As many of you have probably discovered, TimeForge received massive updates on Wednesday and Friday.  These updates fix a number of software bugs that were reported, and it also includes more than two dozen brand new features available for TimeForge users.

Some of these new features include:

New Reporting Tools! We’ve have released a new reporting solution to provide you with greater control over sorting order, font sizes, and better reports.  All of the TimeForge reports have been re-written to give us enormous flexibility in the coming months.  Be prepared for new reports, and new ways to look at them (exporting to Excel will be available soon).

Automatic Sales and Inventory Forecasts! In addition to being able to track Manager Projections and Actual Values, TimeForge Sales will automatically predict and forecast sales and inventory values – accounting for factors such as seasonality, current staff levels, and others.

Corporate Level Employees! For our customers that manage multiple locations, you can now view employees at the corporate level – all locations in a single list.  Employee management has never been more simple!

Need to Track Certificates, Uniforms, or Employee Reviews? You can now track all of this using the TimeForge Certifications!  TimeForge Certifications can include tracking of test dates, the score received on the test, and when the test expires.  Certifications can impact the schedule, providing warnings when employees with expired certifications (or missing certifications) are scheduled to work.

Smarter AutoScheduling! The AutoScheduler has been improved to look at previous scheduling assignments, and learn how to better assign staff members.  The AutoScheduler can often build the same schedule that the manager would!  Less typing means that schedules are made faster so you can go home early.

Employee-Centric Schedules and Attendance! Need to find out when Sally or Tom works next?  Don’t want to have to go click on the schedule or search the attendance records?  No problem!  Go to your employee list, find the employee and click on “Edit”, and you will see two new tabs, “Schedules” and “Attendance”.  Find out when Sally or Tom is scheduled, or actually worked, in the upcoming weeks, or any previous time period.  Instantly change the schedule directly from here.  We even show schedules from multiple locations!

Break Improvements – Remove Breaks from Calculations. Some businesses track schedules by looking at the whole time that the employee is at work.  Other organizations prefer to ignore unpaid breaks (such as lunch breaks) in the time and cost calculations.  Both paid and unpaid breaks can now be removed from the schedule calculations by changing a few TimeForge settings.

Payroll Period Tracking – If you use TimeForge Attendance, you can now identify your payroll periods and run reports using these periods, rather than entering your own time ranges.  Payroll periods can be set up for weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payroll.

Of course, there were numerous other minor improvements made to TimeForge, including a streamlined sign up process, easier template management, and much more!

Careful managers schedule around these frequently changing and complicated rules, ensuring that their business is compliant with all applicable labor regulations.  However, businesses can inadvertently land themselves in hot-water when employees fail to show up, quit, or are terminated for otherwise legitimate reasons.  Inexperienced managers, overburdened by other areas of schedule creation can forget about these rules, which are not core to the “making money” aspect of their business.  Stiff fines and lawsuits are the result of failing to be in compliance.

In uncertain economic times managers must be able to schedule labor correctly in a consistent manner, keep employees happy, and reduce fines imposed by legislative authorities, such as the Department of Labor.  Businesses should seek to use cost-effective computer systems, such as TimeForge, to ensure that proper scheduling techniques are utilized.  Effective scheduling software will be able to schedule meal and break periods, accurately calculate overtime costs, and archive previous schedules for managerial review.

Labor & Industries (L&I) audits are common in some US states (California, Washington, Oregon, and New York are especially common) in restaurant, food-service, retail, construction, and hospitality-related industries.  These audits are performed by the state or by insurance companies to verify that the business has complied with all applicable regulations.  Audits focus on unpaid overtime, minors working too late or too early, break and meal periods that are not properly documented, and other violations.  Rule infractions can be punished with stiff fines and/or insurance premium increases.

Make sure that all employees are aware of the applicable rules for the city, county, and state / province.  Follow federal / national rules (where applicable), corporate rules, and insurance regulations (if applicable).  Where possible, automated scheduling systems should be utilized to enforce these rules reducing the administrative burden placed on managers - allowing management to work on other pressing issues such as training, customer service, and management tasks which cannot be automated by cost-effective technology solutions.

The current pricing is published on the TimeForge website, and existing customers (and trial users) are free to use the new pricing, or stay with the old pricing.

For some customers, the new pricing will be slightly more expensive, significantly cheaper, or just about the same.  If you want to switch to the new pricing model, feel free to contact TimeForge support and let us know!

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 free trial!

The TimeForge Daily Log, our newest product offering has received many recent improvements, including:

• Numeric Analysis is available in the Daily Log, transforming the Daily Log into an extremely powerful trend analysis tool for your business.  Enter values for deposits, sales, or other relevant information, and compare these values for any dates, or date range.  Say goodbye to Excel! Watch the TimeForge Blog for an upcoming tutorial, detailing how to use the TimeForge Daily Log.

• Weather is automatically recorded on a daily basis for each store location, and is archived in the TimeForge Daily Log.  You can now include weather activity in your day-to-day comparisons of the Daily Log as part of the Numeric Analysis.

Other improvements to the TimeForge products are detailed in Part 1 and Part 2.

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 free trial!

Some of the improvements to the TimeForge products are detailed below.

TimeForge Scheduling - Improvements for Employees
The employee side of TimeForge Labor Scheduling has received a number of improvements over the past few months, including some major improvements this past weekend.  These include:

• Employees can now delete their own pending requests, without requiring manager approval.  This allows employees to become “available” for work without needing to involve management.

• Searching for available shifts is now easier than ever.  Employees can view qualified “open” shifts with a single click – or they can search for specific shifts by date and time.  Once a potential shift is found, a shift swap request can be made directly through TimeForge, with a single click.

• The employee interface has been improved to show shift notes, sections, and make the screens more user friendly.

TimeForge Scheduling - Improvements for Managers
The management side of TimeForge Scheduling has received many improvements over the past few months, including some important improvements this past weekend.  These include:

• The Schedule Summary screen now includes a number of useful metrics, including the number of variable hours scheduled, non-variable (management) hours scheduled, as well as the hours, labor costs, and the costs of breaks.  A number of other important numbers are recorded on this screen as well!

• Many of our users have requested the ability to forecast – forecasting for sales, customer counts, inventory orders, schedules, or staffing levels.  Many of you want to be able to compare labor costs, labor hours, or scheduled shifts directly to the projected numbers to see how the schedule stacks up.  In Excel, this is very hard to do accurately.  It’s now available in TimeForge! Managers with TimeForge Scheduling Basic, Pro, and Max can enter daily, hourly, or quarter-hour manager projections (or actual values), and TimeForge will display and enforce labor percentages in the schedule.  Check the TimeForge Blog for an upcoming tutorial on the usage of the TimeForge Forecasting System.

• Adding and editing schedules has never been easier!  TimeForge automatically adds new shifts as you type, reducing the number of clicks that it takes to create a schedule.  Also, the schedules can now be sorted by position, start time, end time, or employee.

Other information about the TimeForge update can be found in Part 1 and Part 3 of this newsletter.

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 free trial!

We have officially split TimeForge into three distinct products, and each product can be combined together as needed for your business.  These three products include:

• TimeForge Scheduling, our flagship product continues to be the best labor scheduling tool available – fast, streamlined, and easy to use!

• TimeForge Attendance, a powerful time and attendance package that can enforce the labor schedule, provide detailed employee time cards, and directly export your payroll!

• TimeForge Daily Log, a valuable communications tool useful for recording notes and numbers about maintenance, employee problems, deposit logs, sales figures, and much more!

Some of the improvements to the TimeForge products are detailed in Part 2 and Part 3.

Are complicated employee scheduling practices taking up precious time at your business? Are you making the best possible labor schedule? How much does a bad labor schedule cost? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention and increase profits at your business? Sign up today for a free trial!

• Fingerprint and Biometric support
• Improved Attendance Reports
• Tracking employee tips and mileage
• Scheduling by Department

More can be read in their actual newsletter, located here.

Are difficult employee schedules practices taking up time at your business? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention and increase profits at your business? Sign up today for a free trial!

It seems that Starbucks baristas and others have written about the changes to the program on the Starbucks Gossip blog.  The first blog post / thread discusses the original WSJ article and its implications on the coffee shops and retail experience.  The second blog post / thread, discusses that a side effect of the new labor system is that baristas are allowed to make bad drinks - in order to save 5 seconds per drink.  That probably isn’t the desired side effect of an improved scheduling system.

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 free trial!

Training Costs Money Too

All new employees, even experienced hires, must be trained appropriately.  Employees should be trained in the corporate vision, customer service, and the details of their specific job.  Duties that each employee is responsible for performing will need to be demonstrated by a competent manager or trainer, and then must be repeated by the newly hired staff member.  Training entry-level workers can often take more than a week of management time, and properly training salaried managers may occupy several months.  In addition to the management time utilized training employees, new hires must be paid during their training.  Make sure that training is streamlined and hiring practices are refined to reduce the cost associated with hiring.  Consider Internet based tools to assist staff training, where appropriate.

Employees Become Lucrative Assets Over Time

Employees are expected to learn new skills while working, often referred to as “on-the-job training”.  Most work-related skills can be learned on-the-job, including new equipment skills, customer service skills, and business skills.  These new skills are passed to employees through interaction with managers and other employees at the business, and is the foundation of many promotions.  Hourly wage workers can grow into Assistant Managers.  Assistant Managers can climb the ladder to become General Managers.  General Managers become District Managers, or Vice Presidents.  Each employee becomes a trusted asset, and finding a replacement for an employee that leaves the business will always cost more than the direct salary of that employee.  In addition to training costs, there is an obvious and direct cost when employees are absent and customers are not adequately served.

Keep Assets (Employees) in Mind While Scheduling Work

When scheduling employees, managers should remember that employees are assets necessary to help the business grow and profit.  Employees that excel at certain job duties should be scheduled where their talents can improve business profitability.  Employee requests for time off, changes to the work schedule, and holidays should be honored where possible – and the business should establish rules and regulations to facilitate constant communication between employees and managers.

Turnover Is Expensive — Really, Really Expensive

Turnover is not cheap.  Indeed most managers under-estimate its cost and the learning curve of working in a new restaurant.  Approximately 70% of the cost of turnover is the loss of productivity before an employee leaves, as the employee’s attitude toward the business becomes detached and fewer customers are served.  Turnover in most hospitality-related industries (restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels) averages around 100% annually – meaning that a store with 30 employees has hired 30 employees in the last twelve months!  Using a cost of $2,000 per staff member, that is an annual turnover expense of more than $60,000!  Reducing turnover should b e a primary concern for any business.

Internet-based scheduling tools, such as TimeForge, can assist managers when building and maintaining labor schedules.  These tools can allocate labor appropriately for your business, track employee availability and time off, meal and break periods, and alert employees when their scheduling needs are, or are not, met.  Your business will not always be able to cater to your employee’s needs, but constant communication between salaried managers and hourly-wage employees will reduce turnover at your business and preserve the value of your employee assets.  Payroll may be a liability, but employees are business assets.

Will the plan work?  It’s very possible.  With smart and accurate labor scheduling, Starbucks should be able to reduce turnover and keep employees happy while lowering their labor costs.  However, if Starbucks begins over scheduling employees, the plan may actually backfire on them — creating higher levels of turnover, decreased profits, and lowering sales.

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 free trial!