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Still Have Faith Those Spreadsheets Will Give You Accurate Attendance Records?

December 13th, 2018 | Posted by ATS in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Employee Self Service | Employee Time Tracking | Leave Management | Payroll | Software-as-a-Service (saas) Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada | Time and Attendance Toronto | TimeWork OnDemand - (Comments Off on Still Have Faith Those Spreadsheets Will Give You Accurate Attendance Records?)

Spreadsheets serve a good purpose. And several companies use them. In fact, some of ATS financial analysts and even some, in the professional service areas like; software engineers use spreadsheets to measure results. However, this data usually comes in from outside big data tools as oppose to being keyed in manually. The potential to run into errors when manually keying data into spreadsheets is real,especially, when you are dealing with things like leave management and employee attendance.

In a recent article by Courtney Blanchard, for TLNT titled, With Paid Leave Laws Expanding, You Need to Update Your Attendance Policies there are some worthwhile advice for HR and Payroll Practitioners on how to best navigate and keep accurate records of attendance policies. They read, in part:

  •  Review company attendance policies to ensure that any mandatory notice periods (i.e., 2 weeks’ notice for a planned doctor’s appointment) do not violate the sick leave law.
  • Update hiring notices and workplace posters.
  • Educate supervisors on how to spot fraud or abuse without inadvertently retaliating against employees for using paid leave. Most laws prevent employers from seeking any verification unless an employee has been absent three consecutive working days.
  • Review payroll practices to ensure employees are receiving the proper rate of pay for the use of sick leave, and that pay stubs include any required information.
  • Develop a consistent tracking method to ensure that employees accurately accrue time, and that any time used is properly credited and deducted from the balance.

And, while this article is specific to regions in the state of Minnesota, their impact will reverberate across other US states. Also, while labour laws and leave management tracking are different in Canada they could eventually make their way north of the border.

 So, if your company is tracking employee time and attendance including, vacation, and other leave management through paper time sheets, you don’t need to anymore.

With ATS TimeWork OnDemand you can:

 Automate Tracking of Management Policies: ATS TimeWorkOnDemand helps automate the administration and tracking of paid and unpaid federal, provincial, and otherregional employer-specific leave policies. ATS TimeWorkOnDemand can be configured to match the needs of your organization to maintain balances, reduce manual process errors, and control absence costs.

Simplify and Streamline Compliance: Federal regulations and provincial and/or state laws and union policies, often have overlapping eligibility rules, benefit accruals, and notice requirements. Which makes it all the more important that companies should a time and attendance system that allows to them to accurately track employee attendance and leave management policies. ATS TimeWorkOnDemand solution allows your organization to automate laws and policies in a single solution—simplifying compliance and reducing costs, while also freeing your HR team to focus on higher priority responsibilities.

Keep Accurate Attendance: ATS TimeWorkOnDemand will make sure your leave policies are enforced consistently and accurately across your entire company. With ATS leave management automation, your employees will have access to self-service capabilities through leave eligibility, and balance tracking — available24/7, 365 days a year from any Smartphone or tablet, anytime, anywhere.

To learn more about ATS TimeWorkOnDemand Leave Management solution, go to our website. You can also register for one of our bi-weekly webinars. And to reach an account executive,call: 866.294.2467.

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Does Your Company Offer Fridays Off?

July 26th, 2017 | Posted by ATS in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on Does Your Company Offer Fridays Off?)

The concept of a four day work week, employees being allowed to leave early on Friday or get have it off isn’t new. If fact, it has been the norm in the health and medical field and other industries for years. According to the Society for Human Resource Management this perk is offered as an option to some employees 43% of companies, yet only 10% of those companies make it available to all or most of their employees. Lately, companies have been using it to attract and retain top talent. And why is that? Many of today’s workforce especially millennial are not interested in jobs that require one to work 60 hours a week, and instead, value time-off from work to spend with friends and family.

Does Your Company Offer Fridays Off?

A recent study by CEB, now Gartner says that Organizations Are Offering Flexible Schedules, Reduced Hours to Retain Employees Who Are Feeling More Confident About the Labor Market.

In its press release on the study, it revealed the following:

“Summer Fridays” are days that organizations offer employees the flexibility to leave early or take the entire day off. Organizations that offer this type of perk may have a competitive advantage when trying to retain their top talent.

According to data from the CEB Global Talent Monitor, employee confidence in the business environment and their personal economic prospects increased again in Q1 2017 – the fourth consecutive quarter. In addition to feeling better about the global labor market, employees are increasingly seeking out new jobs in several major economies, including the U.S., China and Germany.

“As the number of employees feeling more confident about their personal job prospects increases, companies must find creative ways to reward and retain their top talent,” said Brian Kropp, HR practice leader at CEB, now Gartner. “Giving employees the gift of time via Summer Fridays is one low-cost way to improve employee engagement, which in turn can increase employee productivity and drive business results.”

For many employees, work-life balance is one of the top factors they consider when choosing to take or leave a job. Even organizations that are unable to offer an official Summer Fridays program can capitalize on the importance of work-life balance and reinforce the value they place on employees by:

  • Allowing staff to work from home more frequently during the summer
  • Enabling employees to shift their hours to either come in early or later
  • Encouraging employees to take PTO without guilt

Before trotting up to your boss with all this data to make your case for either working half day or having Fridays off, make sure you understand the make up of your organization. If your company does not offer either, your manager might have a compelling case. Ask employees who have been at your organization, longer than you about its history. There is likely a reason why your company does not have it.

Whether it’s working half day on Fridays, telecommuting on that day or having it off altogether, it isn’t limited to the private sector. The Canadian and US Governments in various departments offer some version of the proverbial “Summer Fridays” and in some instances, it’s year round.

Keep current with ATS:

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How To Effectively Manage Paid Time Off And Increase Employee Morale

December 7th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Employee Self Service | ERP | Leave Management | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Canada - (Comments Off on How To Effectively Manage Paid Time Off And Increase Employee Morale)

Managing paid time off can be a difficult undertaking, for companies who are tracking it the old fashion way through; a variety of spreadsheets and disparate systems used by different supervisors who each have their own method of tracking time off.

But this type of tracking can only take you so far. Because when it comes to proper compliance of labour laws in many jurisdictions, those spreadsheets and the archaic methods of tracking paid time off (PTO) won’t help. Why? Because many provinces and states throughout Canada and the US have stepped up their compliance investigations and, as such, many organizations have found themselves facing increased risk of scrutiny and financial fallout.

how-to-effectively-manage-paid-time-off-and-increase-employee-morale

Here are three ways to effectively track and manage your workforce paid time off policies:

 Automate the Process
Instead of manually tracking employee time off requests through spreadsheets and other outdated processes, you should think about deploying a time and attendance solution. ATS time and attendance will become an important part of protecting your business from penalties. ATS TimeWork will help your company stay on track, and stores the documentation you will need in case of a payroll or attendance audit.

Intuitive Absence Tracking
ATS Absence Request is fully configurable tool accompanied by full complement of analytic reporting that can be assigned to any type of absence including; family leave, (maternity and paternity) long and short term disability, jury duty, sick days, vacation and unlimited flexibility and code options that can be tailored to any company regardless of industry. And best of all your employees can punch in and out through a mobile device, kiosk/touch screens and/or biometric time clocks.

 Integrate to Payroll, Human Resources or Enterprise Resource Planning
ATS Absence Request can be easily exported and imported into many existing management systems. Data can be imported into payroll to ensure proper payroll tracking for personal time off (PTO) days are taken in accordance with correct payouts for those days. By deploying ATS Time and Attendance and taking advantage of the Absence Request module, you immediately eliminate human error that comes with tracking employee absence manually.

With ATS Absence Request you can transform tedious, time consuming everyday tasks into intelligent, efficient processes that drive business insight.

To learn more go to our website and download a demonstration. To reach an account executive by phone, call: 866.294.2467.

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