Labor Management. NOW Simple.

During a recession, businesses and consumers alike are more likely to analyze where they spend their money, so you have to work hard to earn their business. Here are two major ways to get new customers stepping through your doors and coming back for more.

1) Use Non-traditional Marketing
Direct marketing is nothing new, but businesses are increasingly turning to non-traditional media because it’s less expensive than traditional advertising mediums (like television and radio) and can be tailored to reach a small or large target demographic. Direct marketing campaigns like fliers, street advertising, promotional letters, coupons, customer appreciation events, and direct selling have become very popular among businesses during the recession.

The more clever your campaign, the more likely it is to succeed. For instance, PETA’s 2009 Super Bowl advertisement was banned for being too sexually explicit. It is widely presumed that PETA intentionally made the ad overly explicit with the intention of creating word-of-mouth publicity, which is even more valuable than airtime during the Super Bowl. The supposed “plan” worked – PETA’s commercial was spoofed on television shows like The View, and copies of the video floated around the Internet virally for months. PETA also avoided the $3 million it cost in 2009 for 30 seconds of Super Bowl air time. By understanding how the marketing world works, PETA earned almost free major national publicity.

2) Use Technology
Social media sites and text messages are great ways for you to keep in touch with your employees (TimeForge offers great schedule notification options through social media and sms), but technology can also offer huge pools of potential customers. Advertise online and make sure your business has professional accounts on sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

Check reviews of your business from the Better Business Bureau, Company Name Sucks, and Angie’s List. Be proactive with review information and use it in your next staff meeting to improve your product.

Make sure your company’s website is accessible and interactive so customers will return, and consider offering an online newsletter or blog with coupons or other incentives.

Related articles or pages

• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2) (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software (0)
• TimeForge HR: Changing Human Resources in Hospitality and Retail (0)
• Table Spacing and Proximity Impact Restaurant Spending (0)

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)

Management Philosophy 101 for dealing with staff turnover: The best way to reduce turnover costs is to reduce turnover.

The real cost of employee turnover is difficult to fully quantify because it is based on many variables but it is always more than you think it is.

In the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries, turnover is especially high – but, TimeForge, a labor management solution, can improve staff morale and efficiency in order to effectively reduce turnover and improve your bottom line. One way to find the cost of turnover at your business would include the following, some of which are hard to measure:

1. Lost productivity – Other staff members will have to pick up the slack of a missing employee, which reduces everyone’s overall productivity.
2. Temporary cost of replacement (i.e., contractor wages) – Some positions can be filled by others picking up the slack, resulting in no incremental expense. However, if this is a frequent occurrence, morale can suffer — leading to more turnover. Other positions will need to be filled with temporary or contract workers, which results in additional cost.
3. Recruiting/hiring expense – This is the literal cost of filling the position and can include search fees paid to agencies or headhunters, referral fees paid to employees, ads in newspapers, job board posting fees, etc.
4. Management time – Time management has to spend going over resumes, scheduling and conducting interviews, evaluating candidates and making job offers. TimeForge can slash the time spent collecting and storing a new hire’s documentation, but interviewing and evaluating applicants is a time-consuming skill that remains unavoidable.
5. Training costs – This includes all the costs associated with ensuring that new staff members have all the skills and tools they need to do the job.
6. Learning curve – The time it takes the new employee to perform at an optimal performance level.
7. Knowledge replacement – This is impossible to measure. Employees leave with accumulated knowledge that is hard to quantify and even harder to replace.

For an even more accurate and comprehensive determination of costs, include the following where appropriate:

1. Calculate the cost of training your company has invested in the employee leaving. Include internal training, external programs and external academic education. Include licenses or certifications the company has helped the employee obtain to do their job effectively.
2. Calculate the impact on departmental productivity because the person is leaving. Who will pick up the work, whose work will suffer, what departmental deadlines will not be met or delivered late?
3. Calculate the cost of department staff and include discussion on their reactions to the vacancy.
4. Calculate the cost of losing customers that the employee is going to take with them, or the amount it will cost you to retain the customers of the sales person or customer service representative who leaves.
5. Calculate the cost of drug screens, educational and criminal background checks and other reference checks, especially if these tasks are outsourced. Don’t forget to calculate the number of times these are done per open position, as some companies conduct this process for the final two or three candidates.
6. Calculate the cost of the various candidate pre-employment tests to help assess a candidate’s skills, abilities, aptitude, attitude, values and behaviors.
7. Calculate the cost of supervisory time spent in assigning, explaining and reviewing work assignments and output. This represents lost productivity of the supervisor. Consider the amount of time spent at seven hours per week for at least eight weeks.
8. Calculate the cost of coworkers and supervisory lost productivity due to their time spent on bringing the new employee “up to speed.”
9. Calculate the cost of mistakes the new employee makes during this elongated indoctrination period.
10. Calculate the cost of bringing the new person on board, including the cost to put the person on the payroll, establish computer and security passwords and identification cards, business cards, internal and external publicity announcements, telephone hookups, cost of establishing e-mail accounts, costs of establishing credit card accounts, or leasing other equipment such as cell phones, automobiles, pagers.
11. Calculate the cost of a manager’s time spent developing trust and building confidence in the new employee’s work.

Research continues to show that real turnover costs can run anywhere from 25% to 150% of the position’s salary and benefits, depending on how many of the above costs are applicable to the position.

TimeForge can help reduce your turnover by providing staff and management a superior means of communication, keeping everyone “in the know” at all times. TimeForge reduces turnover by:

• No more confusion! Keeping employees from being scheduled at times they are unavailable, and communicating schedule and availability changes to staff and management alike.
• Easy communication! Making online shift swaps, pickups, and time off requests a one-click process (with manager’s approval where necessary, of course)
• Easily Accessible! Web-based, text message, facebook, and printable schedules, time cards, and upcoming shift reminders.
• And much, much more!

The number one reason management-level staff members resign is the time, pain and high rate of error that comes with their job including constructing employee schedules – an issue that TimeForge makes obsolete. As opposed to inefficient and cumbersome Excel spreadsheets and paper logs, TimeForge will save management hours and virtually eliminate errors each week in various HR duties, including documentation/certification creation, storage and sending, schedule construction, and all of their various employee management tasks.

Money spent proactively on employee training, staff morale, career development, staff-management communication and other benefits can have significant return on investment when it leads to reduced turnover, and TimeForge reduces the time and cost associated with accomplishing these vital employee hiring and retention techniques.

TimeForge makes building schedules, tracking attendance, exporting and approving payroll and much more a fast, easy, point-and-click process. With TimeForge, your staff will communicate better, work more efficiently and eliminate costly mistakes associated with human error.

Additionally, our software makes your business more environmentally-friendly by drastically reducing paper usage, which has been shown to elevate staff morale and improve employee retention rate – employees feel good about being associated with a company that’s environmentally-conscientious.

Sign up for a free trial of our labor management software, and start improving your bottom line today.

Related articles or pages

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

The number one reason managers quit a restaurant job is because of frustration associated with scheduling. After dealing with all the employee requests and working around personal schedules, managers invest large amounts of time and effort into a schedule which inevitably fails to make everyone happy. Some managers employ a “if the schedule doesn’t work for you, too bad” attitude to reduce their frustrations. This definitely reduces a manager’s stress, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this directly increases turnover rates, which cost your business money. Whether managers are accommodating to employees or not, the frustration of scheduling reduces managerial job satisfaction, ultimately resonating through the ranks to all employees.

According to retensa, 94% of turnover is preventable, so money spent proactively on employee training, staff morale, career development, and staff-management communication can have significant return on investment by resulting in reduced turnover. TimeForge reduces the time and cost associated with accomplishing these vital employee hiring and retention tasks. TimeForge makes building schedules, tracking attendance, exporting and approving payroll and most other management duties fast and simple, which makes managers and staff happy!

Instead of dealing with inefficient and cumbersome Excel spreadsheets and paper logs, managers who use TimeForge are less inclined to feel negatively about scheduling. TimeForge saves management hours and eliminates errors. TimeForge handles HR duties, including document and certification storage, schedule construction, and most labor management tasks.

With TimeForge, your staff will communicate better, work more efficiently, and eliminate costly mistakes associated with human error. Additionally, TimeForge helps make your business more green by drastically reducing paper usage.  Being a green business has been shown to elevate staff morale and improve employee retention rate – staff members (especially Gen Y employees) feel good about being associated with a company that’s environmentally conscious.

Click here to sign up for a free trial of TimeForge and start improving your bottom line today.

Related articles or pages

• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business (0)
• Managing Breaks and Meal Periods Is Simple (0)
• Going Green is Good for Profits (0)
• Dinerware (0)
• 7 Ways Turnover Costs You and Your Business (0)

The TimeForge crew travelled to Chicago to attend the 91^st National Restaurant Association trade show, which offered more exhibits and information than we could have possibly hoped to absorb during our four day trip. Every year, Chicago hosts over 75,000 food professionals who gather to share and learn about trends and innovations in the service industries. We went to spread the word about our employee scheduling software, tell people how much time and money it can save them, learn about cool new things that affect restaurants, and well – mostly we went to eat! With revolutionary new marketing practices, award-winning equipment, exciting advances in “Green” technologies, and tables overflowing with culinary delights, the 2010 NRA show continued its annual tradition of overwhelming our taste buds and tickling our gadget-crazed fancies.

This show had an eight and a half percent increase in the number of exhibitors compared to last year, so 2010′s show was even more packed with information than usual. The sharing of information did not fall on deaf ears, as there was also a more than eleven percent increase in the number of attendees – which came from over 120 countries!

Perhaps most importantly, the food was awesome! One of our favorite products that was introduced at this year’s show is Chipstix, which are potato chips on a stick… a simple, yet truly revolutionary concept! We hope the chipstix trend spreads like wildfire! The Chork, a disposable chopstick-fork hybrid, is another of our favorite new products! A fork on one end and chopsticks on the other, the Chork looks like it could actually prevent chopstick-challenged folks from looking silly while eating Asian fare.  Our technology itch was scratched by the YWaiter iPhone application, a mobile app which acts as your waiter at participating restaurants. With YWaiter, customers can place drink orders and check out at their own convenience! If this trend catches on, it could revolutionize the entire service industry!

Perhaps our favorite part at this year’s show was the very spontaneous NRA flash mob dance, which really exemplified the humor and camaraderie found in few other industries. Overall, we were entirely pleased with our trip to Chicago and look forward to next year’s show! We hope to see you at the 2011 NRA show!

Related articles or pages

• National Restaurant Association Show, 2010 (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing (2)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (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)

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)

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)