Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software

Here Are 3 ways To Create Better Employee Scheduling

A recent article for TLNT.com by Joyce Maroney titled, Ease Retail Turnover By Making Scheduling More Flexible for online sheds light on the headaches that retail managers endure. Whether you are in retail, healthcare or hospitality, you will run into obstacles when creating schedules for employees — and if those schedules are manual, you will be plagued, with unnecessary headaches.

Here are 3 ways to create better schedules from the article:

Make taking time off easy — Establish a formal (ideally written) policy regarding time off requests and execute that policy consistently to ensure workers trust that the process is fair. Beyond that, actually provide workers with paid time off — to refresh themselves and to help avoid absence abuses — and encourage workers to take the time they want and need.

Create personalized schedules — Collaborate with workers when setting their schedules so that their shift preferences are accommodated as much as possible. Take advantage of automated scheduling and analytics tools to ensure that managers have visibility into worker availability and can plan for shift coverage. And don’t forget to provide workers with accrual information and make it easy for them to check their time, request shift changes, and swap shifts with coworkers — bonus points if they can do so from their own phones.

Use technology to staff smartly — Seek insight into how to address staffing coverage during uber-busy periods like Black Friday by looking at historical trends of labor drivers, schedule preferences, and booked vacation time. Doing this requires discipline and analysis, but once the models are in place, managers can easily re-run them with little additional effort to help make intelligent and data-backed staffing decisions in real time.

ATS Workforce Management (WFM) is a comprehensive optimization, planning, and time and attendance software application that manages employee resource demand, streamlines payroll costs, and business analytics. ATS Workforce Management mitigates the risk of potential compliance errors and reduce costs with purpose-built solution capabilities, while encouraging employees to focus on activities that generate more value.

To learn more about ATS (HCM) Workforce Management capabilities, or to download demonstration, go to our website. And, to reach an account executive, call 866.294.2467.

Analytics, Payroll, Scheduling, Workforce Management

Are You Keeping Accurate Data To Handle Potential Issues Of Back-Wages?

The issue of back-wages rears its ugly head from time to time when an employee either leaves a company voluntarily or otherwise. If that employee leaves unceremoniously said employee may seek back wages a few weeks or several months afterwards. The companies who have solid record keeping, in the form of a robust time and attendance system can access records of employment (ROE) at the click of a mouse. Those who rely on paper time cards or antiquated time tracking methods can find themselves spending an inordinate amount of time trying to locate those same records. And because, manual time tracking can be fraught with errors, it’s more likely that those records will not be accurate.

In Canada and the US, the amount of years that employers are required to keep records of employment (ROE) differs across provinces and jurisdictions. In the US under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and in Canada under Canada Labour Code employers are required to have proof of overtime wages paid, straight-time and overtime hours worked, payroll deductions and other wage-related materials. By deploying a time and attendance system, companies reduce the risk of missing work related data that is required by law in the event of a dispute.

Related Benefits Include:

Scheduling- Companies can assign shifts to their employees with our powerful and easy-to-use scheduling software. The application can create conflict-free schedules copy shifts and allows you to import schedules.

Track Absences- Keep track of attendance with a variety of employee time clocks. ATS has up to-the-minute reporting tools to let you easily track who is coming in late and/or who is missing shifts.

Leave Management- ATS TimeWork allows for automated calculation of benefit accruals and balances. The application provides unlimited attendance history and online viewing of real-time employee leave requests. Employees can register their time-off requests through any device (smart phone, tablet or workstation) that has Internet access. Managers get instant notification through an e-mail and can approve the requests online.

TimeWork On-Demand- eliminates need for paper time sheets and error prone manual processes and helps control overtime. The ATS time and attendance solution takes the guess—work out of employee scheduling and payroll calculation.

Work and Pay Policies- ATS can configure user-defined business policies of an organization and grants you access to best-in-class workforce management reports. The database allows for policies such as; overtime, job costing, forecasting and budgeting, overtime equalization, lunch and break periods, rounding, holiday pay, shift differentials and weekend premiums.

Using an ATS time and attendance will help you stay in compliance, increase productivity and best of all, streamline payroll costs. As for those records of employment, you now have those at your fingertips from anywhere and at anytime.

To learn more about how ATS TimeWork can help you reduce payroll costs, contact us. You can also join us on Friday, May 23^rd at 1:00pm for a free time and attendance webinar.

Employee Time Clocks, Job Costing, Leave Management, Payroll, Scheduling

Anatomy of an Ideal Workforce Management Solution: Just Keep It Simple

The key to an employee attendance solution should be one borne out of simplicity and flexibility. At the heart of the product should be its ability to track attendance. To some companies, all that matters are the “bells and whistles”. However, being able to activate different modules within your system and its ability to manage your company core requirements should be top of mind.ATS Time & Attendance helps mid and large organizations automate attendance by replacing manual time sheets.

Solution Benefits to an ATS Time and Attendance includes:

Flexibilibity
ATS time and attendance is offered as both cloud-based an on-premises powered by a robust platform with a plethora of modules designed to grow with your business. ATS time and attendance is rapid to implement, adaptable to your business’ needs and simple to use. ATS time and attendance On-Premises application uses industry best practices and business intelligence process flows designed to help accelerate the deployment of the solution. ATS deployment strategies help to dramatically shorten the learning curve for both administrative and operational users.

Simplicity at its core
ATS employs a consistent implementation methodology complete, with project roadmaps all designed to stay on time and on budget. Replacing paper timesheets with an ATS solution allows you to leverage your time and attendance data to enhance the productivity of your workforce.

Solution designed for the needs of different industries

ATS time and attendance integrates to third-party applications and, at the same time streamlines business processes to include; job costing, scheduling, overtime, holiday calculations and time-off requests—within one single software system.

ATS delivers workforce management software process efficiency across a variety of verticals, complemented by the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Our next-generation time and attendance software will help you optimize business performance across your entire enterprise.

To test drive ATS TimeWork On-Demand, go to our website. You can also follow us on Google Plus, LinkedIn or Twitter. You can also register for our live and informative webinar“Maximize Business Value with a Workforce Management Software” on April 25^th.

Anatomy of an Ideal Workforce Management Solution, Just Keep It Simple

Job Costing, Overtime, Scheduling, Time and Attendance, Workforce Management Software

3 New Year’s Resolutions That Will Increase Your Company’s Bottom-Line

New Year’s resolutions are nothing new. Each year many of us compile a list of goals we would like to achieve. Businesses also have goals, chief among them, how to increase sales while reducing operational costs. One of the most effective ways to streamline costs is to automate your operations with an effective employee time management system.

The benefit of a time and attendance solution is its ability to streamline processes, from automatic data collection to instant business analytics. The ATS software solution is fully integrated and accessible in real-time; it provides you with a picture of how your company is running at any given time.

Here are 3 Ways to Increase Your Company’s Bottom-Line in 2013:

Efficiency – ATS employee time management system enables companies to observe employee patterns and gives a historical overview of your company’s payroll costs. As your company continues to streamline its processes, you gain efficiency in production which leads to higher retention and more to the bottom-line.

Business Analytics- ATS business analytics enables companies to become effective by monitoring performance against defined key metrics and key indicators. Our solution provides intuitive reporting through a web browser—all in real time. ATS TimeWork allows users to view trends and drill down into detailed data from multiple sources, providing the flexibility and accuracy to quickly make fact-based decisions, and to analyze and share critical information.

Lower Operational Costs– Keeping payroll costs down is important to any business. Because it can be perfectly adapted to your organisation, ATS TimeWork lowers your costs from the very beginning. The solution includes a host of benefits that help with the elimination of paper-based time sheets or antiquated punch cards. The result is a cost-effective solution, with maximum functionality for your business.

Our time and attendance system is built for Canadian businesses and provides tools for forecasting, budgeting, planning, scheduling, employee self-service, job costing, and a range of business intelligence tools for mid-large organizations. To find out more subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter or connect with us on LinkedIn.

Budgeting, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Employee Self Service, Employee Time Management System, Forecasting, Job Costing, Payroll, Scheduling

Three Reasons to Switch to a SaaS Time and Attendance Solution

ATS Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Time and Attendance is a subscription based solution that offers a superior advantage to large and small businesses. Customers can access this cloud solution through the Internet via any web browser. With this solution you avoid costly servers, version upgrades and software licenses. ATS receives feedback from its customers who rave about the ease-of-use in accessing the solution anytime they want to.

If your company has been considering switching to an automated time and attendance system here are three reasons to choose ATS:

Reduction of Labour Cost
Over the years numerous studies have shown that companies spend thousand of dollars each year to capture employee time with a manual tracking system. ATS SaaS time and attendance is configured to adapt to your work policies. The end result is a system that automates; overtime, benefit accruals and statutory holidays in your jurisdiction.

Business Intelligence and Labour Analytics
ATS cloud time and attendance provides scheduling, time and wage calculation, time card editing and approval. The business intelligence tool empowers companies to quickly and easily obtain the information required for improved operations and reporting across an entire business. The business intelligence eliminates manual report preparation, repetitive data extracts, and complex back-end data joins to provide you with up-to-date, accurate, and presentation-quality reports for informed decision-making.

Implementation
Unlike on-premises solutions, ATS SaaS Time and Attendance takes a few weeks and not several years to install. A simple web browser is all user needs to start using the software. The software enables your company to implement a fully functional management system at new sites, regions or production sites without investing in high-cost IT infrastructure.

To learn more go to join our LinkedIn group discussions, follow us on Twitter, or go to our website.

Benefit Accruals, Cloud Time and Attendance, Labour Analytics, Labour Costs, Overtime, SaaS Time and Attendance, Scheduling, Time and Attendance System, Time Card Editing

Is Technical Support Aligned with your Expectations?

The lack of proper customer support is an issue in many industries. One of Canada’s most prominent and well known consumer advocates is Ellen Roseman of the Toronto Star. Her many columns highlight some of the Herculean challenges consumers have to overcome with their service providers to get answers. While not all companies have developed a reputation for poor customer service, the ones that do, tend to tarnish the reputation of other companies that operate within the same industry.

Any company purchasing a time management system should expect top notch support. At ATS, we believe providing customer support should be inherent in a company’s corporate DNA. If the company’s executives do not place value in servicing its customers, this attitude will trickle down to the front line employees who provide the day to day technical support. We constantly hear from customers about the difficulties they face in their attempts to get through a support rep. One customer recounted how she was directed to the vendor’s website to download brochures for training on a new module that had been installed a week prior. When the customer inquired, she was told that training is only provided one time only and that was at the original time of purchase. Training for additional modules or new managers came in the form of product manuals that customers had to figure out on their own.

ATS’s robust time and attendance enables companies to control payroll costs. Our solution uses intuitive data intelligence to: track overtime hours, schedule employees, forecast labour and control attendance management. TimeWork integrates with employee data collectors, employee self-service and ERP and HR applications in order to share and gather information.

The flow of information allows you to have up to date labour analytics and add your own constantly changing variables.

Benefits to an ATS Time and Attendance Solution:

Forecasting helps with coverage for scheduling and measuring labour
Employee self-service empowers employees to review worked hours and request time off
Benefit accruals award time off based on an employees work history approvals, reports, and exceptions that require action
Leave Management automates the employee leave process.
Enforces local, state/provincial and federal labour laws easily

To learn more contact one of our representatives and to download a brochure, go to our website.

Employee Self Service, Forecasting, Leave Management, Scheduling, Time and Attendance Technical Support

Why Automate?

November 24th, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Payroll | Time and Attendance | Time and Attendance On-Demand - (0 Comments)

Whether you’re running a small business with 70 employees or an organization with 15,000 employees, a time and attendance system can make your life easier. But how can you choose a solution that meets your organization’s needs?

Organizations that have always used paper time sheets might be worried about transitioning from a manual system to a time and attendance solution. Once a company discovers how beneficial such a solution can be, they will wonder why their company did not automate this process before.

Here are some of the benefits that businesses gain after transitioning from a manual time tracking process to ATS workforce management software:

Immediate Efficiency

The processing of manual time sheets is fraught with human error. Studies by the Arbeeden Group and the American Payroll Association show that human error typically accounts for 1 to 7% of payroll costs. An ATS workforce management solution automates the tracking of employee attendance and provides information in real-time. At the end of the payroll cycle, employee hours can be sent seamlessly to your payroll application.

Reduce Unproductive Time
When a company’s time capture is being handled manually, payroll professionals, supervisors and HR managers have to verify the following: overtime, long breaks, early arrivals and late departures.

Absence/Vacation Request

The web-based absence request module automates employee time off requests, eliminates paperwork and enhances communication that’s essential between HR department and the employees. The absence/vacation request module enables employees to request personal time off and vacation related information. Employees can request multiple absences and view them in a summary format. Supervisors can approve or deny time-off requests based on availability.

The ATS workforce management software is a complete time and attendance suite with employee scheduling and data export integration capabilities. Payroll is most often the largest expense of any company. Streamlining labour costs with a time and attendance software can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line.

To learn more, go to our website or log on to join our weekly user group.

Absence Request, Labour Cost, Payroll, Scheduling, Small Business, Time and Attendance, Time and Attendance On-Demand, Time and Attendance Software

‘Tis the Season to Monitor Productivity and Labour Costs

November 21st, 2011 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Retail | Scheduling | Time and Attendance Solution - (0 Comments)

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, retailers are both hopeful and excited. Most retail operations increase their staffing levels in anticipation of business volume. The ATS time and attendance solution helps retail operations keep track of employee attendance, absenteeism and monitors productivity for optimal profitability.

This robust time and attendance solution supports an unlimited number of schedules, as well as, fixed, open and flexible shifts. Employee tracking options include: Online Time Sheets, Web-Time Clocks, Biometric Terminals, Barcode Time Clocks, Magnetic Swipe Clocks, Smart Phones and Tablet PCs which monitor employee time and compile a range of labour analytics reports. Retail operations utilizing the ATS time and attendance solution will easily avoid payroll errors and the inflationary costs associated with mistakes made through manual processes.

Solution Benefits:

Employee Scheduling

ATS integrated time and attendance scheduling application ensures your levels are aligned to business volume. The software helps supervisors schedule the right people in the right place at the right time. The application allows supervisors to schedule by: seniority, skills, certifications, preferences and availability.

Budgeting

The budgeting module provides supervisors with the tools to review projected vs. actual labour expenses in each department. A variety of intuitive reports help supervisors adjust staffing to align with budgeted hours.

Forecasting

The ATS forecasting module helps retailers track the history of business volume and produce accurate forecasts of future business cycles while simultaneously providing detailed calculations of workforce management requirements. Departments can track data by defining forecast drivers to achieve a set of requirements specifically to that department. The ATS forecasting module provides businesses with technology to develop work schedules that meet business demands.

The ATS integrated time and attendance scheduling application can be set up in less than a week depending on the complexity of the business requirements. The solution is web-based and does not require a company to buy licenses and install software. Instead, companies pay an “as-needed” subscription fee and then access the software from a computer using any web browser.

To learn more, go to our website or REGISTER on to join our weekly time and attendance user group.

Absence Management, Absenteeism, ATS Time and Attendance Solution, Budgeting, Employee Attendance, Forecasting, Hosted Time and Attendance On-Demand, Labour Cost, Payroll, Productivity, Retail, Scheduling, Time and Attendance Solution, Web-Based Time and Attendance

Here Are 3 ways To Create Better Employee Scheduling

Are You Keeping Accurate Data To Handle Potential Issues Of Back-Wages?

Anatomy of an Ideal Workforce Management Solution: Just Keep It Simple

3 New Year’s Resolutions That Will Increase Your Company’s Bottom-Line

Is Technical Support Aligned with your Expectations?

Why Automate?

‘Tis the Season to Monitor Productivity and Labour Costs

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