and provide both your employees and managers with more options. New, innovative data-collection tools, like ATS biometric time clocks, are helping organizations improve the management of data capture. Technologies like these can help you more easily manage various types of employees, reduce payroll cost and employee theft, and mitigate risk.

Welcome to the World of Innovative Data Collection
Beyond a modern time and attendance solution, ATS PeoplePoint Plus™ delivers rich graphics and video on a 7″ widescreen display. Optional speakers and camera, a fast processor, and expandable memory will allow users to interact with detailed content.

Want A Better And More Effective Alternative To Spreadsheets? We’ve Got It

With ATS PeoplePoint Plus™ users can easily navigate employee self-service functionality on the generously sized screen. Custom programs, training videos, video chats, web browsers, and other custom content have a new, more effective platform now.  PeoplePoint Plus™offers exciting programming and content delivery opportunities.

To download a brochure or demonstration of ATS workforce management software, go to our website. And to attend one of our bi-monthly webinars, you can register here or contact an account representative at; 866.294.2467.

Every business wants to achieve maximum productivity, streamline cost and improve its bottom-line. If your business is not using the right time and attendance solution, that can not only prevent it from achieving its operational goals, but lead to frustration by the people who are using the system.

Here are five signs that points to the frustration your company has with its current time and attendance system and some tools to help you figure out how to obtain the right system for your business:

5 Signs You Are Frustrated With Your Current Time And Attendance

 

  1. Real-Time Data

If you are pulling employee information from paper time sheets or an antiquated punch clock that resides on a wall, there is nothing real about this. It simply means, you are getting the information after it happens. What you need is a system that shows employee information as soon as they occur- in other words, a system that can provide you with real time analytics as you need it.

  1. Your System Lacks Integration Capabilities

This is tops the list of frustration for many companies. If your company’s current time and attendance system does not have the ability to interface to your other applications you need to rethink your strategy. No company should be stuck using outdated applications, the sole reason for deploying an automated time and attendance is to make your life easier.

  1. Basic Features Should be Included

Calculation of overtime and statutory holidays across various jurisdictions should be part of the everyday basic functions of the system.  If these necessary features for your company’s day-to-day life do not exist, you are using the wrong system and filled with frustration.

  1. Streamline Costs and Improve Productivity

If your company wishes to improve efficiency, you need a time and attendance solution that has this embedded into it-otherwise, the frustration of your HR or payroll practitioner will continue.

  1. Point the Blame at the Software

If your business executives are getting inaccurate data, it’s clear you have the wrong solution. And, if your employees pay are missing hours they worked, because the software cannot adjust to your business requirements, you should starting exploring for better option.

Bottom-Line: instead of asking your current provider to make customization changes that would simply add to the complexity—of an already ineffective solution, make the switch to an ATS time attendance solution. With ATS TimeWork OnDemand 21st century cloud computing technology gives you the agility to respond to changing business needs rapidly, improve productivity, streamline payroll costs and can adjust to the ebbs and flows of an organization.

To download a demonstration or attend one of our bi-weekly webinars go to our website. To speak to an account representative call: 866.294.2467.

 

 

Are You Required To Answer Emails After Working Hours? If so Why?

January 31st, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Are You Required To Answer Emails After Working Hours? If so Why?)

Some jobs require its employees to always be on call through phone or email. But for the vast majority of the workforce, you are required to work a certain amount of hours, perhaps some overtime and then go home. That could be considered the norm. In supervisory and senior management circles, these individuals take on bigger roles and so, it’s not unusual to see your boss work ungodly hours. But that mean that employees should go to sleep with their phones beside their beds in anticipation of emails or phone calls from their boss?

Well French lawmakers are having none of this and have proposed a law called ‘Right to Disconnect’ whereby employees should not be required to respond to emails after they have completed their shift and left their place of work. Some might argue, and with good reason, that it’s reasonable if a boss sends an e-mail after work, especially if it’s important. The flip-side to this argument is, by responding to an occasional email once a week, will this open the floodgates to the boss expecting you to respond to emails at 2:00am in the morning?

Are You Required To Answer Emails After Working Hours? If so Why?

An article written by Maura Thomas for Harvard Business Review, titled ‘Your-Late Night Emails Are Hurting Your Team’ offers some poignant advice to leaders who expect their employees to always be available. She writes in part;

“A frantic environment that includes answering emails at all hours doesn’t make your staff more productive. It just makes them busy and distracted. You base your staff hiring decisions on their knowledge, experience, and unique talents, not how many tasks they can seemingly do at once, or how many emails they can answer in a day.”

The article also offers the following:

  • “Ditch the phrase “time management” for the more relevant “attention management,” and make training on this crucial skill part of your staff development plan.
  • Refrain from after-hours communication.
  • Model and discuss the benefits of presence, by putting away your devices when speaking with your staff, and implementing a “no device” policy in meetings to promote single-tasking and full engagement.”

Of course not all companies subscribe to this notion that their employees have to be available at all times. In fact, many companies expect their employees to have a healthy work-life-balance. However, the ones who expect employees to constantly respond to emails after hours, perpetuate an ‘always-on’ culture, that essentially prevent employees from fully disengaging from work, which in turn, can lead to chronic stress.

Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

November 24th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Forecasting | Overtime | Retail | Scheduling | Telecommuting Employees - (Comments Off on Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?)

Every boss appreciates a hard working employee, especially one who will volunteer to stay at work longer to complete that project and meet a deadline. And, in the world of retail and hospitality it’s almost become the norm that employees are expected to work long hours and some split shifts-especially during busy periods Christmas holidays included. But, if all your company’s projects have tight deadlines, does that mean you have to work overtime every week? As an employee in retail, does your schedule include a lot of spilt-shifts? Sooner or later, working these long hours will eventually take its toll.

We all understand that from time to time extra hours are required to get the job done. But, when does all this extra hours you are putting in start to affect your health and, more importantly starts alienating you from your loved ones?

Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

In an article Minda Zetlin for Inc.com titled ‘10 Reasons to Stop Working So Hard’ she eloquently describes some of the drawbacks of working crazy hours. In no particular order, we selected five reasons out her list that clearly makes a case for why should not be working long hours every time:

“Most of the work is less important than you think-A few years ago, hospice worker Bronnie Ware famously published the top five regrets she heard from her dying patients. Those who’d had careers all regretted the number of hours they spent at work. But many of her patients also spoke of dreams they wished they’d fulfilled.

Your mood is a buzzkill-The kind of irritability and impatience that goes with being overworked and behind schedule will cast a black cloud over the people around you both at work and at home. If you’re an employee, it will damage your career. If you’re a small business owner, it will harm your business.

Sleep matters-“The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep,” Arianna Huffington said in a 2011 TED talk. She would know. She fainted from exhaustion and broke her cheekbone and is now something of a sleep evangelist. “I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he’d gotten only four hours’ sleep the night before,” she continued. She considered retorting: “If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.”

Your judgment is impaired-The research is conclusive: sleep deprivation impairs decision-making. As a leader, poor judgment is something you can’t afford. Crossing some tasks off your to-do list, handing them to someone else, or finishing some things late is well worth it if it means you bring your full concentration and intelligence to the tough decisions your job requires

You suck when it counts-I can tell you from experience that going into a meeting tired and distracted means you will suck in that meeting. You’ll be bad at generating new ideas, finding creative solutions to problems, and worst of all you’ll suck at listening attentively to the people around you. That disrespects them and wastes their time as well as yours.”

Bottom line: Spending long hours at work might help you meet deadlines, but those long hours, especially when they are done over a long period of time, can affect both your physical and, yes mental state. When you spend a significant part of your day working, there is not enough time to rest and recharge.

 

 

Automating the tracking of employee time should, be a fundamental process within any business. Yet many companies do not track time and instead rely on outdated time tracking methodologies and/or self-reporting to capture time and attendance details. And, since, assumptions and reality do not correlate organizations, that rely on manual time tracking or self-reporting lose significant value by paying employees for time that they didn’t actually work.

Let’s take a look at three reasons to ditch paper time cards:

Lost Time-Some companies refer to lost time as sick days, employee vacations, planned or unplanned absences. However, the occasional 5-10 minutes that an employee either arrives early or leaves late are small increments that can add up significantly throughout the year. Take for example, an employee who comes in 10-15 minutes before her start time and records this on the paper time card or the employee who is habitually late yet jots down that he arrived on time. In both scenarios, you are paying these employees for time that they were not actually working.

Ditch the Manual Time Tracking-If your company is using an automated time and attendance yet, have spreadsheets or another manual time tracking system, you are likely using the wrong solution and are missing out on significant benefits. The right time and attendance system should capture; employee vacations, statutory holidays, overtime, it should be scalable and eradicate all manner of manual time tracking.

Here Are Some Additional Reasons Why You Should Ditch Paper Time Cards

Data Integration-In addition to the other benefits, the ability to send employee hours seamlessly to your payroll software should be one major factor in migrating to an automated time and attendance. It is next to impossible to continually use manual time tracking and come up with accurate results. An automated time and attendance solution removes the arduous tasks of having to count employee hours each week and then key them into spreadsheets, thus, your company will benefit because it’s now paying for time worked, which can translate into higher revenues and profits.

Not sure if there is value to automating your manual time tracking methods?  Download our Return on Investment (ROI) calculating or a demonstration. Both can help build a solid business case.

 

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

 

It’s no secret that attitudes toward cloud technology are rapidly changing, and discussions about the potential downsides of cloud deployment are quickly evolving into valid, evaluations of the risks associated with not making the move. Perhaps, it’s a combination of sober thought and some companies witnessing their counterparts in the same or different industries deploy cloud computing technologies, with success hence; the adoption of it. And, with the emergence of cloud-based technology,  the use of analytics have also increased. In an op-ed by Rodger Howell, principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers for CFO magazine, he writes;

 “Today’s technology, cloud, and IoT-driven world is continually generating a wealth of data, creating both opportunity and challenge for those tasked with deciphering and analyzing it. CFOs in particular are now facing increased pressure to connect the dots between multiple data streams to identify patterns that will optimize a company’s growth and align its costs with its strategy.”

Now, that a statement that packs a powerful punch and is noteworthy, if your company remains unconvinced about the rapid acceptance of cloud technology, and its plethora of advantages it can bring to your business.

Rodger Howell’s article provides a blue print for companies to follow when considering, cloud computing software solutions and analytics. In no particular order, it reads in part:

“Setting Goals and Objectives: CFOs should first identify the organization’s short and long-term objectives, developing key performance indicators to track progress. Consider this step the impetus that will motivate business leaders to introduce data analytics to their day-to-day operations and to assess their impact on business goals.

Proposing Pilot Projects: Once CFOs have buy-in from key players within the organization, they should use this support to introduce pilot projects rooted in data analytics. CFOs can start small by proposing new operations and always being sure to encourage participation from other members of the organization.

Seeking Feedback: CFOs must realize that ongoing feedback from other members of the organization, including its leadership, is necessary after introducing new data analytics platforms, and processes.”

Cloud computing and analytics is an increasing priority for companies of all industries especially, for business executives who want to streamline payroll and overtime costs and other related business expenditure.

 When Used Properly, Analytics Can Help Businesses Streamline Payroll Costs

ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance is the industry’s most flexible and wholly integrated solution. It’s accompanied by best-in-class services across software as a service (SaaS), platform. ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance helps organizations drive innovation and business transformation by increasing business agility, lowering payroll costs, and reducing IT complexity.

To learn about ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance solutions, go to our website. You can also download a demonstration or register for one of our weekly webinars.

The United States Department of Labor had been contemplating updating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for quite some time and in December (of this year) 2016, this proposed update will take effect. And this will have wide-ranging effects in just about every industry and while is being instituted in the United States it will be felt in Canada as several Canadian companies have subsidiaries and/or remote employees in operate in the very regions where this propose overtime rule will take effect.

This change also means that, for several organizations, these upcoming changes will require adhering to; how employees are classified, observing hours worked, how time is tracked and, the manner in which overall compensation is paid. Once this law is enacted, it’s anticipated that companies will have 60 days to comply with these new regulations-and if companies choose not to comply, they will subjected to fines and penalties.

An excerpt from The Department of Labor, states, in part;

“The Department is proposing to update the regulations governing which executive, administrative, and professional employees (white collar workers) are entitled to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime pay protections. The Department last updated these regulations in 2004, and the current salary threshold for exemption is $455 per week ($23,660 per year). With this proposed rule, the Department seeks to update the salary level required for exemption to ensure that the FLSA’s intended overtime protections are fully implemented, and to simplify the identification of nonexempt employees, thus making the executive, administrative and professional employee exemption easier for employers and workers to understand and apply.”

The Impact Of The New Overtime Rule Will Be Felt Across All Industries

Here are some suggested steps you can implement to align your organization with the upcoming changes:

Deploy a time and attendance solution
Accurately tracking employee time and being able to get real-time reporting be an essential part of complying with the proposed FLSA overtime rule changes. An effective time and attendance solution will make it easy for businesses to know when an employee is approaching overtime, track hours of employees who work on weekends and remote workers who use mobile devices.

Classify Salaried Employees
If some of your employees are making over the threshold amount they may be exempt from overtime if their job duties fall under the category of; administrative, managerial or executive as it’s defined under the regulations. That said, you should be careful, as employees who have, in the past, fallen under these categories have made case they should be paid overtime.  Prepare a list of employees whose salaries do not exceed the threshold because they may be entitled to receive overtime once the changes are enacted. Best case, scenario implement a leave management tool that will help automatically monitor and send alerts if when an employee is approaching overtime.

 Control Overtime Costs
On the surface, controlling overtime may seem difficult but in actuality it’s not. If you are using paper time sheets to track and monitor overtime, then yes, it does become a herculean task. By why bother using such antiquated methods, when you can deploy a time and attendance solution that which will automatically tell you; which employees that are scheduled for overtime, show you all overtime costs for each day, and distribute hours evenly between employees (using an overtime equalization tool) so, don’t have to employees for overtime hours, when you do not have to. Now isn’t this better than the spreadsheets, you are currently using?

Ultimately, the most important thing is going to be accuracy. Companies need to have an effective system in place, to accurately track time worked by employees and determine any changes they may need to make to ensure, they are in compliance.

To learn about the benefits of a time and attendance solution and how it can help your organization minimize the impact of changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act, go to our website or call us at ; 866.294.2467.

The Impact Of The New Overtime Rule Will Be Felt Across All Industries

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

April 26th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Scheduling | Forecasting | Hospitality Industry | Labour cost | Overtime | Retail | Scheduling | Workforce Analytics | Workforce Scheduling Software - (Comments Off on Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement)

The latest brouhaha over employees being scheduled for on-call shifts hit a crescendo, a few days ago, revealing a practice that is frowned upon my many workers, many of whom, have cited the effects these on-call shifts are having on workers ability to plan activities outside of work. It’s possible that some of these companies are using a variety of spreadsheets and other manual methods to schedule employees.

If your organization is using an outdated scheduling system, chances are, you could be wasting valuable time and money. ATS Workforce Scheduling system is powerful and robust software that provides broad-based capabilities to help companies better manage their business and their labour force. The ATS Workforce Employee Scheduling targets small, mid-size and large-scale operations in retail, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing and services.

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

ATS Workforce Scheduler Includes:

Budgeting and Forecasting
ATS budgeting and forecasting module features an independent, definable structure that supports the creation, editing and reporting of business volume and workforce forecasts. With a wide variety of options for defining productivity tasks, standards, drivers and parameters, ATS Budgeting and Forecasting tool provides unprecedented detail and accuracy of workforce requirements.

Eradication of Scheduling Conflicts
ATS Workforce Scheduler allows managers to see details of how a team of workers is scheduled through the day, coupled by the use of an advanced heuristic algorithm that enables companies to meet forecast needs by developing an optimized schedule of employee work assignments. ATS Workforce Scheduler has the distinction of being able to build individual employee shift and job preferences into weekly work schedules. ATS Workforce Scheduler provides real-time employee availability, thus, allowing managers to immediately correct any necessary conflicts, due to overlapping shifts, and overtime. With this unique feature, the software will reduce workforce turnover and increase employee satisfaction.

Ability to Schedule Employees in Real-Time
ATS Workforce Scheduler provides updates in real-time. For example, once a manager has completed their staff schedulers they can send it to their employees through mass updates. Employees, in turn, can view their schedules online from any device that’s connected to the Internet.

Easy to Use Tools
Get the peace of mind you deserve by making sure you have the right people scheduled at the right time and place. With ATS Workforce Scheduler, you can schedule employees by department, shift, or multiple sites. ATS Workforce Scheduler automatically calculates the number of hours each employee is scheduled to work and compares it to the number of hours they wish to work each week.

Reporting Capabilities
ATS Workforce Scheduler creates intuitive analytics that are based on your business and workforce requirements, relevant work and shift rules, and individual employee information.

In conclusion, with a growing number of regional, state and provincial governments clamping down on on-calls shifts, manual spreadsheets will not help your organization. What you need is a robust solution that will reduce time spent on scheduling, save costs, increase productivity and employee engagement.

To see a demonstration of ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution, go to our website. You can also join the conversation on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest.