Building a great police officer duty roster can be a hassle. It can be hard to maneuver several shifts, patrols, meal breaks, accrued PTO, and every officer’s individual availability (including time off requests and shift swaps), while also making sure that you have all the officers you need 24/7 without running into any unnecessary overtime. Labor management can be a headache, but it’s important.

It’s boring and endless. After you’ve gone over all the various factors and built a roster, you have to notify all the officers, face endless questions about next week’s schedule, and then rework the roster to allow for an illness or unexpected time off request, then re-notify all the officers… and probably do it all over again.

Great labor management used to be tedious and time-consuming. If it takes you hours, you are not alone. Luckily, TimeForge helps scheduling officers cut scheduling and attendance monitoring time from literally hours to minutes. With TimeForge, you can monitor your labor costs and overtime in real-time, and more accurately forecast future payroll costs and overtime.

Your officers are going to love it!
With TimeForge, you can inform officers of schedules, meetings, trainings, and any schedule updates by text message or email. They can check the password-protected employee portal 24/7 to view work schedules, view time cards, request time off, change their upcoming availability, swap shifts with other employees, and set up daily schedule alerts via text messaging or email.

You are going to love it!
You can create an officer schedule (no matter how complicated) in minutes (literally), easily try out several “what-if” scheduling scenarios (and return to your saved schedule without redoing it), and securely monitor attendance on site or remotely, using the web, a cell phone, or even Facebook.

If you’re still not convinced, read what other TimeForge users say about the time and money they’ve saved with this easy to use staff scheduling software… or sign up today for your free trial and experience TimeForge for yourself!

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, and TimeForge Daily Log.

Rumpf Computer Solutions can be your company’s technology department, without costing you floor space! The business was created in 2006 as an alternative technical support solution, and can handle your company’s entire range of tech needs with a close and personal relationship you might not expect from a remote service.

Rumpf’s close and friendly relationship with its customers enables an intimate understanding of the functioning of each customer’s business. Rumpf can handle every aspect of your company’s technology needs. The capabilities of Rumpf are seemingly endless and include purchasing, support, strategic development, project management, and everything else imaginable that is technology related. The company prides itself on being experienced enough to “handle the entire gamut of technology in your business from start to finish”.

Running Restaurants has been on the internet for over thirteen years now, culminating in over seven hundred pages of content and endless hours of audio seminars designed to inform and assist restaurateurs at every level – chefs, owners, crew, and management.

Backed by Restaurant Report, the Running Restaurants website’s tag line is “Helping restaurants to be more profitable!” and the page publishes one of the industry’s leading e-mail newsletters, “Just One Thing”. With endless positive reviews, subscribers love Running Restaurants. In fact, one subscriber says, “It is the first place we go to when an obstacle presents itself.”

By Chris Butler, TimeForge Educator

Having worked as a manager in a retail environment, I know how difficult it can be to manage employee requests and availability. At the store where I worked, everyone’s schedule was pretty much the same from week to week, including mine. Scheduling should have been a breeze right?

The company I worked for had a requirement that there always be two employees in the store, I managed a fairly small store with a small number of staff members. This could make the two employee requirement difficult to achieve. As a manager, often, I was the second person on the schedule. So what happens when I need to take time off?

That two person rule was most difficult on Fridays. I was taking the weekend off to visit family out of town. I got someone to cover for me on Friday, so things were golden. I flew off to see the family and was having a great time. Then it hit me! I hadn’t gotten someone to cover for me on Monday afternoon when I AM the second person. I had a great team and they probably realized about the same time I did what had happened and worked together to get my shift covered on Monday afternoon.

I wish I had had a tool like TimeForge back then. When I put in my request, it would have let me know that I was going to be short staffed that Monday afternoon. Also, when I was looking at the Daily View of the schedule, I would have seen on the lovely bar graph that I had a gap in coverage in the middle of the day. I would have gotten someone to cover for me and would have avoided a mildly panicked call from my staff and the eventual verbal warning I got from my supervisor.

Like everyone else, correctional facilities are facing increasing pressure to cut costs. Labor costs can be one of the largest costs facing correctional facilities, so it’s only natural that there is an increased scrutiny on projected labor costs. But forecasting labor costs can be difficult without the proper tools.

TimeForge provides over 30 unique reports, enabling you to follow labor costs in real-time and predict future labor costs accurately.

TimeForge can also reduce your paperwork time from hours to minutes by streamlining the labor management process through our automated software. Creating a correctional officer duty roster can be a hassle. You coordinate 24/7 shifts, multiple employees, required skill sets, major and minor shift, each officer’s availability, accrued PTO, and meal breaks. While juggling this officer information, you also need to ensure that all posts are adequately covered, but also minimize overtime. Once you are finished, an officer or employee will inevitably request unexpected time off or a shift swap, so you’ll need to restart the entire process.

Without the right tools, notifying everyone about the finished schedule (and any schedule changes that arise) can be frustrating for everyone involved. Failure to communicate effectively can lead to staff shortages when an officer or employee misses a shift, which unfairly encroaches on the personal time of other employees who unexpectedly need to cover that shift. Unexpected schedule changes (like fills for missed shifts) lead to negative job satisfaction and increased turnover.   TimeForge addresses high turnover at the source: miscommunication. You can notify officers about the schedule and any changes through TimeForge text message, email, or social media (like Facebook). TimeForge can even send these messages automatically.

Much like communicating the schedule, attendance monitoring is often dreaded by correctional facility managers. Monitoring attendance is a hassle. It can feel like you’re babysitting your employees, and requires a lot of your time. However,   it is absolutely necessary in order to control labor costs. TimeForge can help with your attendance monitoring needs by preventing early clock ins or late clock outs, preventing staff from buddy punching, and equipping you with the power to see who is (and who is not) clocked in… whether you’re on site or at a remote location. You can monitor attendance through your TimeForge website account, from your smartphone, or through a social networking account (like Facebook).

TimeForge is an essential (and easy-to-use) labor management software for correctional facilities, but if you are still not convinced, read what TimeForge users are saying here.

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, TimeForge Human Resources, and TimeForge Daily Log.

Read about punching in and out (and payroll), and labor schedules before you read this post. Both posts have information that will help this article make more sense.

At the end of the week, employee attendance and times worked will be complied to determine payroll and wages for the usual “work week”. A side-by-side analysis of the actual labor schedule (time and attendance values) and the theoretical labor schedule will show numerous metrics that can be used to manage the staff. This process of comparing the actual schedule against the theoretical labor schedule is generally called “Actual vs Theoretical” or “AvT”. Using an AvT, you can analyze data such as:

• Which workers consistently show up for their shifts on time? Consistently dependable staff members are valued employees, showing up at work on time, and are the genuine workhorses of the company. Be certain to reward them for their hard work.

• Which workers are constantly tardy for their shifts? This can cause a labor shortage during shift changes, and can cause disarray among other staff members. These workers may need to experience corrective action to avoid continued habitual lateness.

• Which workers are constantly early for their shifts? This raises the payroll cost, lowering profit for the company. Preventative actions may be necessary with these staff members for the reduction of your labor costs.

• Which workers neglect show up for their shifts, or regularly call in? These staff members may need to be informed that they risk being let go, as they are fickle in their work habits and reduce morale for other employees and managers.

• Which workers are always free when another worker fails to show up? These staff members are willing to come in on their days off – and should be rewarded for their hard work to keep the establishment running.

• Which positions tend to have higher turnover? Turnover is immensely costly to a business, and pinpointing areas with high turnover is the first step to take to lower turnover and improve the bottom line.
  

• Which employees are most tenured? Tenured staff are devoted team members and should be rewarded for their hard work. Every effort should be made to boost the tenure of reliable employees while lowering turnover and raising profits.

• Which is more expensive, the theoretical or actual schedule? How much difference is there between the two?
  • If the theoretical schedule is costlier, management is over-scheduling the work force and may be letting employees off early without reason. This frequently leads to exasperated workers and much higher turnover – lowering profit for the company.
  • If the actual schedule is costlier, management is not scheduling enough work beforehand, and is then forced to call staff members on their days off. This scenario can also create exasperated workers and higher turnover. It frequently results in gratuitous over-time costs and reduced profit.
    

The perfect work environment has a 0% AvT ratio – staff members worked when they were scheduled and management precisely identified the establishment’s needs.

Labor, particularly in hospitality and retail industries, is the greatest expense which companies personally control. Analyzing metrics such as Actual vs. Theoretical labor costs gives management the ability to keep control of the business, therefore boosting profit. Very basic metrics can be analyzed manually using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, but advanced scheduling software such as TimeForge can determine advanced metrics swiftly and smoothly.

Are complicated employee scheduling practices taking up precious time at your business? Are you making the best possible labor schedule? How much turnover is created because of bad or late schedules? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention, and increase profits at your business? Sign up today for a no risk free trial!

During a tough economic climate, a dance studio owner, manager, or director needs to handle classes, performances, billing, students (and their parents), hiring, training, marketing, taxes, employees, and keep a tight grip on financial management. If you find that you don’t have enough time to give each task the attention you want to give, you aren’t alone.  However, savvy studio managers know that to stay afloat during a recession (and to maximize your profits, regardless of the economy), you not only have to manage every task, but every task needs managed well.

Employee scheduling is a perfect example of the impact which careful attention can have on your bottom line. Dance studio labor management is difficult. Not only do each of your employees have a unique set of skills, availabilities, accrued PTO’s, and class time requests, but you also need to consider the necessity of adequate class coverage during times which are appealing to your students. An efficient labor schedule can be the difference between a successful studio with happy instructors, and total chaos with maximum turnover, so it’s important to invest in your employee schedule. However, it can be extremely difficult to create the perfect schedule when there are so many factors to consider and so little time.

If you over staff, you waste money. If you under-staff, you lose students.

You could easily spend several hours in an office, building a somewhat balanced, fair, and cost-effective schedule. Inevitably, however, an employee will have a last minute shift swap, illness, or time-off request, and you’ll need to start over. Then, after re-doing the entire scheduling process, you’ll need to notify all the employees about their shifts and classes (a second time), then monitor employee attendance (which is, in itself, a major energy drain) and field questions about the next week’s schedule.

TimeForge can literally reduce your labor management paperwork time from hours to minutes.

TimeForge enables you to build and manage schedules for one or many studio locations, schedule instructors and employees with specific skill levels in specific time slots, monitor attendance, and forecast future labor costs. All of these tasks can be done quickly and securely through TimeForge’s easy-to-use software, which you can access wherever you are, 24/7, from your computer, smart-phone, or social network account (like Facebook). TimeForge can increase dance studio profits by 3-5%.

TimeForge is an essential (and easy-to-use) labor management software for dance studio managers, but if you’re still not convinced, read what other TimeForge users say about the time and money they’ve saved with this easy to use staff scheduling software… or sign up today for your free trial and experience TimeForge for yourself!

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, TimeForge Human Resources, and TimeForge Daily Log.

Like everyone else, correctional facilities are facing increasing pressure to cut costs. Labor costs can be one of the largest costs facing correctional facilities, so it’s only natural that there is an increased scrutiny on projected labor costs. But forecasting labor costs can be difficult without the proper tools.

TimeForge provides over 30 reports that enable you to follow labor costs in real-time and predict future labor costs accurately.

TimeForge can also reduce your paperwork time from hours to minutes by streamlining the labor management process through our automated software. Creating a correctional officer duty roster can be a hassle. You coordinate 24/7 shifts, multiple employees, required skill sets, major and minor shift, each officer’s availability, accrued PTO, and meal breaks. While juggling this officer information, you also need to ensure that all posts are adequately covered, but also minimize overtime. Once you are finished, an officer or employee will inevitably request unexpected time off or a shift swap, so you’ll need to restart the entire process.

Without the right tools, notifying everyone about the finished schedule (and any schedule changes that arise) can be frustrating for everyone involved. Failure to communicate effectively can lead to staff shortages when an officer or employee misses a shift, which unfairly encroaches on the personal time of other employees who unexpectedly need to cover that shift. Unexpected schedule changes (like fills for missed shifts) lead to negative job satisfaction and increased turnover.  TimeForge addresses high turnover at the source: miscommunication. You can notify officers about the schedule and any changes through TimeForge automated text message, email, or through social networking sites (like Facebook).

Much like communicating the schedule, attendance monitoring is often dreaded by correctional facility managers. Monitoring attendance is a hassle. It can feel like you’re babysitting your employees, and requires a lot of your time. However,  it is absolutely necessary in order to control labor costs. TimeForge can help with your attendance monitoring needs by preventing early clock ins or late clock outs, preventing staff from buddy punching, and equipping you with the power to see who is (and who is not) clocked in… whether you’re on site or at a remote location. You can monitor attendance through your TimeForge website account, from your smartphone, or through a social networking account (like Facebook).

TimeForge is an essential (and easy-to-use) labor management software for correctional facilities, but if you are still not convinced, read what TimeForge users are saying here.

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, TimeForge Human Resources, and TimeForge Daily Log.

What’s your name?
Rodrigo Carvallo

What do you do at TimeForge?
I work mostly on GUI design and testing, doing enhancements for documents, presentations, GUI prototypes as well as testing software from a client/end user perspective.

How long have you been working with TimeForge?
I have been working like 2 years

What’s your favorite part of working at TimeForge?
I like doing prototyping, making and improving the existing or new “view” of what we want to show the clients and users. I always try to have the best user experience by moving/changing/adding/removing stuff from the “view”. I have learned very cool tools while working on  TimeForge, which allowed me to make several interesting things.

How do you make the lives of TimeForge customers better?
I always try to make them happy. I’m don’t know too much programming, which helps me to think more in the user side, IE how easy/hard is a part for the user. Timeforge is a big system and has a lot of cool features, however, we have to present them so that they will be really easy for the client to use. It doesn’t make sense if the system is hard to understand or work with, we always try to get it simpler and easier to use

What was your first hourly job (what did you do, what company)?
I started working directly in Timeforge.

What was your first restaurant or retail job (what did you do, what company)?
I didn’t work in any of those jobs

What’s your favorite hobby?
My favorite hobby is to listen to music (a lot of music), and play the drums. I like the piano too, but I don’t know too much of it.

What’s your favorite sports team?
I don’t really have a favorite sports team. I like some of the European soccer teams, like Manchester United, Barcelona and Inter.

Any pets?  What kind, and what are their names?
Don’t have any currently. I used to, but its very sad when they get lost or die, so we decided to stop having pets.

An efficient employee schedule for health care professionals can be a hassle to build. It is difficult to coordinate full time and part time staff with varying skill sets and availabilities. Consider each employee’s accrued PTO, necessary meal breaks, certification requirements, time-off requests, and shift swap requests, and you could have a real mess on your hands when trying to build a labor schedule.

Labor management is boring, time-consuming, and necessary for any successful clinic or health care office. TimeForge can eliminate the frustrations of employee scheduling. TimeForge enables medical office managers to cut scheduling and attendance management time from hours to minutes! With TimeForge, you can easily and securely create or modify your labor schedule and monitor your labor costs and overtime in real-time, 24/7,  from your computer, smart phone, or social networking account (like Facebook). By streamlining your labor management, you can better forecast future labor costs and potential staffing shortages to avoid roadblocks well in advance.

With TimeForge, you can schedule the staff members with strong skill levels or necessary certifications during high volume shifts, automatically export attendance to your existing payroll system, and automatically notify employees about the upcoming schedule through email, text message, or their social networking account (eliminating missed shifts). By automating these processes and streamlining your labor management processes, you’ll find that you have much more time to attend to the other matters that require your attention. In fact, you’ll probably find that the time saved during the first week alone pays for the investment.

TimeForge is an essential labor management software for healthcare managers, but if you are still not convinced, read what TimeForge users are saying… or sign up for a free 10-day trial today to discover for yourself how easy to use and time-saving it really is.

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, TimeForge Human Resources, and TimeForge Daily Log.