Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Lately, everyone has been going crazy for “going green”. While some business owners are dismissing the rapidly growing trend as a fad, many savvy business owners are learning how to capitalize on the environmentally-conscious movement among younger workers. It is important for businesses to recognize that Generation Y is particularly sensitive to Green efforts, and (as our Marketing to Generation Y blog mentioned) is spending $150 billion dollars annually on expenses such as food, drinks, and entertainment.

Changes to make your business more environmentally friendly will:

• Improve your employee retention rate of environmentally-conscious Gen Y (and older generations’) staff members
• Allow you to capitalize on the 70 million individuals looking to spend their money in “Green” establishments. According to a recent study by Forrester Research, nearly 40% of Gen Y-ers are willing to pay more for products or services that are environmentally friendly.

When you are ready to take the next steps to make your business Green, the Green Restaurant Association (GRA) is a national non-profit organization that provides a convenient and cost-effective way for restaurants, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers to become more environmentally responsible. According to case studies by the GRA, businesses that they have assisted have had the following savings:

• After only one year since their GRA certification, The Draft House reported a 54% water reduction and a trash reduction of 50%.
• GustOrganics, the first certified Organic restaurant in New York State received free publicity from The Today Show, Telemundo, CNN, The New York Times, Financial Times and more after becoming GRA certified.
• Boston restaurant Taranta eliminated almost all garbage with recycling and composting program, and enjoyed savings of $1,300 per year by switching from paper towels to an energy-efficient hand dryer.
• “I realized about a 45% return on my investment in one year and cut approximately $1200 off my annual operating costs. Not only am I pleased with the financial results of my decision, I also know that my association with the GRA has inspired employee morale.” – Jim Solomon, Fireplace Restaurant.

Going Green will help your business save money, reduce employee turnover, generate positive publicity and increase your sales. For more information on going Green or getting your restaurant GRA certified, click here.

TimeForge can help your business take the first step to becoming green with our online labor management products.  Our software will help you dramatically reduce the amount of paper required for you to run your business by removing the paperwork overhead needed for common HR needs.

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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.

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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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Any manager in a customer-centric business will tell you that employee scheduling is a headache, but in the quick service restaurant industry, employee scheduling is particularly challenging—multiple shifts, part-time employees (each with their own set of scheduling requests), and fielding endless inquiries about next week’s schedule (or worse, scrambling to fill a missed shift), make quick service restaurants (QSR) one of the most complicated industries for staff scheduling and attendance monitoring. Toss in an employee who is a minor, and the headache reaches migraine proportions for QSR operators.

Deft scheduling and attendance monitoring is tedious and time consuming. And essential for profitability.

TimeForge allows managers to cut QSR employee scheduling time from hours to minutes. And in challenging economic times, the ability to manage schedules at one or many locations, schedule staff members with stronger skills into high volume time slots, and monitor and forecast labor costs makes TimeForge not just a time-saver but a budget-booster. In fact, TimeForge can increase QSR profits by 3-5% with savings in employee turnover, staffing changes, and increased retention.

TimeForge can also integrate with quick service restaurant POS or payroll systems, notify employees of upcoming schedules and schedule changes by email or text message, and allows managers you to focus your energies on urgent managerial duties facing QSR managers on any given day (rather than mind-numbing scheduling minutia).  You’ll find that the time saved first week alone pays for the investment.

With TimeForge, QSR Managers can …

• Create fast and painless employee schedules – even with multiple locations, 24/7 shift requirements, meal breaks, and juggling employees with varying availability and skill sets.
• Review daily sales information, approve shift swaps, review employee requests for time off, and monitor employees on the clock either remotely, through the TimeForge website, via a Smartphone (such as a Blackberry or iPhone), and even through Facebook.
• Stop employees from clocking in before the shift starts or after the shift ends, and keep staff members from punching in friends with biometrics (fingerprint scanners).
• Export payroll to many popular payroll providers with a single click – such as ADP, Paychex, SurePayroll, Quickbooks, and others.
• Track PTO, sick time, vacation time, and reduce payroll costs with accurate record keeping.
• Integrate sales forecasting for gross sales or specific menu items – build schedules using the metrics your business runs on
• Inform employees of schedules or schedule changes by text message or email—eliminating employee confusion and missed shifts.
• Record important information from one manager’s shift to another using the TimeForge Daily Log.
• Monitor and forecast upcoming labor costs and schedule requirements automatically.
• And much more…

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

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During bad economic periods, monitoring labor costs, employee schedules, and managing attendance are crucial to maintaining a profitable business in the auto parts and automobile supply industry.

Even in the best economic climates, staff scheduling for auto parts and supply stores can be a headache.  The manager building the employee schedule has to consider staff abilities and skills, the expected sales volume, employee availability and requests, accrued PTO (and sick and vacation time), labor laws for employees who are minors, overtime, and the total labor costs.

TimeForge works wonders for businesses in the auto supply or auto parts industries – managers and employees alike can benefit from the speed and clarity that TimeForge brings to the business.  Employees can check schedules online, request time off, view timecards, and send messages to other staff members.  Managers benefit from the instant employee scheduling, real-time notifications of schedule changes, employee messaging, and one-click payroll exports.

With TimeForge, employee turnover goes down, employee retention goes up, and profits rise.

Read more about TimeForge for Auto Supply and Automobile Parts businesses.

TimeForge labor management and employee scheduling software is used by owners and operators of automobile parts and auto supply stores, car washes, retail, food-service, and other service-oriented businesses around the world.  TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business!

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Managing employees in the foodservice or hospitality industry is a process that can quickly become a nightmare for both staff and managers.

Staff expectations and requirements will not mix well with business requirements leading to lower employee retention, higher employee turnover, and a reduction in profits for your restaurant.

Most businesses in the restaurant, foodservice and hospitality industries such as table service restaurants, bars, clubs, country clubs, and quick service / fast food restaurants have very little control over the monthly budget. After a lease is signed the building and utility costs will remain relatively fixed, licensing fees and insurance rates will not change drastically month over month, and credit card processing fees usually scale with the business growth.

Managers, however, can directly influence three of the largest budget line items:

• Advertising expenses are normally purchased in 3 – 12 month quantities, and are not likely to change on a monthly basis.
• Inventory including food and beverage expenses can change based on a number of factors, and switching suppliers is difficult and time consuming.
• Labor costs will vary on a monthly basis based on the prevailing wage, employees leaving (or being fired), staff communication, management practices, and a number of other factors that can be directly controlled by managers.

Of these three line items, managers have the most control over labor costs, which can be manipulated to improve business profits. Inversely, improper management of labor costs will reduce the business’s ability to satisfy customers and expose the business to the risk of liability lawsuits and labor violation fines – instantly slashing the restaurant’s profitability!

Improving employee labor scheduling and time / attendance management should be an ongoing effort in your business that results in happier staff members, better customer satisfaction, and higher profits for your company.

TimeForge is a leading provide of powerful and simple-to-use employee scheduling and online labor management software for the restaurant and retail industries. TimeForge software is used by restaurant owners and operators around the globe to increase profits, reduce turnover, and improve retention.

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Making a great labor schedule week after week is one of a manager’s most important tasks. A work schedule should do more than tell staff when to work. A great work schedule should add profit for the business without being a painful chore. TimeForge Scheduling, a web based scheduling program, makes scheduling simple and profitable!

Enjoy fast and painless employee scheduling with TimeForge. Spend less time scheduling and more time on “the floor” working with employees and ensuring customer satisfaction. TimeForge’s benefits far surpass the labor scheduling packages casually tacked onto Point Of Sale (POS) or Property Management Systems (PMS).

TimeForge Scheduling is built from the ground up to save you time – reducing the time required to manage labor.

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

Read about other TimeForge Scheduling Benefits

Labor Scheduling Software is also known as Employee Scheduling Software, and some companies refer to this type of software as Enterprise Labor Scheduling Software.  Whatever your organization calls it, TimeForge Scheduling is the most powerful tool available to manage labor and control profits at your business!

Read more about the capabilities of TimeForge Scheduling, or about TimeForge Scheduling pricing.

Download the TimeForge Media Kit, which contains more information about TimeForge Scheduling.

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August 21, 2008 – Lubbock, TX – It happens on every Friday of every work week in hospitality, restaurant, and retail businesses around the world. Employees call and want to know when they are scheduled to work during the upcoming week, but the manager hasn’t posted the schedule. Staff members are not able to plan their personal lives without the work schedule which creates conflicts and leads to employee terminations and resignations as soon as the schedule is posted. With labor scheduling software tools, management can reduce schedule conflicts, minimize turnover, and improve profitability at their business.

Managing a labor force requires scheduling part-time and full-time employees properly before they are needed for work and also tracking when employees clock-in and clock-out. Good managers reduce the difference between the theoretical work schedule and the actual hours worked while maximizing sales at the business. Improper employee scheduling leads to one of two circumstances:

1. More employees are scheduled to work than are necessary – increasing payroll costs and reducing profits. Employees may be cut from the schedule without working their scheduled hours.
2. Not enough employees are scheduled to work – decreasing sales and reducing profits. Employees must be called in to work, creating frustration and high turnover among personnel.

Neither option is desirable and the key to avoiding both situations is to monitor and refine the schedule at your business. As experienced managers know, building an accurate schedule takes several hours a week and must consider all of the following items:

• Availability sheets
• Communication and request log books
• Shift swaps and trading
• Minor rules
• Scheduled breaks
• Lunches
• Employee notifications
• Training and certifications
• And many other factors …

Using TimeForge, a web-based labor management system, managers quickly build accurate schedules while reducing turnover, enhancing communication, and improving retention. The recently updated TimeForge provides more time saving features, new pricing plans, and now includes a powerful Daily Log.

With a comprehensive labor management tool, payroll expenses are reduced and employee turnover is continually monitored. TimeForge keeps managers out of the back office and puts them back on the floor where they can directly influence the profits of the business.

About TimeForge
TimeForge, www.TimeForge.com, develops easy-to-use software products to manage employee scheduling, time and attendance, and communication logs. TimeForge’s web-based product suite is designed to meet the demands of the retail and restaurant industries, providing solutions for both independent and chain operators.

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Do you own or operate a retail or restaurant company?  Perhaps your store sells collectibles, health food products, cell phone accessories or curtains and rugs.  Regardless of the goods being offered, tightly controlling your labor expenses in the current economic climate is crucial to generate a profit.  Relevant employee expenses including payroll costs, training, and turnover should be properly managed.  With the proper procedures and a set of tools to assist with the complex chore of managing labor, your business can increase profitability.

One key to managing a labor force properly is to schedule part-time and full-time employees before they are needed for work (a theoretical work schedule), and then track the scheduled work against when employees clock-in and clock-out (the actual worked hours), a process known actual vs. theoretical, or AvT.  Good managers reduce the difference (variance) between the Actual hours worked and the Theoretical schedule, while maximizing the sales for the business.

Improper labor scheduling will lead to one of two circumstances for your business:

1. Too many employees are scheduled to work, increasing payroll costs, and reducing profits.  Alternatively, employees are sent home (or cut from the schedule) without working hours they were promised on the schedule.
2. Too few employees are scheduled to work, decreasing the number of sales that are made, and reducing profits.

Neither option is desirable, and the key to avoiding both situations is to monitor and refine the AvT at your business.

Smart managers constantly balance employee satisfaction against the needs of the business in an effort to keep payroll costs down, reduce turnover, and increase profits.  Turnover is extremely expensive, and a 2004 study by the Employment Policy Foundation found that the average turnover cost of a single full-time employee is $13,355.  To recover from the effects of the turnover of a single full-time employee, a retail store would need to sell more than 3,000 pairs of khakis priced at $35 each.  A restaurant would need to sell more than 7,613 children’s combo meals at $2.50 each.

One way to reduce turnover at your store is to implement a labor scheduling tool such as TimeForge, an online employee scheduling solution.

Peter Edwards, owner of Zeb’s General Store in North Conway, New Hampshire knows that proper employee scheduling is key to managing a retail business, especially a seasonal business.  Peter chose TimeForge to help him manage full-time and part-time shift labor at his store. reducing employee turnover and lowering labor costs.  Peter uses templates in TimeForge to rapidly build schedules for his business, and TimeForge automatically emails and text messages the schedule to his employees on a daily basis – notifying employees of their upcoming work schedule and keeping his staff happy.

Peter had this to say about TimeForge:

I own a retail company.  We employ 15 full time employees, and between 5 and 15 part time employees depending upon our season.  I signed up for the 90 day trial period and have been using the TimeForge program for about 45 days.  I have found the program to be easy to use and it hits the mark with respect to our staff scheduling needs.  The email notification aspect of the program is a great feature that I am sure our employees will like.

The most important aspect of TimeForge is the incredible customer support.  Responses to the help menu item are emailed within 24 hours, and a live person actually answers the phone to respond to your questions.  I look forward to using TimeForge and would be pleased to talk with any prospective user of the scheduling program.

If you would like to see what TimeForge can do for your restaurant, hospitality, or retail business, then please sign up today for a free trial or contact our sales department for more information about TimeForge.

How long does it take to make an employee schedule for your employees? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your pizza, restaurant, hotel, bar, club, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!

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Lubbock, TX – May 28, 2008 – Making a great work schedule week after week is often a painful managerial chore for businesses of all sizes. However, the increased store profits, lower turnover, and improved employee morale make employee scheduling software a worthwhile investment. Many operators in the restaurant, retail, and hospitality industries create labor schedules by hand using pen-and-paper methods that can consume up to seven hours a week in managerial time – an expense of more than $12,000 per year in manager time building and managing the labor schedule! Operators using spreadsheets still spend at least two hours a week scheduling labor.

Well-chosen software solutions can help operators control labor and increase profits, without incurring great expense. For example, TimeForge, a web-based labor scheduling product tightly controls employee labor costs and reduces turnover by providing a simple-to-use solution for scheduling employees. The TimeForge software program, available at http://www.TimeForge.com, ensures that managers spend more time “on the floor” and less time in the back office scheduling employees.

The most recent version, released on May 27, 2008 includes a number of improvements to the software and continues to build on TimeForge’s success as a quick, simple, and affordable scheduling solution for businesses of all sizes. According to Michael, the proprietor of Tiara Cafe in California, “The TimeForge scheduling system has not only increased our efficiency tremendously; decreased the errors in what is normally an error prone environment; it has also saved us ten times what it costs us each month.”

TimeForge turns employee scheduling into an automated task that can be performed in a few minutes every week – improving store profits by thousands of dollars every year for the store. Some advantages of the new TimeForge include:

• TimeForge now includes the ability to track employee tips, which can be entered when an employee clocks out, or later by management!
• Schedules and templates can be organized into departments (similar to folders) to easily differentiate between “Front of House” and “Back of House” schedules.
• New attendance reports are available for supervisors and managers.
• Managers can easily see why an employee cannot be scheduled – regardless if the employee is already scheduled at another location or in a conflicting shift, or if the employee is unavailable.
• Locations / stores / units can be organized into a Corporate Hierarchy so that managers can monitor scheduling practices for groups of locations.
• Many other improvements!

Independent and chain operators alike can benefit from the many time saving and profit improving features of labor scheduling systems such as TimeForge. Get back on the floor today!

About TimeForge
TimeForge is the premier employee scheduling software, designed to provide fast ROI benefits to the business, and to meet the growing demands of the work force. TimeForge.com is affordable software that works with both independent and chain operations in retail, hospitality, and many other industries. For more information about TimeForge, and to sign up for a free trial, visit the website at http://www.TimeForge.com

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