TimeForge Breaks Make Your Life Simple

In many states/localities, employees receive paid and/or unpaid break periods and possibly meal periods according to the law. Our Breaks feature allows management to set up rules which govern these employee breaks and meal periods, letting managers know when to grant breaks to on-duty or scheduled employees.

Scheduling Breaks

With our revolutionary Breaks module, employers can add their state or company’s “Break Rules” or “Meal Period Rules” and delegate whether the break is paid or unpaid, optional or required. After adding the necessary breaks, TimeForge can automatically place them on the schedule, and will stagger the breaks to keep employees from all taking the breaks at the same time.   Alternatively, managers can specify each break individually.

Using TimeForge Breaks, with TimeForge Scheduling, business owners and management can:

  • Specify breaks based on hours worked, position, or duration of work scheduled.
  • AutoScheduler™ can quickly stagger breaks for each scheduled shift.
  • Schedule and manage both paid and unpaid, and optional and required breaks.
  • Print break reports and worksheets to track employee signatures.

Taking Breaks:

Employees can begin or end their break with the touch of a button inside of TimeForge.   Managers can set options to allow to employees to take breaks based on the scheduled break settings, or staff can select what kind of break they will be taking, (paid / unpaid, required / optional).   If preferred, management can print out the break worksheet and capture employee signatures for any waived or new breaks.

Using TimeForge Breaks, with TimeForge Attendance, business owners and management can:

  • Track employees’ breaks (paid, unpaid, optional, required, etc.) for labor reporting.
  • Automatically take breaks based on the schedule if staff forget to break in or out.
  • Simple one-click conversion of unpaid breaks to paid breaks (and vice versa).
  • Real time web and mobile view of labor and which staff members are on break.

Alerting/Reporting:

TimeForge can automatically stagger staff member breaks when you add them to the staffing schedule, ensuring that the front of the house is never left empty and customers without service.

Because attendance breaks (time tracking and time punches) are often different from the scheduled breaks, TimeForge allows you to also see a display of employees’ breaks based on the scheduled hours with our Break Report, and track breaks that employees have taken, or should take, based on the staff members scheduled work hours with our printable Break Worksheet Report. Our detailed and comprehensive reports make it simple and to view employees’ habits and work histories.

Managers and business owners can opt to be alerted if staff members do not take their scheduled breaks on time.   For example: If an employer set TimeForge to alert after 15 minutes of non-compliance with the break rules, and an employee is scheduled to take a break at 1 pm, TimeForge will send an alert at 1:15pm if the staff member has not yet taken the schedule break.

These reminders and alerts will ensure compliance with state and union required break rules – potentially circumventing costly fines and lawsuits.

Use the TimeForge Breaks module with our online labor management programs – Scheduling, Attendance, and Human Resources, to easily manage your staffing needs.   With TimeForge’s innovative online software, business owners and management are always at the top of their game. TimeForge makes quick work of painful tasks, like break management – saving business owners valuable time and effort.   Try TimeForge today!

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Ignoring Labor Regulations Will Result in Heavy Fines

In many locales, labor laws for the service industry severely limit the number of hours that a non-exempt employee can work.   Hours worked can be limited by the industry, age, job description (position worked), hourly rate, holiday, length of shift, or even the day of the week.   If your business works with service unions, these rules can become even more complicated, requiring that managers spend time tracking breaks and meal periods and indicating whether or not employees wanted to take their break.   Some states and insurance companies perform regular Labor & Industries audits, imposing heavy fines or insurance premium increases for non-compliant businesses.

Example: A sandwich restaurant in California employs three sandwich specialists, all of which are scheduled to work less than 8 hours a day, six days of the upcoming work week.   On the first day of the schedule one of the employees fails to show up for work and is terminated by management.   The remaining two employees must work work the additional 28 hours at the business to cover the terminated employee.   Neither employee receives a day off during the work week.   Under California law, each of the employees must be paid 1.5x overtime for more than 8 hours of work in a given day, and 1.5x overtime for more than 40 hours per work week.   Additionally, the two sandwich specialists will receive 1.5x , 2.0x overtime on the 7th day of their work week, as neither employee will receive a break this week.   Failing to pay these increased wages is grounds for a lawsuit and an investigation by the state.   Insufficient staffing may cost this California business several thousand dollars , in a single week!

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.

Example: The general manager at a car wash business needs to ensure that one manager is always on duty, as well as a number of attendants to apply soap to the vehicles before vehicles enter the automated car wash machinery.   Each attendant is required to receive a number of breaks during their shift, and this particular business prefers to hire employees who are minors to fill “holes” in the schedule.   During a normal work day, between five and seven employees are working.   By not carefully scheduling the break and meal periods and minor rules, the manager may end up with a shortage of staff as multiple employees take breaks (or leave for the day) at the same time and minor employees leave for home.   During the labor shortage, customers will not be serviced appropriately.   Alternatively, the manager may choose not to send employees homes or allow breaks to proceed , grounds for heavy fines, a lawsuit, and/or increased insurance premiums.

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.

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Employee Scheduling Done Right – The Newest Version of TimeForge

New and existing TimeForge users received a major upgrade on Thursday night, as the TimeForge system was updated to provide more flexible scheduling, new time and attendance functionality, and brand new Communication Log features! Some of the new features include:

  • Availability Requests have been upgraded and are now easier to use. Outstanding employee availability requests are presented as part of the schedule making process and employees are constantly informed of any changes to their availability.
  • Never accidentally schedule staff before or after closing the store! Open and closing times can be configured while making the schedule, and warnings are displayed when staff are scheduled before the store is open or after the store is closed.
  • Employees are automatically notified by text message when management approves a shift swap.
  • Export punch-in and punch-out times to payroll for easy processing. TimeForge has partnered with CompuPay, a leading provider of payroll for small-to-medium retailers and restaurants. Hours can be exported to CompuPay with a single click!
  • Easily identify which employees need to work in specific stations or sections, and schedule these positions with a single click. No more typing “Section 1″ or “Pizza” or “Lane 3″ when making schedules!
  • In accordance with state and federal laws, each position (or job code) can have multiple pay rates, depending on the time of day. Always make sure that employees are paid appropriately!
  • Employees can now search for a shift to pick up, or can pick up any shift that has been given up shift by another employee , if approved by management.
  • Support for delivery drivers is now included! Drivers can enter tips and mileage for their shifts directly into the TimeForge Time and Attendance module.
  • Support for break and meal periods has been enhanced, and managers can now create specific break and meal periods for each shift when building the labor schedule.
  • Decisions about your business that include the weather can now be made directly from TimeForge. TimeForge includes weather forecasts on the “To Do Today” page.
  • New reports! New TimeForge reports include summary reports for time and attendance, as well as several new scheduling reports.
  • Are employees asking for the ability to print the schedule, or a copy of the request log? A setting inside of TimeForge will allow employees to print their own copy of the schedule, breaks, or requests.
  • Does your shift need more information than TimeForge normally provides? You can now enter shift notes directly on to the schedule while building shifts!
  • Significant improvements to TimeForge Attendance were made , time and attendance entries can be sorted a number of different ways, and a note can be entered for each attendance entry.

As always, feedback on the new TimeForge functionality is always appreciated!

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

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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Break and Meal Period Tracking

In many areas (such as California, New York, Florida, parts of Canada, and most of Europe), managers must carefully monitor employee meal and break periods to ensure that employees take the appropriate breaks during their scheduled shifts. In some areas, managers must remember to get employee signatures, proving that breaks were actually given. Failing to follow these regulations will land a business into serious legal trouble. TimeForge provides an advanced and powerful Break Rule module which provides meal and break period guidelines for management , based on the scheduled shifts for the employees , and several reports that can be printed to provide necessary documentation. Let TimeForge do the hard work with meal and break period tracking!

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 restaurant, hotel, bank, school, bar, club, or retail business.

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