Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Lately, everyone has been going crazy for “going green“. While some business owners are dismissing the rapidly growing trend as a fad, many savvy business owners are learning how to capitalize on the environmentally-conscious movement among younger workers. It is important for businesses to recognize that Generation Y is particularly sensitive to Green efforts, and (as our Marketing to Generation Y blog mentioned) is spending $150 billion dollars annually on expenses such as food, drinks, and entertainment.

Changes to make your business more environmentally friendly will:

• Improve your employee retention rate of environmentally-conscious Gen Y (and older generations’) staff members
• Allow you to capitalize on the 70 million individuals looking to spend their money in “Green” establishments. According to a recent study by Forrester Research, nearly 40% of Gen Y-ers are willing to pay more for products or services that are environmentally friendly.

When you are ready to take the next steps to make your business Green, the Green Restaurant Association (GRA) is a national non-profit organization that provides a convenient and cost-effective way for restaurants, manufacturers, distributors, and consumers to become more environmentally responsible. According to case studies by the GRA, businesses that they have assisted have had the following savings:

• After only one year since their GRA certification, The Draft House reported a 54% water reduction and a trash reduction of 50%.
• GustOrganics, the first certified Organic restaurant in New York State received free publicity from The Today Show, Telemundo, CNN, The New York Times, Financial Times and more after becoming GRA certified.
• Boston restaurant Taranta eliminated almost all garbage with recycling and composting program, and enjoyed savings of $1,300 per year by switching from paper towels to an energy-efficient hand dryer.
• “I realized about a 45% return on my investment in one year and cut approximately $1200 off my annual operating costs. Not only am I pleased with the financial results of my decision, I also know that my association with the GRA has inspired employee morale.” – Jim Solomon, Fireplace Restaurant.

Going Green will help your business save money, reduce employee turnover, generate positive publicity and increase your sales. For more information on going Green or getting your restaurant GRA certified, click here.

TimeForge can help your business take the first step to  becoming  green with our online labor management products.   Our software will help you dramatically reduce the amount of paper required for you to run your business by removing the paperwork overhead needed for common HR needs.

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software
• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications
• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants

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.

Related articles or pages

• Going Green is Good for Profits
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!

One aspect of labor management that can prove tiresome to both new and experienced managers alike is the process of approving and exporting payroll. This usually includes multiple steps, including the collection of time punches, payroll review and corrections, as well as approval of the payroll. After payroll has been approved from the time and attendance system, you need to get the data into the payroll company.

TimeForge has a new version of our TimeForge-QuickBooks integration software to make managing payroll for restaurants, retail, and hospitality businesses with multiple locations/stores simpler and more affordable.

Thanks to our recently updated TimeForge-QuickBooks software, users can easily connect to multiple stores/locations and retrieve payroll, hours, and other related information. TimeForge is able to import payroll information from QuickBooks for immediate processing; all you have to do is approve the payroll and print the checks!

This new version includes a number of updates, new features and improvements to make maintaining single and multiple-unit businesses more simplified and less time-consuming. TimeForge QuickBooks gives business owners the unprecedented ability to control and view many controllable aspects of the business, at multiple locations, from a single computer. Simple cost controls within TimeForge translate into immediate savings for your business!

You can download the latest version of our QuickBooks software from our downloads page!

Remember: Streamlined labor management is critical for retail and hospitality-related businesses.

Labor is one of two cost centers that can be directly controlled by management – the other expensive cost center is inventory. Controlling the labor at a store by as little as half a percent has the direct effect of improving profit by half a percent.

There is no easier way to improve your profitability than with TimeForge!

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• Important Notes Feature
• Turn the AutoScheduler Off or On
• TimeForge Dashboard
• Scheduling Salaried Staff

One of our most recent feature improvement requests came from Greg Fong, owner of the Garden View restaurant in Nova Scotia, Canada.   Greg wanted to be able to enforce the employee schedule when employees clock in, so that he knows when employees are riding the clock or are coming in too early.

However, he also doesn’t want to have his managers running back and forth clocking employees in and overriding the schedule , this can fragment the managers time, defeating one of the main reasons he uses TimeForge – keeping the manager on the floor.

Greg proposed to allow his staff members to serve as “witnesses” for each other, allowing staff members to act as a temporary manager when clocking in early, or clocking out late.   This makes his staff accountable to one another and frees up the manager’s time.

Guess what? This is now available inside of TimeForge!   To turn on the Employee Witness capabilities, log in to your TimeForge account, and access the Attendance Options.   You will see an option to enable Employee Witnessing (by choosing Yes or No).

As always, your feedback on this feature is very important to us , what do you think?   Should staff members be allowed to “witness” for each other, taking over some of the responsibility of the manager?

TimeForge employee scheduling and labor management software is used by managers of restaurants, retail stores, and other hospitality and service-oriented businesses around the world. TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business!

Related articles or pages

• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling
• Western Food Expo is a wrap!
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software
• Table Spacing is Important for Profitable Restaurants
• Restaurant Expense Overview (Part 1 of 5)

• Communication between staff members is the key to a good schedule. Shift swaps, staffing minimums, requests for days off, changes in availability, upcoming business requirements (private parties, birthdays, etc…) will all demand more from the staff than any one person will know.   Coordination is key to ensuring a smooth workday.

• Ensure that staff members have any necessary certifications, and that the certifications are current. An employee working without the right certifications can cost your business thousands in fines by various policing authorities, and in some locales, can land the manager on-duty in jail.

• Copying a schedule from the previous week is a quick way to make a schedule for the upcoming week. But this method of employee schedule creation assumes that the previous schedule was “good“. How would you know?   Use various metrics to identify whether the schedule worked for your business – actual vs. theoretical, how many shifts changed, were employees satisfied, how many no-shows occurred, was the actual payroll within an acceptable margin of the actual sales (or customer throughput)?

• Cross training is an excellent management technique to ensure that when the unexpected happens, your business is prepared.   Employees who have been cross trained are able to perform more than one job duty.   When staff members fail to show up to work, or an emergency happens at the business, the workforce is prepared to handle the situation.

• Early clockins and late clockouts can drain the profits from your business. Every employee that clocks in early, or clocks out late is using up precious profits that could be going to fund expansion, provide raises, and pay bills. Watch out for employees who ride the clock by monitoring the employee schedules, and comparing clock in and clock out times to scheduled work times.

• Managers spend hours messing with and creating the work schedule every week. Keep staff members happy and use TimeForge to make the employee schedules.   Employees stay happy because employee’s know what is going on, and managers are content because they can build an employee schedule in seconds.

TimeForge labor management software is used by owners and operators of restaurants, retail stores, bars, grills, and other service-oriented businesses to increase profits, reduce turnover, and improve retention.

Related articles or pages

• TimeForge Attendance Improvements
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1)
• TimeForge Workforce Scheduling is now listed in FindApps.com
• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business
• Schedules are Theoretical Time, Time and Attendance is Paid Time , Manage Both

Table spacing is important for determining cash flow, occupancy, and customer satisfaction and is especially important in fast casual and fine dining restaurants.

Ever wonder how restaurant table proximity or spacing impacts customer satisfaction and spending?

Read Stephani Robson and Sheryl Kimes report titled Don’t Sit So Close to Me: Restaurant Table Characteristics and Guest Satisfaction.

The findings of their report suggest that not only should customers be seated at right-sized tables for the restaurant, but that when the distance between tables is less than three feet, both satisfaction and spending are decreased.

The full report is available from Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research web  site.

TimeForge labor management software is used by restaurant owners and operators around the world to increase profits, reduce turnover, and improve retention. TimeForge provides powerful and easy-to-use employee scheduling, attendance, online timecards, and labor management software for restaurant, retail, and other service industries.

Related articles or pages

• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business
• Restaurant Scheduling Software for Fast Casual Restaurants
• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling
• In Hard Times, Retail and Restaurant Companies Should Control Costs

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!

Related articles or pages

• What's New in Employee Scheduling? (Part 2)
• TimeForge Newsletter , November Edition (Part 1)
• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business
• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy.
• Time and Attendance – Improved in TimeForge

During economic booms, such as those witnessed during the last few years, many businesses focused on increasing sales while their operations lagged behind.   Operational aspects such as inventory control, portion sizing, reducing turnover, improving employee retention, and training are all import details of hospitality and retail businesses that can be swept under the rug in good times.

Jim Sullivan, the chief executive of Sullivision.com recently penned “In hard times, control costs instead of hiding your inefficiencies by just pumping up volume” at Nation’s Restaurant News.   Although his article is meant for restaurants, it is also applicable to retailers, hotels, and other similar businesses.   Jim covers a number of issues, including one aspect of running a business that is often forgotten in the day to day operations:

Remember, all money is not created equal: $100 in sales is $100 less taxes and expenses; $100 in savings is $100. Here are some fiscal fundamentals to review and execute with your team in both tough times and boom times.

Now is an excellent time to revisit your business’s operational procedures, making them be more efficient and cost conscience – immediately improving profit at your business.   A variety of tools, including TimeForge, are designed to improve cost controls at your business – producing schedules in minutes instead of not hours.

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!

Related articles or pages

• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software
• TimeForge Newsletter , November Edition (Part 2)
• Texas Restaurant Association Show — 2008
• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business

We just got back from four full days in sunny Houston, TX. We exhibited at the 2008 Southwest Food Expo, hosted by the Texas Restaurant Association. TimeForge occupied booth 1546 right next to the franchise pavilion and we had a great time in Houston! Throughout the show we became friends with many of our neighbors, dined on wonderful food, and spoke to a number of restaurateurs, hotel and retail owners , most need help with employee scheduling.

We really enjoyed spending time with our neighbors from Del Mar College and Ctuit.

• Del Mar is a wonderful establishment, and Chef Mark (heading their program) knows what he’s doing, with years of experience “on the floor”. Anyone looking to enter the hospitality industry , or needing to hire talented graduates , should contact Del Mar College.
• Ctuit is a leading provider of above-store reporting software that integrates with several different kinds of Point of Sale, Accounting / GL, Time and Attendance, and other software packages. Reports are sent to a central location and can be reviewed by corporate, regional, or district level managers. Thanks for demonstrating your product to us!

Next to us was the Franchise Pavilion, and it included reps from Boston’s Pizza Restaurants, Pollo Campero, Which Which, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Huddle House, and Franchise Times. It seemed to be a tough show for finding franchisees, but many of them kept the show very entertaining for us. If they (or their franchisees) need labor scheduling, they’ll know TimeForge can help!

Lance, Mike, and the rest of the Focus POS crew were on site, dressed down in their bright orange brand and ready to help restaurant owners find the right Point of Sale system. Of all of the Point of Sale vendors, Focus POS has one of the most full-featured labor scheduling systems. They understand that employee scheduling is hard – and try to make it easy for operators to build schedules. It was good to see them again.

Gary Peek, president of Intura stopped by and spoke with us about TimeForge and its applicability in international markets. I spent some time in the Intura booth on Tuesday learning about their mapping software and their ability to do sales analytics based on geographical sales locations. Very cool technology!

More TRA Expo highlights coming ….

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 improve profits and minimize costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, hotel, bank, school, bar, club, or retail business.

Related articles or pages

• Texas Restaurant Association Show (Part 2) — 2008
• Texas Restaurant Association Show — 2008
• Congratulations TimeForge!
• Accuvia , Labor Scheduling Systems
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)

We are previewing several brand new TimeForge features at this years Texas Restaurant Association Expo in Houston, Texas. The show is June 22 – 24, 2008. Some of the new items (now already in TimeForge) include our Daily Log (a very powerful Manager’s Log , similar to a Red Book, Kitchen Log, Bar Log, etc…), Biometric Capabilities (employees can clock in and out using their fingerprints), and payroll exports, among others!

We are also debuting TempForge, a time and temperature tool that complies with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) programs , making sure that temperature sensitive products are kept safe at restaurants, hotels, bars, clubs, and other hospitality related businesses. If you are interesting in seeing what this amazing product has to offer, please drop us a line at info@TimeForge.com.

Come join us at the George R Brown Convention Center, booth #1546, directly across from Ctuit , above store reporting and back-office software, and right next to the Franchise Pavilion.

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 improve profits and minimize costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, hotel, bank, school, bar, club, or retail business.

Related articles or pages

• Time and Attendance – Improved in TimeForge
• Labor Scheduling at the TRA Show – 2008
• In Hard Times, Retail and Restaurant Companies Should Control Costs
• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy.
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1)