Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees

Posted on Jun 09, 2010 by apresley in Blog

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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Management Time is Money, Schedule it Wisely

Posted on Sep 08, 2008 by apresley in Articles

Managers are More Expensive than Non-Salaried Staff

In many industries including retail, hospitality, food-service, hotels, and manufacturing, salaried management staff are usually several times more expensive than non-salaried staff at the same business. In many cases, one member of the salaried staff can be more expensive than five or six non-salaried staff members. In addition to their hourly-wage, managers are eligible for benefits such as life insurance, health insurance, expensive overtime, or additional perks like free food or discounted merchandise rates.

Example: Restaurant servers (waiters) in the state of Texas commonly receive less than three dollars per hour in compensation from the business (the rest of the minimum wage must be received in tips from customers during the shift). However, a manager at the same store may receive more than twenty or thirty dollars per hour, implying that the manager is “worth” between 400% and 1000% more than a single server.

Schedule Managers to do Management Tasks

Businesses should ensure salaried managers perform managerial tasks while on duty, and leverage non-salaried employees for work-related duties that do not require a manager. Some tasks that managers may be charged with during a regular work day could include performing quality control, placing vendor orders, building employee schedules, training employees, processing payroll, and working with customers. Whatever management does while at work, make sure that it is something that is representative of their cost to the business.

Managers should be able to jump in and work when other non-management staff members do not show up for work or unanticipated spikes in demand require more line workers. This ability implies that the business does a good job of cross training employees, and the business is not overly reliant on any one staff member. However, if it is common practice for managers to mop the floors or clean bathrooms because other staff members do not show up, than a re-evaluation of hiring and staffing practices is recommended.

Managers are routinely asked to create efficient schedules for their business on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. Accurately scheduling the work force several weeks in advance provides employees with a defined work schedule and allows managers to estimate upcoming expenses (payroll is often the largest expense in retail, restaurant, hospitality, and similar industries). During the process of preparing an accurate schedule, managers will check employee availability, review request logs, consider federal/state/local and corporate regulations, update employee work preferences, revise employee capabilities and training, make overtime considerations, ensure minimum work hours all while maintaining budgets and other business requirements. The entire schedule process commonly occupies a manager for 10% of every week, costing the business at least several hundred dollars each week!

Example: A restaurant that employs forty non-management staff may have two assistant managers (a front-of-house manager and a back-of-house or kitchen manager), and a general manager. Non-management staff may make between $3 and $12 per hour, while managers may be salaried between $40,000 and $60,000. One manager spending 3 hours per week on the schedule will cost the business more than $4,000 per year! Now imagine that same store is a concept with one-hundred locations – that’s almost half-a-million dollars in wasted manager time building theoretical labor schedules annually!

Changing the Employee Schedule Uses Manager Time, Which is Expensive

In addition to creating the schedule, managers often change the schedule on a daily basis. Employees may become available (and want more shifts), suddenly be unavailable (illness or termination) and not able to work, or forget when they need to be at work. Shift swapping is also common in many industries and requires a manager to spend time on each trade , employees give up shifts that were assigned to them originally, or pick up shifts that others cannot work. A shift or request log may be used for employee initiated shift trades. Managers cannot monitor theft, interact with customers, train employees, or perform quality control at the business if they are in the back-office working on a labor schedule.

Example: A car dealership has three managers, each making an average of $70,000 per year. Additionally, the car dealership has more than one-hundred (100) non-management staff, including sales personnel and mechanics. On average six employees (6% of the non-management staff) call in to check their schedule or swap shifts on a daily basis, using a total of 30 minutes per day (5 minutes per call). The dealership is open 300 days per year, costing the dealership more than $3,000 per year in schedule change costs. It may take another 6 hours per week to schedule the staff , more than $10,500 per year in direct scheduling costs!

To ensure that management staff time is spent appropriately, use technology tools to perform tasks that can be done by computers. Software tools such as TimeForge improve staff retention, and decrease the amount of time that scheduling labor consumes. TimeForge includes a number of additional tools that will assist managers in time management, including a daily manager log book, payroll processing, and other similar tools.

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Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy.

Posted on Aug 01, 2008 by apresley in Articles

Although employee work schedules sometimes appear simple to create, building a “good” labor schedule is extremely difficult using traditional methods such as Microsoft Excel or pen-and-paper.   Managers must build a schedule so that qualified employees are available to meet the forecasted demand for service or goods.   And a good schedule accurately reflects projected sales for the upcoming week or month, providing adequate work hours for employees.

Labor Schedules Take Time to Create

The employee schedule informs employees when to arrive at work, and in some cases, when to leave.   In other cases, employees are “cut” from the schedule based on demand (or volume) at the business.   In almost every case, the labor schedule is created by management staff in the back-office or at home after hours , a point of discontent for most managers who must work longer hours and weekend hours to build schedules.

The steps to create a labor schedule reads like a long list of tasks, occupying several hours of management time every week:

  1. First review the manager’s log book and estimate or forecast upcoming sales and the demand for labor.
  2. Next check the employee request log and availability sheets as well as individual work preferences while remembering which employees are minors or restricted in working.
  3. Look-up required employee certifications; for example, an ABC license is required to serve alcohol at a restaurant or necessary certifications to dispense medications.
  4. Identify trustworthy and experienced personnel to open or close the business.
  5. Try to fairly distribute shifts while meeting employee minimum hour works, but do not exceed a maximum number of hours.
  6. Make sure that employees are not likely to receive overtime if someone fails to show up on the schedule.
  7. Identify convenient times to provide break and meal periods for staff members who are required to receive breaks.
  8. Calculate the likely cost of payroll, being mindful of budgetary constraints , if the cost is too high, start over.

Juggling all of these factors to create a good schedule for the workforce is a complicated task that can consume more than ten-percent of a manager’s time throughout the week.   In many cases, especially in owner-operator businesses, this schedule is posted late in the week for the upcoming week.   Posting the schedule late causes problems with employees and creates higher turnover and reduces tenure at the business , reducing overall profits!

The final version of the labor schedule, which the manager has likely spent hours creating, may be bulk-emailed out to the employees (if the manager used a tool such as Microsoft Excel and a schedule template to build the schedule), or more commonly, printed and posted on a wall in the back of the business (inside the management office, store room, or kitchen).

Example: At a nightclub, management juggles the work preferences and needs of more than ninety individuals including bartenders, servers (waiters and waitresses), cooks, dancers, security, disc jockeys, paid performers and management staff. After the business closes on Thursday night, the manager spends three hours building the schedule and trying to meet every employee’s needs , as well as the business’s needs. There is always some give-and-take when building a schedule, and after finishing the schedule, it is posted on a wall in the management office so that employees know when to work. A second copy of the schedule is saved in a folder for later comparison with the employee clock-in and clock-out times to identify schedule irregularities or areas of improvement.

Theoretical Labor Schedules are Important for Staff

This posted work schedule is the “theoretical labor schedule” – it is the necessary labor needed to operate the business and meet expected customer demand.   The posted work schedule will change throughout the week as employees fail to show up, swap shifts with other staff members, arrive early or late, or business requirements change and employees are cut or added to the schedule.   The posted schedule should be saved and archived (as it was created by management) for later comparison to worked hours, and for issues arriving from Labor & Industries audits, availability conflicts, labor disputes, or even lawsuits.

Example: If the manager of the nightclub receives $60,000 per year in salary, the schedule process at this nightclub costs more than $90 per week, $360 per month, and $4,320 per year , just to make an employee schedule! With a tool such as TimeForge, building a schedule could cost less than $8 per week, $32 per month, and $382 per year.
Using TimeForge creates an extra $3,936 in profit , every year!

Is your scheduling complex?   Are you making the best possible schedule?   How many thousands of dollars do you spend making schedules every year?   Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, increase retention and increase profits through employee scheduling at your business? Sign up today for a free trial!

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Increase Profits with Improved Cost Controls

Posted on Apr 20, 2008 by apresley in Press Releases

Save Thousands Through Better Scheduling of Labor , Reduce Turnover and Headaches

Lubbock, TX , April 20, 2008 , The slowing United States economy is having a negative impact on sales within the restaurant and retail industries and operators are seeking creative methods to improve profit margins at their companies. In the absence of growing sales, a common strategy is to focus on stronger inventory and labor controls to increase profits. It’s a strategy that will not only pay during tough economic times, but will continue to reap returns when the good times return. Well-chosen technology can help operators manage both cost centers without incurring great expense or time. One such example is TimeForge, a labor scheduling product that tightly controls employee labor costs 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 April 20th, 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.

In many cases the new version of TimeForge can drastically increase operator efficiency and reduce the errors caused by ineffective scheduling techniques. Managers without labor scheduling tools, such as TimeForge, commonly spend more than $12,000 a year in management time (based on a national salary average of $62,500) building and managing the labor schedule! The latest version of TimeForge.com 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 can manage meal and break periods for the schedule, and now includes break worksheets!
  • Costs for schedules now include overtime, including 1.5x, 2.0x, and California Overtime and exemptions!
  • TimeForge can be integrated with a number of software packages, reducing operator data entry
  • New multi-location reports
  • Many other improvements!

Making a great schedule every week is often a painful managerial chore for businesses of all sizes. The increased store profits, lower turnover, and improved employee morale make employee scheduling software a worthwhile investment. Many hospitality and retail owners have discovered how properly managing labor saves time and money for the business with a free trail of TimeForge.

About TimeForge.com
TimeForge.com 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.com, and to sign up for a Free Trial, visit the website at http://www.TimeForge.com

How long does it take to make a labor schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your motel, bank, school, restaurant, bar, club, or retail business.

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Simple Employee Scheduling – Version 1.8.5 (Part 2)

Posted on Oct 31, 2007 by apresley in Press Releases

On Sunday night, we released the latest version of TimeForge, the groundbreaking, simple and easy to use employee scheduling software. This new version continues to improve the TimeForge software, adding many new features so you can go home sooner!

What’s New?

Schedule without Wages. Just want a simple scheduling tool? TimeForge can now schedule employees without having any wage information entered into the software. All that is required are the names of your employees and the positions that they can work. That’s it! Of course, TimeForge can do much more …

Turn off the AutoScheduler. For many businesses, the AutoScheduler saves hours of management time by correctly placing the right employee into the right shift on the schedule. However a few of our users would like to do this process themselves, and want to turn the AutoScheduler off. To do so, login to TimeForge.com, and click on the “Settings” tab. Then, click on the “Settings for this Location“, and locate the “TimeForge configuration” section. One of the options is to enable or disable the AutoScheduler. Setting this option to “No” will disable the AutoScheduler.

Double Alerts. If an employee shift swap will result in a double shift (where an employee will work more than one shift that day) … you’ll be notified when you approve or deny the shift!

How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant.

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Employee Scheduling Press Release

Posted on Aug 13, 2007 by apresley in Press Releases

Lubbock, TX , August 10, 2007 , Stop wasting time on employee schedules! Labor scheduling, considered a necessary headache by most restaurant industry professionals, consumes between 3 and 8 hours of management time every week; time that can be better spent managing employees, attending customers, and servicing business needs. Today, the industry’s leading labor-scheduling company, TimeForge.com, announced that version 1.7 of the TimeForge software will be released at the 2007 Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo.

TimeForge’s latest version of the popular employee scheduling software continues to improve on the company’s conviction that scheduling must be as fast as possible so managers and employees can spend more time on the floor. TimeForge clients report that labor schedules can be built in less than 30 minutes, an 80% – 98% savings for many in the hospitality industry.

Western Food Expo has selected TimeForge for this year’s “Onsite New Product Gallery” and will showcase the new features of the software including an enhanced user interface, requests and availability, shift swapping among employees, significant AutoScheduler™ speed improvements, a superior report interface, as well as new time and attendance features. TimeForge has also improved the core of the product: scheduling and notifications. Managers gain more control of automatic schedule creation, and employees have greater flexibility with availability and schedule requests.

No more sticky-notes and no more scheduling spreadsheets! To be competitive in today’s market, electronic scheduling is a necessity. Visit TimeForge.com at the Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo, booth #2827, to see what you have been missing!

About TimeForge.com
TimeForge.com is the leading online employee scheduling software product. TimeForge provides immediate ROI benefits to the business while meeting the growing demands of the workforce. TimeForge.com is designed specifically for the hospitality and restaurant industries including restaurants (quick-service and table-service), hotels, catering, and other hospitality markets.

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