Labor Management. NOW Simple.

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!

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Simple and easy communication between the management team and the staff members is a requirement for every business, in any industry.

It is important to keep track of daily notes, task lists, todo items, and sticky notes in every business – big or small, independent or chain. The task of managing all of these items is quickly cumbersome for all but the most disciplined staff members.

Scheduling human resource tasks, upcoming maintenance events, human resource tasks, management meetings, and other necessary items across multiple shifts (where the manager or staff member that created the event may not be the person responsible for the event) quickly becomes a management nightmare.

And, as your business grows, keeping up with the pile of paperwork and small notes can quickly become a nightmare.

Many businesses tackle the tornado of paper and notes by raiding the local office supply store – lab notebooks, 3-ring binders, and other similar products. While these paper products are very cheap, the disadvantages are obvious:

• Paper products will tear and can be destroyed with any mild abuse.
• Writing with pens or pencils can be smudged or unreadable by spilling a drink, or with wet hands
• Searching through dozens of paper notebooks for historical data is impossible..
• Staff who use ink pens will scratch out notes from other employees, making notes unreadable.
• Notebooks are easily be lost in a back office under piles of other notes.
• Handwriting that is made in a hurry can be unreadable minutes, or months, after the note is made.
• Organizing notebook or 3-ring binder notes into categories on a day-by-day basis is cumbersome at best.
• Multiple location / multi-store operators have no insight into the day-to-day operations of individual locations without faxing and scanning pages back and forth.

In most cases, the paper log book is simply insufficient for modern businesses. Many niche businesses provide organized paper notebook equivalents of the 3-ring binder or lab notebook, like Red Book Solutions and CommLog. While these product are somewhat better than the paper notebooks available at your local office supply store – all of the disadvantages of the paper process remain. In addition to the paper problem, these pre-printed log books are organized in a format that may, or may not, work for your business.

The TimeForge Daily Log is a superior solution to organize the notes and todo tasks at your business.

Use the TimeForge Daily Log for easy notes and communications

Use the Daily Log as your manager log and staff log – and for much more.  Read more about the TimeForge Daily Log!

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As operations managers and HR professionals know, managing labor is much more than building staff schedules and managing time and attendance for employees.  There are many other aspects of human resources and labor management, including:

• Talent management
• Tracking staff training and continuing education credits
• Skills tracking and ranking
• Onboarding and hiring processes
• Background verification and skill assessments
• Certifications and qualification tracking
• Raise requests and workflow
• And much more …

In many of these HR areas, we recommend that our users utilize a best of breed solution to ensure the best results for our customers.  For example, Corvirtus is simply the best company around to perform skills assessments in the hospitality and restaurant industries, and we recommend our customers look at Corvirtus for any unmet assessment needs.

However, a few of the these HR areas are easily managed inside of TimeForge’s best-of-breed labor management solution.  Historical raise requests, qualifications, skill tracking and ranking, and others are already available in TimeForge, and more will become available in the near future.

Let’s review employee certifications …

Did you know that TimeForge can track certifications for staff members?  Using TimeForge, you can track any number of certifications (staffing qualifications), testing dates, renewal dates, and test scores.  Each certificate can also include a note about the staff member’s qualification.

Specifics of a Certification / Staff Qualification

TimeForge allows savvy managers to set up certifications which are required before the staff member can be scheduled.  TimeForge can then stop you and your management team from scheduling employees who are not qualified for the job position.

For example, in the state of Texas, a server (waiter) that serves alcohol needs to have taken an alcohol awareness and training course.  Serving alcohol, of any kind, without this certification can land the employee and the responsible manager in jail for the evening.  With a single click inside of TimeForge, managers can ensure that staff are only scheduled if they are qualified to be scheduled.

Add a Certificate, Restrict who can be Scheduled

As an added bonus, TimeForge will notify managers and employees 6 weeks before the certificate expires, so that managers and staff members both know that it’s time to renew the qualification.  The certification reminder also appears inside of the Daily Log.

Use certifications to make your life easy!

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Due to overwhelming demand, we released our new Today page for managers, providing an executive dashboard for labor management.  This new Today page includes all of the previous information (bar charts for who is working, labor costs for the day, which employees are clocked in, pending requests and shift swaps), as well as a number of new items to ease the burden of managing the employee schedule.

1. The first row of data shows how many employees are scheduled for the day (unique shifts), and if you click on this link you will get the bar chart that you are used to seeing, which can be printed, just like the old chart could be printed.

2. The second row of data shows any unconfirmed shifts from your staff members, providing you with some idea of how many employees have confirmed receipt of their schedule through TimeForge. Clicking on this link will allow you to further examine which shifts have been confirmed, or not confirmed.

3. The third row of data displays how many Pending Shift Swaps need to be approved for that day. Pending Shift Swaps are exactly the same as the Shift Swaps that were shown before on the Today page, and clicking on this link will take you to a screen to approve or deny the pending shift swaps. This functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

4. The fourth row of data displays how many Open Shifts occur on that day. An Open Shift is a shift that has been Given Up, but not yet Picked Up. Clicking on this link will take you to a page displaying more detail about the Open Shifts, as well as any Pending Shift Swaps.  Again, this functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

5. The fifth row of data displays today’s schedule in a bar chart format, very similar to the first row.

6. The sixth row of data will provide the day’s schedule in a Horizontal or Vertical format, allowing you to print the schedule and place it your pocket. Again, these links function exactly like they did on the old Today screen.

7. The seventh row of data will allow you to quickly see how many staff members are clocked in, and clicking on the link will send you to the “Clocked In” Employees page. This also functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

8. The eighth row of data displays the number of Daily Log entries for the day, and clicking on this link will take you to the Daily Log.

9. The ninth row of data displays the day’s scheduled labor costs, if any labor costs have been entered for staff members.

10. The tenth row of data displays the actual cost of employee’s who have clocked in and out for the day, and is the total of your day’s labor. This functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

11. The eleventh row of data displays the difference between the scheduled labor costs, and the actual attendance – if the number is in green, the actual labor costs for the day are less than what was scheduled (good job!), if they are in red, then the labor costs are higher than what was scheduled.

12. The last row of data displays the rolling labor cost for the day, and resets based on when your schedule starts. You can use this number to keep track of your labor costs for the week. This works just like the previous “Week To Date” cost did.

You can move forward and backwards in time, and have access to all of the data on this page that you had previously including:

• Shift swaps requiring approval,
• Requests that require approval,
• The bar chart describing the labor for the day,
• The labor costs for the day,
• The week to date labor costs,
• And much, much more.

In between the “Next Week” and the “Previous Week” are two links, “Approve or Deny Shift Swaps” and “Approve or Deny Pending Requests”, which will be shown if there are ANY shift swaps or pending requests to approve, regardless of which day the requests or shift swaps fall on.

TimeForge employee scheduling software is used by owners and operators of hospitality, food-service, retail, and other service-oriented businesses around the world.  TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business!

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TimeForge is a best-of-breed employee scheduling and online labor management system for the hospitality, restaurant and retail industries.  It works with your Dinerware POS system to stop employees from riding the clock, enforce posted labor schedules, and provides rapid communications between managers and staff members.  Decrease turnover, increase retention, and improve the profits at your business.

Read The Case Study

Ready to see the improvements that employee scheduling and a labor management solution can provide when combined with your Dinerware POS system? Read the lastest TimeForge-Dinerware Case Study here.

How it works

TimeForge is a web-based system that becomes a direct extension of your Dinerware POS software.  During the day, Dinerware and TimeForge “synchronize” information that is necessary to manage the labor at your business.  Sales data and time and attendance information is sent to TimeForge, and schedule information is sent to Dinerware to provide a seamless and easy to use workforce management solution.  Access to TimeForge data is provided for employees and managers through an easy to use web interface, Facebook, or a compatible smartphone (such as a Blackberry or iPhone).

Increase your Profits

TimeForge will increase profits at your business with improved labor cost controls.  Directly monitor and control labor costs and stop employees from riding the clock or clocking in early for scheduled shifts.  Enforce the labor schedule with the click of a button.  Indirectly control labor by reducing turnover and improving retention – stop spending money training employees!  Improve the bottom line with an instant Return On Investment.

Text Messages, Facebook, and Online Communications

Employees stay happy when kept in the loop!  Retention at your business will stay low when staff members know what is expected of them, and can schedule both their personal and their work lives.  Using TimeForge, employees can use TimeForge to swap shifts with coworkers, change availability, view their timecard, or request time off.  Employees also receive email and text messages about any schedule changes.  Staff information can be viewed using the TimeForge website, a smartphone (such as an iPhone or Blackberry), or Facebook!

Fast Employee Scheduling

Employee schedules your way!  Build schedules every week, bi-weekly, or monthly.  The back of house and front of house can use the same schedule, or separate schedules.  Use departments, add rules for scheduling minors or seniors, and input required certifications.  The TimeForge AutoScheduler™ learns how managers and supervisors build employee schedules, and automatically creates schedules that adhere to the best labor management techniques while reducing labor costs.

Employee Schedule Enforcement and Remote Monitoring

With TimeForge, management has the tools necessary to monitor when staff members are clocking in and out.  Staff members can be required to clock in and out of Dinerware within a “grace period”, providing managers with a one-click override when your business requires more staff on the clock.  Management can monitor who is clocked in with the use of RSS feeds, a compatible smartphone (such as a Blackberry or an iPhone), or through Facebook.

Compare Employee Schedules and Attendance to Sales

TimeForge synchronizes sales at your business, employee schedules, and staff member attendance.   The TimeForge sales module accurately forecasts the upcoming sales, and can predict usage needs for Dinerware menu items as well!  Use the forecasted sales figures to manage employee time off and changes to availability, order inventory items, and schedule for future needs.

Two Products, One Database

TimeForge calls and reports directly to your Dinerware system, and positions, employees, attendance, and sales are automatically synchronized between Dinerware and TimeForge – no duplications and nothing extra to back up.  Need to make a change?  Just change it in Dinerware, and the changes are automatically sent to the TimeForge website during the next synchronization!  TimeForge extends the capabilities of your Dinerware system – there is no duplicate functionality.

Instant Return On Investment

The TimeForge-Dinerware Bridge is built from the ground up to ensure a fast Return On Investment for your business. Managers keep track of labor costs through payroll reports, schedule enforcement, and fast employee schedules. Employees are always in the know, and can help build schedules by being in the loop and providing constant feedback.  When integrated with Dinerware, TimeForge improves business profits and increases retention while reducing turnover.

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, and TimeForge Daily Log – all three products are included with our Dinerware integration!

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Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the November newsletter here.

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!

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The TimeForge Daily Log is a powerful and easy-to-use communications tool designed to save managers and business owners time while improving store profits. The Daily Log system replaces traditional communication logs stored in the back office with an Internet based tool that can be searched and organized just like your business! Specific details about the store, employees, or upcoming events are recorded in the Daily Log by management employees, and can be reviewed by other managers.

TimeForge Daily Log is built from the ground up to save you time – reducing the time required to manage your business.

TimeForge is constantly improving with customer suggestions and improvements to the software.

Read about other TimeForge Daily Log Benefits

Daily Log Software is also known as Communications Log Software, and some companies refer to this type of software as Enterprise Communication Log Software. Whatever your organization calls it, TimeForge Daily Log is the most powerful tool available to manage business communications, key performance indicators, and control profits at your business!

Read more about the capabilities of TimeForge Daily Log, or about TimeForge Daily Log pricing.

Download a TimeForge Media Kit, which contains more information about TimeForge Daily Log.

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