Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Are you tired of sitting in front of the time clock to see when your staff members show up to clock in, or clock out for their shift? Monitoring time clocks is a time consuming way to manage employees and while it can often be an effective way to reduce payroll expenses, it also increases frustration and costs among managers and supervisors.

TimeForge already supports a number of ways to manage staff members without sitting in front of the time clock including:

• Online employee work scheduling accessible over the Internet,
• Web-based attendance that can be viewed remotely,
• Enforcing the schedule with a grace period for clocking in or out,
• Identifying “most different” time punches, and
• Allowing other staff members to act as a witness when employees show up before they are scheduled to work

We now go one step further! Fully manage your business remotely!

TimeForge can notify managers or supervisors when employees show up early or late, and when clocking in or clocking out. There are four new “Alerts” inside of each supervisor and manager account, controlling when alerts are sent to management personnel.

For example, you can receive email and TimeForge notifications when staff members show up more than 10 minutes early for their scheduled shift.

To configure these Alerts, log into TimeForge, go to your Settings page, and configure the applicable Alerts.

You should be using a labor management system to make your life easier! TimeForge can quickly and easily build your staff schedules, manage attendance, reduce labor costs, and streamline employee management. Sign up for a trial today!

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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

• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy.
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The TimeForge team has been hard at work adding to the TimeForge software product, making employee scheduling simple, and time and attendance monitoring easier.   We now offer Biometric Fingerprint scanning to all TimeForge Max users.   We have partnered with M2SYS to offer an out-of-the-box and affordable solution to all users, and are proud to be listed on the M2SYS partners page.

A joint press release about our partnership was recently issued, and can be found on the M2SYS website in full.   The interesting tidbits for TimeForge users include:

According to Anthony Presley, Founder of TimeForge, “Our customers already schedule their employees online, but many continue to use traditional time clocks to track when employees punch in and out at their business. The M2SYS biometric product allows our customers to easily track time and attendance data and compare it to existing schedules — providing important and accurate payroll information. By eliminating the need for passwords and employee identification cards, it should significantly reduce buddy punching, which will save our customers up to 5-7% of their annual payroll expenses.”

“Companies in the retail and hospitality industry are quickly recognizing the benefits of using biometrics, including the reduction of buddy punching and an overall improvement in time and attendance data accuracy,” states Michael Trader, President of M2SYS Technology. “We are excited about being chosen by TimeForge, and look forward to a long-standing relationship with them and their customers.”

For more information about pricing, or how to get a Fingerprint scanner, contact the TimeForge sales department.

Can you build a schedule in less than 10 minutes? How many thousands of dollars do you spend making schedules every year? Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, pizzeria, hotel, club, bar, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!

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• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software
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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

Related articles or pages

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• Employee Labor Scheduling: Interview with TimeForge.com's Anthony Presley
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Scheduling Is Not Usually Simple

Scheduling is much more than simply anticipating customer volume and then ensuring that there are an adequate number of employees present to handle peak busy periods. Because payroll is one of the largest controllable expenses, it is important to understand the underlying financial metrics involved in controlling payroll costs while still maintaining optimum staffing levels.

One of basic metrics is the “payroll to total sales ratio” which encompasses all fixed and variable payroll expenses including management salary. Mangers who strive for more accurate measurements often include non-payroll costs such as entertainment fees paid to live performers.

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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How to Quickly Minimize Labor Costs

There are a minimum number of employees necessary to open a restaurant up for business every day and close it down at night. Anyone else that is generating payroll expense during any particular shift should be there because their presence is in direct relationship to the current shift’s business volume, not because their name showed up on the schedule. Payroll costs are not a hard-and-fixed expense. They can and should be as variable as the number of covers on any particular day.

Understanding key ratios and effective scheduling principles can bring runaway payroll costs under control quickly and easily. Likewise, understanding how to implement portion control and a variety of other cost reduction methods are an essential part of every restaurant manager’s day-to-day responsibilities.

Labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses; TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling.

Related articles or pages

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