Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Some of the new improvements that are quickly noticeable by TimeForge users:

• A New Daily View!  TimeForge continues to be the easiest solution for making employee schedules.  You can now add or edit employees or positions directly from the schedule – no need to leave the schedule screen to add new staff members.  This also creates a streamlined sign up process – new users can be up and running and building schedules in under a minute!

• TimeForge Max customers can now track Sick, Vacation, and PTO requests!  Tracking time off is one of our most requested feature, and is now part of the TimeForge Max software product.  TimeForge Request Types can now be used to calculate sick time, vacation time, or personal time off (or paid time off).  Check back soon for a tutorial on how to use these powerful new features!

• TimeForge Attendance now goes through an approval process before it is exported.  At the end of each payroll period, managers review and then approve attendance before exporting payroll for the pay period to help reduce payroll errors.

• Overtime calculations for Canada, or any other country!  TimeForge now supports overtime calculations in the US (including California Overtime rules), Canada (with 40 hours, 44 hours, or 48 hours, depending on the province), or any other number of hours per week.  This can be set on a per-location / unit level – to assist international businesses, and affects both the theoretical labor schedule and the attendance calculations.

• Weather at your location can be displayed in either Fahrenheit or Celsius.

• TimeForge has supported exporting payroll information to CompuPay, a premium payroll and HR service, for about a year.  We now support exporting to Heartland Payment Systems payroll product as well.

• The new TimeForge reporting tool is available for all TimeForge users.  We have been working on releasing the new reporting tool for quite some time, and this new tool is significantly faster than our old reporting system.
  • In addition to being faster (most reports run in less than half a second!), you can now export reports in a number of formats, including Adobe Acrobat (PDF), Rich Text Format (RTF), and Microsoft Excel (EXCEL).
  • Reports too big or too small?  With a single click, you can now change the font size of the reports – fitting more, or fewer, employees onto each report.
  • Most reports now have Grand Totals – including payroll reports and multi-location reports.

We would love to hear your feedback about these features and improvements to TimeForge, and what you would like to see included in future versions of TimeForge.

What else do you want to see added to TimeForge?

How long does it take to make an employee schedule at your retail store? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs are your #1 controllable expense, and could eating up more than 30% of your monthly expenses? TimeForge will streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your store.  Start profiting now!

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Read about punching in and out (and payroll), and labor schedules before reading this post.  Both posts contain information that will make this article make more sense.

Labor Metrics Help Control Payroll and Labor Costs

At the end of the week, time and attendance values will be collected to calculate wages and payroll for the normal “work week”. A side-by-side comparison of the actual schedule (time and attendance values) and the theoretical labor schedule will reveal a variety of metrics that can be used to manage the workforce. This practice of comparing the actual schedule against the theoretical labor schedule is commonly called “Actual vs Theoretical” or “AvT”. For example:

• Which employees routinely arrive for work on time? Consistently reliable employees are valued employees, arriving at work on time, and are the real workhorses of the business. Make sure to reward them for their efforts.

• Which employees are routinely late for work? This can cause a labor shortage during shift changes, and can disrupt other employees. These employees may need to be disciplined for routine tardiness.

• Which employees are routinely early for work? This increases the payroll expense, reducing profit for the business. Disciplinary actions may be required for these employees.

• Which employees do not show up for work, or routinely call in? These employees may need to be counseled and warned that they risk termination, as they are unpredictable in their work habits and lower morale for other staff members.

• Which employees are always available when another employee does not show up? These employees are willing to work on their days off – and should be rewarded for their efforts to keep the business running.

• Which positions are prone to high turnover? Turnover is extremely expensive to a business, and identifying areas with high turnover is the first step to take measures to reducing turnover.

• Which staff members are most tenured? Tenured staff are dedicated team members and should be rewarded for their efforts. Every effort should be made to increase the tenure of employees while reducing turnover and increasing profits.

• Which is more costly, the theoretical or actual schedule? How much difference exists between the two schedules?
  • If the theoretical schedule is more expensive, management is over-scheduling the work force and may be sending employees home without cause. This often indicates aggravated employees and increase turnover – decreasing profit for the business.
  • If the actual schedule is more expensive, management is not scheduling enough work in advance, and is then forced to call employees on their days off. This situation can also create aggravated employees and increase turnover. It often results in unnecessary over-time.

The ideal work environment has a 0% AvT ratio – employees worked when they were scheduled and management accurately identified the business requirements.

Labor, especially in retail and hospitality, is the largest expense which businesses directly control. Comparing metrics such as Actual vs. Theoretical allows management to maintain control of the business, thereby increasing profit. Many metrics can be compared manually using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, but sophisticated scheduling software such as TimeForge, can calculate many of these metrics quickly and easily.

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!

Related articles or pages

• Employee Schedules are not Payroll. Payroll Must Always be Paid from a Time and Attendance System (2)
• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy. (3)
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software (0)
• Employees are Assets, Not Liabilities (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)

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).

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.

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!

Related articles or pages

• Employee Schedules are not Payroll. Payroll Must Always be Paid from a Time and Attendance System (2)
• Management Time is Money, Schedule it Wisely (0)
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
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The Nation Restaurant Association is forecasting a shortage in workers over the next several years, as the growth of the hospitality sector surpasses the available labor force. Instead of hiring new laborers, many growing operators will need to maximize their existing workforce – and supplementing trained workers with advanced technology solutions is a wise decision. Shorter training times, tighter staffing, faster service times, improved accuracy, and more consistent product quality are just a few of the benefits of blending technology and employees.

Restaurant Business, one of the nations leading restaurant and food-service publications, recently featured an article on the topic of “High Tech Takes on Big Labor”, focusing on many relevant technology advancements including:

• Pay-at-the-table technology (Faster table turnover which means more sales with fewer employees)
• Wireless order taking (Directly enter orders into the POS system, servers can focus on guest satisfaction)
• Web-based employee scheduling (Build schedules faster and notify employees of upcoming work, reduces overhead drastically)
• Online ordering (labor is not needed to field phone calls, enter orders, or pay customers)

A number of technology vendors were highlighted in the article, including TimeForge.com

Some of the scheduling related vendors mentioned in the article include:

• ASI’s Restaurant Manager Labor Scheduling Module that generates staffing rosters and then can be printed, posted to the website, emailed, or sent as text messages.

• CrunchTime!’s Labor and Workforce Management tool which is a web-based solution that interfaces with various POS and HR systems.

• HotSchedules web-based product which offers enhanced reports, rule-based auto-scheduling and POS integration.

• Deterministic’s Labor System is a web-based labor forecasting and management program.

• MacromatiX’s Scheduling and Labor Management product is a web-based QSR and fast-casual scheduling program which alerts managers when labor is “over” or “under”.

• MICROS Systems has a new mylabor product (part of the mymicros.net suite), offering a web-based labor management tool.

• TimeForge.com is a web-based scheduling system designed to keep management on the floor, and reduce turnover by keeping employees “in-the-loop”. The software builds a complete schedule in just a few seconds, and can be manually adjusted to meet specific needs of the business. Employees receive daily reminders about schedule changes, through the website, email, and text messages – and workers can trade shifts online, read messages from management, and request time off (or change their availability).

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.

Related articles or pages

• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• Employee Labor Scheduling from RunningRestaurants.com (0)
• Dinerware (0)
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In foodservice, your business is primarily controlled by two large expenses: labor costs and food costs. Unfortunately, both expenses are variable in this industry and can be challenging to control.

Accuvia, a comprehensive information and technology resource company for the hospitality, foodservice, and retail services, recently reviewed a number of labor management systems in their weekly Newsletter. TimeForge was one of the top labor management companies chosen to be reviewed by Accuvia.

Some of the other companies and products mentioned in the article include:

• Restaurant Manager POS by Action Systems, Inc. (ASI)
• POSitouch Labor Management by POSitouch
• RES 4.0 by MICROS Systems, Inc.
• HotSchedules.com by TDR3
• TMx Labor Management System by TimeManagement Corporation

The actual newsletter can be downloaded here.

Why are we posting direct links to some of our closest competitors? Because we believe our product is superior and we would like you to go check out the other packages to see how we stack up. You will quickly find out that TimeForge is faster, more affordable, and easier to use than any of our web-based competitors or point of sale applications.

When you’re done trying the competition, make sure to visit our Free Trial page, and sign up for our Free Trial.

How long does it take to make an employee schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses? TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, bar, or club.

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As many of you know, we exhibited at the Western Food Expo in California two weeks ago. We had a great time! Our booth was strategically positioned by a Digital Dining Point Of Sale (POS) distributor / reseller and Red Wing Shoes. During the three days in Los Angeles, we spoke to more than 500 restaurant owners, managers, employees, and share holders. A few hotel / motel operators, bar owners, and food inspectors were also interested in the benefits of labor scheduling software. The response for the software was overwhelming, and we appreciated the amazing amount of feedback that many of the customers, and potential customers, provided.

Additionally, we did get to spend some quality time with representatives from Digital Dining, Squirrel Systems, Radiant (Aloha POS), Waiter Pad POS, Micros, and Intura. All of these vendors are interested in integrating the TimeForge employee scheduling and labor management software with their own software packages. Look for integration of our advanced employee scheduling system with your favorite POS system, coming soon!

How long does it take to make an employee schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses? TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, bar, or club.

Related articles or pages

• Accuvia – Labor Scheduling Systems (0)
• Employee Labor Scheduling from RunningRestaurants.com (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• TimeForge Provides Labor Management and Online Employee Scheduling to Dinerware Customers (0)
• Restaurant Business Article on Workforce Problems (0)