Workforce Management Blog

Automate this Tedious Task

Scheduling employees for shifts can be one of the most tedious and time-consuming jobs a manager faces. Sifting through various absence requests, ensuring no one is working overtime, while at the same time making sure the schedule gives everyone an equal number of shifts, is no easy task.

Implementing an automated scheduling system ­­­allows companies to:

• Control costs. Automated scheduling modules allow users to assign employees to shifts based on system recommendations, which provide you with many options in regards to costs (i.e. choosing the cheapest combination of employees, blending experienced workers with amateur staff, etc.). Furthermore, the system will avoid scheduling overtime. Using all these features will ultimately lead to decreased labour costs for the company.
• Reduce risk. Creating a schedule automatically allows managers to input any legal regulations, as well as rules in employee and union agreements. The system will take these all into account, to avoid any non-compliance.
• Be alerted. Companies using an automated scheduler have the option of setting up alerts within the system to inform them of any deviations from regulations, or if a specific employee has been scheduled for too many or too few hours.
• Empower employees. Give employees access to schedules in advance, and allow them to automatically request time off through a self-service portal.
• Take corrective action. Identify gaps between the budget forecast and planned schedules before deviations occur, to allow for corrective action.
• Stay organized. Automatically creating schedules is simpler, faster, and much easier to keep track of. All the information regarding scheduling is centralized and easily accessible, keeping the whole process more organized and less prone to error.

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Absenteeism is becoming a growing problem for companies of all sizes. Here are some reasons to explain absenteeism, and some resolutions to combat it.

Reasons

1. Lack of Commitment: Employees who are not interested in the success of the company will likely be willing to miss work without a legitimate excuse. This lack of commitment to the organization and their jobs can stem from poor working conditions, which will be discussed later in the article.
2. Lack of Consequences: Simply put, incentives encourage attendance and punishments discourage absence. Furthermore, employee packages that allow for a lot of time off can lead to workers abusing this.  
3. Poor Working Conditions: Working in an environment that is unpleasant will discourage employees from coming to work every day. Poor conditions can include a lack of breaks, an excessive workload, a stressful atmosphere or poor treatment from managers. Working in these poor conditions leads to a lack of commitment, simply because employees don’t enjoy their jobs.
4. Honest Excuses: Although there is a fair bit of unexcused absence in the workplace, employees are often away from work for legitimate reasons. These can range from sickness to car trouble, or anything in between.

Resolutions

1.  Work-Life Balance: Striking a balance between the workplace and personal life is something that companies should allow for employees. Building “personal days” into absence packages or implementing a “flextime” system can help with this.
2. Follow-ups: Conducting post-absence interviews can help managers clarify the reasons for absence, discuss ways the absence could have been avoided, and reinforce why absenteeism hurts the company (especially for employees who show a pattern of absenteeism).
3. Consequences: Absenteeism can be discouraged through negative consequences (punishments), and attendance can be encouraged through positive consequences (praise, recognition, monetary bonuses, or awards such as “Employee of the Month”).
4. Automation: Installing a time and attendance system to automatically track employee hours reduces illegitimate absences, and does not allow employees to get away with simply not showing up for work. An automated system can also produce fair schedules and track who is eligible for overtime, to ensure employees are happy with the hours they work, to ultimately motivate attendance.

Visit our website for more information on automated time and attendance solutions.

Over many years, companies have struggled to define attendance issues within an organization. Having to deal with excessive absenteeism on a daily basis has become a great burden for organizations all around. With the use of automated Time and Attendance systems companies are now able to define and track absenteeism. Now companies are able to track their organizations absenteeism on a day to day basis to help them manage attendance more effectively within a large organization. Automation also enables companies to define attendance issues and provide qualitative information with quantitative data through the use of statistical reporting.

Managing attendance within a large or geographically-widespread organization:

The first step in gaining control of an organization’s workforce is being able to effectively manage attendance within a large or geographically-widespread organization. Company policies and procedures are put into place to provide a fair and positive workplace environment. In order to achieve a productive workforce, management must take into consideration the organizations operational needs, to ensure that they have the right number of people with the right skills, when managing employee attendance. The ability to track labour hours and labour cost allows an organization to determine how much manpower is required at all operational times to have the company operating efficiently. Time and Labour Management software can calculate absence accruals and report on an ongoing basis, while taking into consideration company policies. Absence Planning software takes the occupational needs, as well as company policy and seamlessly allows a company to know at all times their scheduled attendance and absences.

Whether you are a large organization, or a company with multiple locations around the world, monitoring your workforce can be very difficult. Now with the evolution of today’s technology, Time and Attendance software is moving through these barriers and allowing open communication between employees and management.  By being able to operate through the use of the internet or a company’s internal intranet, managing attendance within a larger or geographically wide-spread organization is now possible.

With Absence Planning software, it makes managing your absences easy. Employees simply log onto the software and request an absence and then an email will be sent to their supervisor for approval. Before giving final approval, managers can quickly see if their departmental or classification occupational requirements will be staffed to the appropriate efficient levels, with the absence of that employee. Taking into consideration the company’s policies, Absence Planning software also notifies managers if the employee has enough time in their absence current or forecasted balance before approving the request. Visual warnings of being understaffed or a negative employee accrual balance will appear making the decision to approve a request a very simple task.

Absence Planning Software allows a company to be able to view past information by seeing actual versus planned attendance on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily view. To find out more about Absence Planning and automated Time & Attendance, visit our website.

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Well, the countdown is on! Only a few more days until the 2009 APA Annual Congress in Long Beach California!

TimeTECH will be exhibiting at the tradeshow portion of Congress at booth number 435. Last year Congress was held in Austin Texas where we made our first APA appearance as an exhibitor. The show was so successful, we decided to participate again. Last year we met thousands of HR and Payroll professionals interested in workforce management software, time and attendance, absence planning, benefit accruals, vacation planning and more!

We were shocked at how many large organizations across North America are still processing their time and attendance and other workforce management practices manually! They were all impressed by the amount of time and money their organization could saving by integrating TimeTECH’s workforce management solutions. Most companies see anywhere from 1-3% of their annual payroll back in savings.

Where do the savings come from?

• Eliminating buddy punching
• Time fraud
• Manual processing time
• Processing errors
• Rounding of hours
• Time spent processing pay rules
• Eliminating spreadsheets!
• And more!

If your company is attending the APA Congress in Long Beach, feel free to stop by our booth during the tradeshow hours to say hello! You can find us at booth 435.

Show Times:

May 20^th: 5:15pm-8:15pm

May 21st: 12:00pm – 7:30pm

May 22^nd: 10:00am – 12:00pm

For more information on the APA’s Annual Congress, visit their official website at: http://www.americanpayroll.org/congress/congress-2009

About APA Congress:

Pack your steamer trunk and head to Long Beach, California, May 19-23, 2009, for 4-1/2 information-packed days at the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center.

This year’s Congress features more than 190 workshops covering a wide spectrum of payroll, accounts payable, human resources, benefits, technology, management, and career development topics, along with the largest payroll and accounts payable exhibit hall in the world! Hear about the latest legislative and regulatory changes from government representatives and industry experts. Network with colleagues through workshops, at our exhibit hall, at meals and evening entertainment events.

See all the details in the Congress brochure.

Who should attend?

Our annual Congress is open to APA members, their colleagues, and others involved in payroll, accounts payable, human resources, benefits, and technology.

What you will learn

• What APA’s Washington lobbyists are doing to make your job a little easier
• The latest payroll compliance developments from the IRS, SSA, OCSE, DOL, and DHS
• Steps taken by leading payroll departments to reduce costs and improve their organization’s performance
• How to ensure compliance in difficult areas such as fringe benefits, 401(k) plans, stock options, cafeteria plans, nonqualified deferred compensation plans, and more
• What the IRS is looking for in executive compensation audits