Labor Management. NOW Simple.

TimeForge is both powerful and flexible!  We provide a stable and simple labor management platform that gives you, the user, the power you need to manage your workforce.

One way that TimeForge provides simple labor scheduling is by providing you, the user, with the ability to schedule staff any way you want to.  That’s right – schedule your labor based on the requirements of your business!

TimeForge supports building schedules in many different ways, and provides flexible, powerful, and easy to use tools to make sure you can get done building the schedule, communicate with your staff members, and go home early!  For example, you can build schedules:

• One shift at a time, using day parts (Work Periods) or specific time periods
• Bulk copying of shifts from one day to another
• Copying work shifts from one employee to another
• Using daily templates with predefined shifts
• Utilizing weekly templates with dozens or hundreds of shifts
• Bid shifts, which allow staff members to help build the schedule
• Copying a previous schedule to create a new schedule for next week
• Daily, using a gantt chart to oversee your exact staffing needs
• Weekly, using an Excel-like interface to quickly and easily schedule staff

And all of these staff scheduling options can use “fixed employee” scheduling … where you, the manager, choose the employee you want to work.  Alternatively, you can build labor schedules using the automated power of the TimeForge AutoScheduler.

Edit a Shift in the Detail View

In addition, you can build schedules using departments, where you can appoint a supervisor to oversee the schedule, availability changes, and staff communication.

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Grocery management sometimes feels like juggling cats – there is a lot to do, only a few hours to do the necessary tasks, and a simple task, such as getting staff and vendors to cooperate, is tedious by itself.  Labor management is only one aspect of your day, but it’s an important – and time consuming – one.  Over-staff and you could lose a lot of money. Under-staff and your customers will go to another grocer.

TimeForge can cut the time spent doing routine but tedious tasks like building a grocery employee schedule or monitoring attendance at your grocery from hours to minutes.  And TimeForge gives you the tools you need to painlessly do the less routine, but vitally important, tasks like fine-tuning your work force and monitoring and forecasting labor costs.

If you spend hours just creating an employee schedule, you’re not alone.  It’s not easy. You have to take a huge number of factors into consideration – your employees’ specific availability, skill levels, accrued PTO, time off and shift swap requests, and the busy (and not so busy) times in that particular store.

Once the staff schedule is complete, you have to communicate the schedule to all your employees, redo it in the event of an unexpected illness or time-off requests – and find on-call employees to fill in for absent staff members.  All affected staff members need to be reminded of the schedule changes, again.  Small mistakes can result in missed shifts, unhappy employees (and increased turnover), or even labor fines.

With TimeForge you can …

• Build efficient employee schedules for one or more locations, in just a few minutes for each store.
• Export payroll to many popular payroll providers – such as ADP, SurePayroll, Paychex, Quickbooks, and others – with a single click.
• Notify employees of schedules or schedule changes by text message or email – eliminating employee confusion and missed shifts and reducing turnover.
• Record staff member availability, employee time-off requests, and other key information.
• Stop early clock ins and late clock outs or buddy punching to provide immediate labor cost controls.
• Remotely check on employees that are clocked in – using the web, Facebook, or a cell phone.
• Provide remote 24/7 access for employees to view work schedules, review timecards, request time off, change work availability, swap shifts with other staff members, and receive daily schedule alerts via email or text messages.
• And much more …

• Scheduling employees with the strongest skills during your busiest times.
• Receive notifications of potential labor shortages automatically.
• Monitoring your labor costs – in real time.
• Take advantage of nearly 3 dozen different reports to keep an eye on labor costs and scheduling trends.
• Using your existing staff more efficiently in order to avoid layoffs or unnecessary hiring.
• Trying out various “what-if” scenarios to visualize staffing or schedule changes—without losing your original schedule.

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

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Quick service restaurants (fast food businesses) can be very challenging to manage. Three influencing factors directly determine the success, or failure, or a QSR restaurant – customers (sales), inventory, and labor. Of these three items, managers on a day-to-day basis have the most control over the labor – controlling costs, turnover, scheduling, and communications with staff members.

Restaurant managers must make sure that enough staff members are on site during busy hours, but managers must also be careful to cut staff when expected need begins to drop.  Scheduling the right number of employees in a quick service restaurant is a constant challenge.

And with a busy restaurant business, managers don’t have time to babysit the time clock to watch employees clock in or out at the right time.  Riding the clock (staff members who clock out late or clock in early), and buddy punching can both have disastrous effects on the bottom line for the business.

Other common labor management problems for a QSR business include:

• Schedule communications
• Changing availability
• Inexperienced / young staff members
• High turnover
• Buddy punching
• And more …

Over scheduling the restaurant will reduce profits with a bigger payroll. Under scheduling staff might cause customers to go elsewhere – reducing income.

Skillful scheduling of staff members for your QSR restaurant isn’t easy – it can be time consuming and tedious. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be.

TimeForge turns labor scheduling and attendance monitoring into a simple management task, giving you back your weekends and increasing the business profits, while keeping staff delighted and reducing turnover.

Read more about TimeForge employee scheduling and labor management for quick service restaurants.

TimeForge will reduce turnover and improve retention while freeing up manager time and increasing store profitability at your quick service restaurant!  TimeForge employee scheduling and labor management software is used by owners and operators of quick service restaurants, and other hospitality, food-service, retail, and other service-oriented businesses around the world.

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What are you doing about the minimum wage increase?  If you are an operator in the food-service, hospitality, retail, or other service-oriented sector, the recent increase in federal minimum wage likely affects your bottom line – the profits at your business.

A number of other articles discuss the impact of this federally mandated change on businesses, including some of our favorites:

• Minimum Wage Hike Could Threaten Low Earners’ Jobs
• With Minimum Wage Set to Rise, Tipped Employees Seek Their Share
• The Dangerous Minimum Wage Mirage
• Local Workers Discuss Minimum Wage Increase

As a business, how do you combat the extra expense of workers?  One way is smarter labor management tools that can save you money – like TimeForge.  TimeForge can save you 3-5% of your labor costs by improving your staff retention, decreasing turnover, freeing up manager time, and enforcing the labor schedule — all of which provide direct improvements to your bottom line.

Turnover and Retention are important metrics at any business.

• It can cost more than $3,500 to replace a single employee making $8.00 / hour, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).  This accounts for recruitment, training, interviewing, hiring, reduced productivity, etc…  If the turnover at your business is 80% – that means that 16 of the 20 employees you hire in any given year, are no longer with your business.  What does that turnover cost your business?  16 * $3,500 = $56,000 in lost profit because 16 employees left.  That’s serious money out of the business!

Manager time is expensive, use it wisely.

• Most managers in the hospitality industry take more than two hours to build a labor schedule, every week.  With a low annual salary of only $40,000 (below the annual average), two hours weekly is $2,080 in direct manager costs for building a labor schedule.  This excludes the time necessary for rewriting the schedules, answering phone calls, updating availability, and all the rest of the scheduling duties a manager needs to do.  And while the manager is building schedules, they cannot run the business.

Enforcing the employee schedule has immediate savings.

• Employees commonly ride the clock, clocking in early and clocking out late.  Every few minutes adds up.  A staff member clocking in early two times a week, and clocking out late twice per week, who earns the new minimum wage of $7.25, will burn through an extra $362.50 per year from the business.  With 20 employees, that is more than $7,250 per year, and an additional 20% in benefits, taxes, and other fees.  More than $8,700 in extra labor costs.

So, with only 20 employees, the business is likely losing:

• $56,000 in turnover and retention costs
• $  2,080 in schedule building costs
• $  8,700 in schedule enforcement costs
• $66,780 in direct labor costs

That is $66,780 in profits that the business is losing.  What will TimeForge cost a business with 20 employees?

TimeForge Lite will cost the business about $25 per month, or $300 per year – well below the cost of even a single manager’s time to build a schedule.

TimeForge Max will cost the business about $100 per month, or about $1,200 per year – complete with labor scheduling, accounting integration, attendance monitoring, and everything else needed to properly manage labor.

What happens with five stores? Twenty? Three-hundred? Labor costs go up drastically, the more stores that a business operates.

Use TimeForge labor management software to put money back in the business and save thousands every year.

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

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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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Still trying to figure out what social media is, and how it’s going to help your retail or restaurant business?  Not quite sure what Twitter may be, why you need a Facebook page, or what you need a blog for?  You are not alone!

Starbucks Coffee is still trying to figure out social media, and how to make it work from a business perspective.  So far, they’ve managed to rack up more than 1 million facebook fans, more than 81,000 Twitter followers, and are now ranked number 6 on the Top 100 Social Brands list for 2008.  Read more about this article at Nation’s Restaurant News ….

• You can follow TimeForge on Twitter, and read all about restaurant and retail labor scheduling.
• TimeForge has a Facebook application, so that you and your staff can receive schedules, shift swap notices, requests for time off, timecards, messages, and more with your facebook account!

How complicated is the employee schedule at your restaurant?  Are you making the best possible work schedule, or are you wasting precious labor resources?  How much of the turnover at your business is created because of bad (or late) employee schedules?

Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention, and increase profits at your restaurant? Sign up today for a free trial!

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Want to apply TimeForge’s forecasting to recession-proof your business? Peter Navarro published an article titled Recession-Proofing Your Organization in this Spring’s MIT Sloan Management Review. Navarro outlines a strategy to anticipate the downturns in the business cycle and steps to take competitive advantage of downturns.

Among his suggestions, trim the workforce and inventories to cut costs when leading into a recession. As the economy expands in good economic times, cherry-pick new hires before your competitors and boost inventory.  There is no need to to be an economist to become your own business-cycle forecast; Navarro provides a simple forecasting formula and points you to Moody’s Economy.com website for data.

Moody’s won’t forecast your business’s sales or inventory, but TimeForge’s forecasting system provide additional insight into your business.  Manager’s can track actual sales and theoretical projections made by staff members, and projections can be forecast with TimeForge to predict staffing levels, upcoming schedule needs, and are useful for tracking inventory turnover.

Visit TimeForge to sign up for a free trial of the most powerful labor scheduling system on the market!

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The TimeForge product began life about 6 years ago, with the vision of a simple, easy to use, online employee scheduling product for the restaurant and retail industries.

We quickly realized that every business owner and manager has their own idea of what a “simple” employee scheduling system must do to help their business – labor scheduling requirements greatly vary by industry and location.  However, saving time and money is important to all business owners …

• Businesses in California, New York, and other areas need to schedule employee breaks (not very important in Texas, New Mexico, and other locales),
• Large organizations need to schedule multiple departments and supervisors (smaller groups only have one department),
• Labor costs need to be accurate, and account for overtime, multiple locations, positions, and job codes (many businesses fly by the seat of their pants, and don’t see the value in this information),
• Employee schedules need to be enforced, making sure employees do not arrive too early or leave too late (locations with full-time employees don’t worry about this requirement),
• And on, and on ….

Over the past several years, TimeForge has evolved to solve all of these problems – in an approachable manner for new and existing customers.

Multiple versions of the TimeForge service are now available, including:

• TimeForge Scheduling, the simple-to-use employee scheduling software, reduces labor scheduling from hours to seconds, improves employee communication (reducing frustration and turnover), and enables staff to check and receive schedules remotely.

• TimeForge Attendance, a full-featured time and attendance program, tracks when employees clock in / out, displays employee timecards, enforces the TimeForge Scheduling work schedule, and exports attendance for payroll calculations.

• TimeForge Daily Log, a powerful communications tool, records daily activities in an organized and searchable manner – removing the need for expensive physical log books.

Each TimeForge product can be used separately, or the products can be combined together to create a powerful labor management tool.  Managing labor with any of the TimeForge products will result in an immediate Return On Investment, but combining the products together will increase your profits in both good and bad economic climates.

The latest release of TimeForge continues to improve on our simple concepts, and continues to make life easy for managers and employees alike.  Read more about our latest release here…

Are complicated employee scheduling practices taking up precious time at your restaurant?  Are you making the best possible restaurant schedule?  How much turnover is created because of bad (or late) schedules? Did you know that TimeForge can improve retention, reduce turnover, and increase profits at your restaurant? Sign up today for a free trial!

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TimeForge Scheduling is the best labor scheduling tool available for restaurants, retail businesses, hotels, motels, and other businesses involved in the hospitality, retail, and food-service industries.  Whatever your needs may be, TimeForge Scheduling can accommodate them.

Stop using Microsoft Excel, and start communicating with staff!  Profit from employee scheduling!

Read more about the pricing for TimeForge Scheduling

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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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