Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Something a little different for us in this blog post … a testimonial from one of our own staff members!

At TimeForge, we use our own product for scheduling staff, clocking in and out, enforcing the schedule, and staff communication. In the world of technology, this is often called “eating your own dogfood“, and it ensures that if there are critical bugs, or if some new feature doesn’t work – we know immediately, and we feel the same pain that you, our customers, feel (talk about a great reason to fix something!).

A few weeks back, we hired Morgan, an aspiring soccer athlete and summer intern to help answer the phones, respond to emails, and expand our online labor management manual to help our customers manage their labor. Morgan has friends who are doing all sorts of summer jobs, working in grocery stores, life guarding, waiting tables, bar tending, etc… She hears their complaints about staff scheduling, requesting time off, and all of the other issues that go along with being managed (or managing) at your place of employment.

After using TimeForge for about a week, she had this to say about our product line …

This is my first week working here at TimeForge and I have learned that this software is an easier way for both employees and managers to do scheduling, request shifts, clock in and out, and view your time card.

I have many friends who work at retail and grocery stores and they request time off by using a request book. When managers use a request book, it usually takes hours of time to go through everything. After declining or accepting the employees request you have to reschedule and switch swifts for the staff members. Instead, with TimeForge, it only takes a few minutes to do all the rescheduling. Employees log on and request time off, or swap shifts. TimeForge can communicate with management with TimeForge messaging or email, keeping everyone in the loop. You can also receive text messages reminding staff members when to be at work, just so they don’t “forget“.

I have also learned that staff can view their time cards on TimeForge. Your time card shows the amount of hours you worked, the days you worked, and your hourly wage. My friends have also told me that when they clock in, they first have to go to the service counter and they will highlight your name to show management when you worked. With TimeForge all you have to do is log in and click “clock in”, and that’s it! TimeForge saves everyone’s time and it helps get things done quickly.

We can work at marketing and selling TimeForge all day long, but that’s about as powerful of a testimonial as it gets – from someone who has only used our software for a few days.

If you happen to call our offices, and get in touch with Morgan, make sure to say hello!

Related articles or pages

• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
• Employees are Assets, Not Liabilities (0)
• Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
• Using QuickBooks for Accounting? Use TimeForge for Labor Management! (0)
• Simple Employee Scheduling – Version 1.8.5 (Part 3) (0)

According to the National Retail Federation, turnover within the restaurant, retail and hospitality industry has been approximately 60%-200% over the past five years. Low pay and young staff members are major contributors to the problem, but what can businesses do to improve their turnover and, thereby, their labor costs? Employers should improve their recruiting strategies and their ability to retain employees. TimeForge’s labor management products can assist with strategies to hook the enthusiastic and hard-working Gen Y-ers, in addition to keeping them happy, informed, and fulfilled by their work.

Using college and high school campuses to recruit talent is an excellent way to reach Gen Y-ers in their element. Individuals who are part of Generation Y are especially peer-influenced, so recruiters should be close to their age, and advertisements should appeal to their interests. It’s important to highlight your businesses philanthropy and responsibility during recruiting, because, as we mentioned in Part One, Gen Y-ers are especially concerned about the environment, social justice and various conservation and humanitarian issues. It’s important to contribute toward (and emphasize to prospective employees and the community) the kind of charities that hit home with Generation Y.

An understanding of Generation Y’s appreciation and attachment to technology will help you better recruit and manage members of this demographic. The online and interactive labor management TimeForge provides is easy to use and appealing to Gen-Yers, who have grown up comfortable with computers. In addition to the appeal of online schedule viewing, shift-swapping, training/certification reminders and more, when it comes to applying for jobs, Generation Y prefers to submit their resume/application online. TimeForge’s applicant tracking systems make it easy to compile and store online applications with our applicant tracking systems, which will have you onboarding the most qualified applicants with minimal time and effort.

The amount of retailers accepting online applications has increased exponentially within the past 5-10 years, so if your business isn’t offering a digital application process, it’s likely that you’re losing out on potential job candidates. In a 2007 pilot program, McDonald’s installed computer kiosks to accept employee applications in 40 of its restaurants. The number of applicants at those restaurants jumped by as much as 100 percent. At one McDonald’s in College Station, Texas, the employee turnover rate also was reduced by more than 20 percent, according to an article by Andrew Tilin. By using TimeForge, your business could enjoy similar turnover reduction and employee retention.

Gen Y-ers appreciate the ability to apply quickly, easily, and impersonally while in casual clothes. Offering online application and resume submission also eliminates a great deal of the necessary paperwork that comes with accepting applications and hiring new employees, which not only makes things simpler for management and corporate (where applicable) but it’s a start towards Generation-Y-luring “Green” initiatives. TimeForge can drastically reduce the need for paperwork with our online products that feature document/certification uploading and storage, employee on-boarding, and employee management to assist in a transition to a more “Green” company.

It’s also important to recognize that more Gen Y-ers have goals of opening their own businesses one day, than in previous generations. Learning what they need to know in order to accomplish this is another intangible benefit your business can offer to Generation Y (and other) staff members, and TimeForge’s labor management system is a great way for inexperienced individuals to gain experience and understanding of what managing people is like. In order to find future entrepreneurs, recruit and advertise near hospitality-geared high school classes and university colleges (ex: Texas Tech’s Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management college,) and give your Generation Y employees as much room for education and higher placement as possible, in order to allow for growth and continued interest.

TimeForge can help your business better appeal to Generation Y, which can help increase your number of applicants, reduce your turnover, and allow you to better manage your entire labor staff, regardless of generation.

Related articles or pages

• Going Green is Good for Profits (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing (2)
• Employees are Assets, Not Liabilities (0)

Generation Y has become a challenging market for many businesses in the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries – and most other industries, as well. Generation Y is very different from previous generations, and, to successfully market to them, you must find ways to appeal to their unique needs and wants. TimeForge’s online, digital products are especially easy-to-use for this demographic.

Generation Y consists of those born between 1980 and 2000 and are between the ages of 9 and 29 (BusinessWeek). With over 70 million individuals, they make up 25% of the population – that’s a big piece of the pie your business could be profiting from!

Generation Y is more ethnically diverse, socially-conscious (green/organic marketing is very successful with them — making TimeForge’s paperless, eco-friendly quality appealing to them) and more accepting of alternative lifestyles than past generations. They spend $100 per week on disposable spending (money spent on wants, not needs) which accounts for $150 billion dollars annually! For the older Generation Y individuals (who enjoy the majority of this spending money,) that’s money spent primarily on things like food and drinks — the vast majority of their money is allocated towards entertainment that the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries provide.

In order to successfully market to Generation Y, you must first understand their appreciation and attachment to technology. According to a study by Forrester Research, Gen Y-ers are estimated to spend 20 Billion dollars online per year. The ability to order out, make reservations and check out a new restaurant/retail establishment online are of vital importance to Generation Y. If you business doesn’t offer this kind of online interactive capabilities, you could be losing out on a lot of potential customers. Additionally, is you don’t have an online system for employees in place, you could be losing out on a large number of Generation Y employees, who prefer the ease of features like text message reminders before shifts, online availability editing, shift-swapping, schedule viewing from their PCs or internet-enabled phones, and more. 90% of Generation Y-ers have a personnel computer, 50% of 12-17 year olds have cell phones, and 45% of 18-24 year olds have internet on their mobile devices, and as those numbers increase, their dependability of these devices does as well.

With this technology, Gen Y-ers base their decisions for making purchases on different criteria that the generations before them. Social media such as facebook, MySpace and twitter play a huge role in Gen Y-ers’ lives, and how they interact with their friends and family, which is why TimeForge is accessible from mobile phones, facebook and via text message. Not only will having pages on sites like these and integrating with social media and mobile phone capabilities increase your relevance to Generation Y, but Gen Y-ers are notorious for publicizing every aspect of their lives. If you have an easily linked-to facebook page or Web site, it makes it easy for Gen-Yers to tell their friends/followers about your business, and the experience they had. And, as demonstrated by the Forrester study below, clearly Gen Y-ers (as well as other generations!) are responsive to tips from friends.

As the chart above demonstrates, nearly 60% of Gen Y-ers often tell their friends about products and places that interest them, indicating that word-of-mouth or “buzz” advertising is effective with this age group. Additionally, nearly 50% of Gen Y-ers as well as Gen X-ers agree that price is more important to them than brand names.

As the Forrester study below demonstrates, Generation Y has a dramatically higher percentage of “Creators,” or trend starters, meaning that they enjoy being the first to discover new places, trends, and more. Generation Y’s percentage of “Joiners,” or individuals who hop on the trend band-wagon, is more than double that of other generations. This means that Gen Y-ers are not only eager to discover and patronize new establishments, but they’re excited about being involved in a marketing “buzz.” Where earlier generations were skeptical of marketing ploys, Gen Y-ers enthusiastically embrace and assist them.

Generation Y-ers care about the “cool” factor. Companies like Apple and Target (click the links to see ad examples) are extremely successful in marketing to Generation Y (particularly Gen Y’s “Joiners”) because they focus on marketing their brands as young, hip and fun. They use trendy indie or popular music in their advertisements, tout their green (which a paperless labor management system can help start) or philanthropic initiatives and make their brand relatable to people in the Genera ion Y age group.

Online Social Ladder

So, what does all this mean for your business? It means that in order to successfully market to Generation Y, and to create and maintain customers within Generation Y, your business must institute:

1: Social media pages in order to connect with and inform Generation Y. In addition to a facebook page for your business, TimeForge is accessible from facebook, keeping your Gen Yers in-the-know, in their element.

2: Integrate with online technology as much as possible. (Ex: Online ordering and reservations.)

3: Put as much online buzz-worthy marketing out there as possible. If you post it, they will re-post/re-tweet etc.

4: Give your brand a “cool” factor. Your business should seem young, hip and fun. TimeForge manages Gen Yers in a way they can understand and relate to, more than ever before, which will boost staff morale and your employees’ opinions of the business (which this generation is enthusiastic about repeating to others.)

5: Last, but not least: Tout your Green or philanthropic endeavors. If you don’t have any, getting some should be a priority. By simply adding TimeForge to your business’ labor management, our Green product will virtually eliminate the need for paperwork and give your company something Green to add to your list of Gen Y-approved qualities.

To learn more about how TimeForge can help you get Gen Y-ers in the door, click here to learn more or sign up for a free trial today. Also, continue on to Part Two of our examination of Generation Y to learn how to recruit, maintain and satisfy Gen Y employees.

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Going Green is Good for Profits (0)
• TimeForge HR: Changing Human Resources in Hospitality and Retail (0)

The pre-hire and on-boarding processes for bringing on a new hire can cost managers and business owners hours of valuable time. Most businesses must go through the process of collecting resumes and cover letters, applications, assessments, background checks, I-9 and W-4 documents, payroll documentation, insurance forms, staff availability, and other necessary documents such as copies of certifications and previous training verification.

In addition to the time spent collecting these documents and other demographic information, there can be costly legal repercussions for failing to keep records on file and properly documented.

TimeForge HR can reduce all of this paperwork hassle into a simple and fast point and click process. Getting a new employee ready for scheduling or tracking time is as simple as entering the employee’s basic information within TimeForge’s innovative labor management software.

Managers can set up any number of prehire and onboarding documents that must be on file before the new hire is allowed to clock in or be scheduled to work. This innovative process allows you to define a standard employment process for your organization – ensuring that new employees have all of the necessary documents before they are scheduled, or clock in.

TimeForge HR documents can include relevant dates and any employer notes, and you can also scan and upload documents directly into TimeForge – no more searching for relevant paperwork!

Store Documents, Demographics, and HR Information

Additionally, if you enter an employee’s email address into TimeForge, the software will automatically email the employee instructions on how to login to TimeForge, check upcoming schedules, enter requests for time off and much more – greatly speeding up the onboarding process within your organization.

Our easy-to-use online product, TimeForge HR, allows managers and business owners to add an employee, change their availability and submit documents to TimeForge in seconds, making the onboarding of new personnel faster and more convenient than ever. For a free trial of TimeForge, sign up here and see how TimeForge is making labor management woes a thing of the past!

Related articles or pages

• TimeForge Breaks Make Your Life Simple (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)
• Your Manager’s Log Doesn’t Work (1)
• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications (0)
• TimeForge Improvements (0)

Employee dissatisfaction is common among businesses in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries, and will lead to a high turnover rate. High turnover in a business is extremely costly, as new employees need to be recruited, trained and properly certified – each one costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.

To assist with managing the labor requirements of your business, TimeForge offers extensive reports for many tasks including labor costs, breaks, and scheduled labor, among many others. This week, TimeForge introduced several new reports to make labor management more efficient and decrease turnover in your business.

Shift Ranking:

Are your staff happy with their work environment? From the point of view of your staff members, are there problems with certain shifts that need to be addressed? How would you know which shifts are causing issues with your staff, so that you can address the needs of your staff and your business? You’d use TimeForge!

Using TimeForge, employees have the ability to record whether they were satisfied with the shift they just worked. Our new Shift Ranking reports allow managers and business owners to review a comprehensive account of how many employees were happy with their shift – and how many were unhappy – as well as the ratio of satisfied vs. dissatisfied employees, by either position or shift.

These remarkable new reports, an industry first, provide employers the ability to pinpoint problematic shifts and staff positions in order to decrease turnover and maximize profits for the business. Another report displays shift satisfaction among multiple locations to allow multi-unit operators to remotely monitor their business.

Shift Swapping:

Did you start the week with the perfect schedule, but by the end of the week you are paying unexpected overtime and have unhappy staff? One possibility is that staff are making too many shift swaps, changing around the staffing schedule in an unpredictable manner. Use TimeForge to identify heavy shift swapping and make profitable business decisions!

Our latest shift swap reports allow employers to view the shifts that employees are giving up and picking up, during any period of time, as well as the ratios of shifts given up vs. picked up. These reports provide employers the unmatched capability to gain understanding and control over employees’ shift-swapping habits to successfully remedy employee scheduling problems and overtime abuse.

Managing a workforce requires some give-and-take between management and staff members to ensure that the business runs successfully. Use TimeForge to gain insight into the day-to-day labor management at your business. Just look at what TimeForge customers have had to say about our revolutionary product.

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees (0)
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
• Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing (2)

In many states/localities, employees receive paid and/or unpaid break periods and possibly meal periods according to the law. Our Breaks feature allows management to set up rules which govern these employee breaks and meal periods, letting managers know when to grant breaks to on-duty or scheduled employees.

Scheduling Breaks

With our revolutionary Breaks module, employers can add their state or company’s “Break Rules” or “Meal Period Rules” and delegate whether the break is paid or unpaid, optional or required. After adding the necessary breaks, TimeForge can automatically place them on the schedule, and will stagger the breaks to keep employees from all taking the breaks at the same time.  Alternatively, managers can specify each break individually.

Using TimeForge Breaks, with TimeForge Scheduling, business owners and management can:

• Specify breaks based on hours worked, position, or duration of work scheduled.
• AutoScheduler™ can quickly stagger breaks for each scheduled shift.
• Schedule and manage both paid and unpaid, and optional and required breaks.
• Print break reports and worksheets to track employee signatures.

Taking Breaks:

Employees can begin or end their break with the touch of a button inside of TimeForge.  Managers can set options to allow to employees to take breaks based on the scheduled break settings, or staff can select what kind of break they will be taking, (paid / unpaid, required / optional).  If preferred, management can print out the break worksheet and capture employee signatures for any waived or new breaks.

Using TimeForge Breaks, with TimeForge Attendance, business owners and management can:

• Track employees’ breaks (paid, unpaid, optional, required, etc.) for labor reporting.
• Automatically take breaks based on the schedule if staff forget to break in or out.
• Simple one-click conversion of unpaid breaks to paid breaks (and vice versa).
• Real time web and mobile view of labor and which staff members are on break.

Alerting/Reporting:

TimeForge can automatically stagger staff member breaks when you add them to the staffing schedule, ensuring that the front of the house is never left empty and customers without service.

Because attendance breaks (time tracking and time punches) are often different from the scheduled breaks, TimeForge allows you to also see a display of employees’ breaks based on the scheduled hours with our Break Report, and track breaks that employees have taken, or should take, based on the staff members scheduled work hours with our printable Break Worksheet Report. Our detailed and comprehensive reports make it simple and to view employees’ habits and work histories.

Managers and business owners can opt to be alerted if staff members do not take their scheduled breaks on time.  For example: If an employer set TimeForge to alert after 15 minutes of non-compliance with the break rules, and an employee is scheduled to take a break at 1 pm, TimeForge will send an alert at 1:15pm if the staff member has not yet taken the schedule break.

These reminders and alerts will ensure compliance with state and union required break rules – potentially circumventing costly fines and lawsuits.

Use the TimeForge Breaks module with our online labor management programs – Scheduling, Attendance, and Human Resources, to easily manage your staffing needs.  With TimeForge’s innovative online software, business owners and management are always at the top of their game. TimeForge makes quick work of painful tasks, like break management – saving business owners valuable time and effort.  Try TimeForge today!

Related articles or pages

• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy. (3)
• TimeForge Updates for December (2)
• TimeForge Improvements (0)
• On-boarding is Simple with TimeForge HR (0)
• Efficient Labor Management with the New TimeForge Today Page! (0)

On May 22-25, TimeForge will be exhibiting at the 2010 National Restaurant Association restaurant, Hotel and Motel Show at McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois, where we will be showing our latest generation of labor management software for retail, restaurants and hospitality businesses.

The latest version of our TimeForge labor management product encompasses the entirety of labor management, including staff scheduling, attendance tracking, payroll exports, and many aspects of human resources. If you’re going to be at the show, please stop by and pay us a visit to find out how easy it is to save your business time and money!

TimeForge will be occupying booth 5256 at the 2010 National Restaurant Association show, in between FishBowl, Inc. and Eco-Oil Saver.

NRA 2010 is the largest food service and hospitality event in the Western hemisphere. Last year, more that 2,000 exhibitors from 108 countries participated in this global marketplace for the restaurant and hospitality industry.

Highlights of the event include 60+ education sessions, culinary and designer exhibitions and many opportunities for networking. Restaurant owners, operators, chefs, managers, buyers, servers, bartenders, architects, designers, decorators, caterers, and special event professionals will be there exchanging information and ideas.

Use a labor management system to make your life easy and improve profitability at your business! TimeForge can quickly and easily manage staff schedules, employee time off, and time and attendance tracking timecards, employee attendance, and export payroll for accurate processing.  Sign up for a trial today to use TimeForge.

Related articles or pages

• NRA Show 2010 (0)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Going Green is Good for Profits (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications (0)

TimeForge has released another ground breaking feature in our labor management software – making TimeForge easier to use than ever!

Now, our customers can import data directly into the Web site to upload employees, positions, departments, and much more!  All new and existing clients now have the ability to upload a spreadsheet, such as those created on Microsoft Excel, directly into their TimeForge account online.  With this ability, business owners can import entire spreadsheets of employee information, such as names, positions, hourly wages, departments, pay rates, and more for immediate integration into our revolutionary labor management program – saving business owners time and money!

Import Staff, Positions, and More Using a Spreadsheet

Get back to managing your business, not sorting spreadsheets!

Anthony Presley, founder of TimeForge, understands the importance of easy to use employee management software:

“One of the biggest hurdles with any new software product is getting data into the software so it performs. With our CSV uploads and Point of Sale integrations, business owners can use TimeForge in minutes. Importing staff members, departments, pay rates and payroll codes is a point and click process with our upload capabilities.”

Sign up for a  free trial of our labor management tool today!

Related articles or pages

• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2) (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• What’s New in TimeForge? (Part 1) (0)
• What’s New in Employee Scheduling? (Part 2) (0)
• What’s Coming Soon? (1)

Managing and documenting human resources and human capital is a task that, due to its time-consuming and complicated nature, is often neglected in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries. Unfortunately, ignoring the day-to-day documentation requirements of your business can have a disastrous effect.

At TimeForge, we’ve introduced a revolutionary web-based human resources (HR) software product, TimeForge HR, that will immediately simplify employee documentation while reducing staff management costs for your business.

TimeForge HR addresses several HR specific pain points, including:

• Electronic cataloguing of applications, resumes, and other onboarding documents
• Management and staff alerts when certifications require renewal
• Track history of pay raises, or catalog raise requests
• Accurately track qualifications and skills/training
• Skill tracking and ranking, and other employee classification areas
• Easily monitor employee turnover

The flexible TimeForge HR system can easily track any type of document or certification, including uniforms (and sizes), insurance documents, drivers licenses, documents required for I-9 and W-4, and much, much more! And, because TimeForge is Web-based, more features will continue to become available over time to TimeForge customers.

For example: When an employee’s food or alcohol handling certifications expire, the store could be closed by a spot check from authorities, and the employee and manager(s) at fault frequently wind up fined or even jailed – a heavy cost to the store. Using TimeForge, customers can track any number of certifications, testing dates, renewal dates, and test scores in order to keep staff members up to date on their required human resources documentation and ongoing staff training.

TimeForge HR also integrates with the TimeForge Daily Log, providing an instant communications platform for staff and management alike. The program allows employers to store, digitize and effortlessly organize everything from the pre-hire process, such as electronic copies of applications and resumes, to onboarding documents, training and orientation documents, and more.

Pre-Hire, Onboarding, Certifications, and Much More!

TimeForge HR allows employers to electronically catalog copies of everything from recommendation letters to experience surveys, making quick work of once daunting human resources tasks. Use TimeForge HR for immediate time savings and instant profits!

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees (0)
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing (2)
• Employees are Assets, Not Liabilities (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software (0)

One aspect of labor management that can prove tiresome to both new and experienced managers alike is the process of approving and exporting payroll. This usually includes multiple steps, including the collection of time punches, payroll review and corrections, as well as approval of the payroll. After payroll has been approved from the time and attendance system, you need to get the data into the payroll company.

TimeForge has a new version of our TimeForge-QuickBooks integration software to make managing payroll for restaurants, retail, and hospitality businesses with multiple locations/stores simpler and more affordable.

Thanks to our recently updated TimeForge-QuickBooks software, users can easily connect to multiple stores/locations and retrieve payroll, hours, and other related information. TimeForge is able to import payroll information from QuickBooks for immediate processing; all you have to do is approve the payroll and print the checks!

This new version includes a number of updates, new features and improvements to make maintaining single and multiple-unit businesses more simplified and less time-consuming. TimeForge QuickBooks gives business owners the unprecedented ability to control and view many controllable aspects of the business, at multiple locations, from a single computer. Simple cost controls within TimeForge translate into immediate savings for your business!

You can download the latest version of our QuickBooks software from our downloads page!

Remember: Streamlined labor management is critical for retail and hospitality-related businesses.

Labor is one of two cost centers that can be directly controlled by management – the other expensive cost center is inventory. Controlling the labor at a store by as little as half a percent has the direct effect of improving profit by half a percent.

There is no easier way to improve your profitability than with TimeForge!

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees (0)
• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants (0)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Grocery Stores (0)
• Going Green is Good for Profits (0)