It has been almost six months since the last TimeForge Newsletter went out – and we apologize!  We have been so busy adding new functionality and improving TimeForge that we haven’t taken the time to inform you about all of the new TimeForge features.  As most of you know, we performed a massive update to TimeForge on Thursday and Friday, delivering enhanced functionality just in time for Halloween (or, if you keep up with football, in time for the Texas Tech vs. Texas game)!

We have officially split TimeForge into three distinct products, and each product can be combined together as needed for your business.  These three products include:

• TimeForge Scheduling, our flagship product continues to be the best labor scheduling tool available – fast, streamlined, and easy to use!

• TimeForge Attendance, a powerful time and attendance package that can enforce the labor schedule, provide detailed employee time cards, and directly export your payroll!

• TimeForge Daily Log, a valuable communications tool useful for recording notes and numbers about maintenance, employee problems, deposit logs, sales figures, and much more!

Some of the improvements to the TimeForge products are detailed in Part 2 and Part 3.

Are complicated employee scheduling practices taking up precious time at your business? Are you making the best possible labor schedule? How much does a bad labor schedule cost? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention and increase profits at your business? Sign up today for a free trial!

In many businesses, employees are perceived as a required evil – payroll is a liability that is necessary to be in business.  Unfortunately, in many service oriented industries (such as retail, food-service, and hospitality industries), this attitude harms the business by increasing turnover, deflating morale, complicating legitimate hiring practices, and increasing employee training costs.  These problems are systemic in many organizations, creating dissension between salaried managers and non-salaried employees and increasing turnover.  Another, better, way to view employees is as assets to the business.

Training Costs Money Too

All new employees, even experienced hires, must be trained appropriately.  Employees should be trained in the corporate vision, customer service, and the details of their specific job.  Duties that each employee is responsible for performing will need to be demonstrated by a competent manager or trainer, and then must be repeated by the newly hired staff member.  Training entry-level workers can often take more than a week of management time, and properly training salaried managers may occupy several months.  In addition to the management time utilized training employees, new hires must be paid during their training.  Make sure that training is streamlined and hiring practices are refined to reduce the cost associated with hiring.  Consider Internet based tools to assist staff training, where appropriate.

Employees Become Lucrative Assets Over Time

Employees are expected to learn new skills while working, often referred to as “on-the-job training”.  Most work-related skills can be learned on-the-job, including new equipment skills, customer service skills, and business skills.  These new skills are passed to employees through interaction with managers and other employees at the business, and is the foundation of many promotions.  Hourly wage workers can grow into Assistant Managers.  Assistant Managers can climb the ladder to become General Managers.  General Managers become District Managers, or Vice Presidents.  Each employee becomes a trusted asset, and finding a replacement for an employee that leaves the business will always cost more than the direct salary of that employee.  In addition to training costs, there is an obvious and direct cost when employees are absent and customers are not adequately served.

Keep Assets (Employees) in Mind While Scheduling Work

When scheduling employees, managers should remember that employees are assets necessary to help the business grow and profit.  Employees that excel at certain job duties should be scheduled where their talents can improve business profitability.  Employee requests for time off, changes to the work schedule, and holidays should be honored where possible – and the business should establish rules and regulations to facilitate constant communication between employees and managers.

Turnover Is Expensive — Really, Really Expensive

Turnover is not cheap.  Indeed most managers under-estimate its cost and the learning curve of working in a new restaurant.  Approximately 70% of the cost of turnover is the loss of productivity before an employee leaves, as the employee’s attitude toward the business becomes detached and fewer customers are served.  Turnover in most hospitality-related industries (restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels) averages around 100% annually – meaning that a store with 30 employees has hired 30 employees in the last twelve months!  Using a cost of $2,000 per staff member, that is an annual turnover expense of more than $60,000!  Reducing turnover should b e a primary concern for any business.

Internet-based scheduling tools, such as TimeForge, can assist managers when building and maintaining labor schedules.  These tools can allocate labor appropriately for your business, track employee availability and time off, meal and break periods, and alert employees when their scheduling needs are, or are not, met.  Your business will not always be able to cater to your employee’s needs, but constant communication between salaried managers and hourly-wage employees will reduce turnover at your business and preserve the value of your employee assets.  Payroll may be a liability, but employees are business assets.

Do you own or operate a retail or restaurant company?  Perhaps your store sells collectibles, health food products, cell phone accessories or curtains and rugs.  Regardless of the goods being offered, tightly controlling your labor expenses in the current economic climate is crucial to generate a profit.  Relevant employee expenses including payroll costs, training, and turnover should be properly managed.  With the proper procedures and a set of tools to assist with the complex chore of managing labor, your business can increase profitability.

One key to managing a labor force properly is to schedule part-time and full-time employees before they are needed for work (a theoretical work schedule), and then track the scheduled work against when employees clock-in and clock-out (the actual worked hours), a process known actual vs. theoretical, or AvT.  Good managers reduce the difference (variance) between the Actual hours worked and the Theoretical schedule, while maximizing the sales for the business.

Improper labor scheduling will lead to one of two circumstances for your business:

1. Too many employees are scheduled to work, increasing payroll costs, and reducing profits.  Alternatively, employees are sent home (or cut from the schedule) without working hours they were promised on the schedule.
2. Too few employees are scheduled to work, decreasing the number of sales that are made, and reducing profits.

Neither option is desirable, and the key to avoiding both situations is to monitor and refine the AvT at your business.

Smart managers constantly balance employee satisfaction against the needs of the business in an effort to keep payroll costs down, reduce turnover, and increase profits.  Turnover is extremely expensive, and a 2004 study by the Employment Policy Foundation found that the average turnover cost of a single full-time employee is $13,355.  To recover from the effects of the turnover of a single full-time employee, a retail store would need to sell more than 3,000 pairs of khakis priced at $35 each.  A restaurant would need to sell more than 7,613 children’s combo meals at $2.50 each.

One way to reduce turnover at your store is to implement a labor scheduling tool such as TimeForge, an online employee scheduling solution.

Peter Edwards, owner of Zeb’s General Store in North Conway, New Hampshire knows that proper employee scheduling is key to managing a retail business, especially a seasonal business.  Peter chose TimeForge to help him manage full-time and part-time shift labor at his store. reducing employee turnover and lowering labor costs.  Peter uses templates in TimeForge to rapidly build schedules for his business, and TimeForge automatically emails and text messages the schedule to his employees on a daily basis – notifying employees of their upcoming work schedule and keeping his staff happy.

Peter had this to say about TimeForge:

I own a retail company.  We employ 15 full time employees, and between 5 and 15 part time employees depending upon our season.  I signed up for the 90 day trial period and have been using the TimeForge program for about 45 days.  I have found the program to be easy to use and it hits the mark with respect to our staff scheduling needs.  The email notification aspect of the program is a great feature that I am sure our employees will like.

The most important aspect of TimeForge is the incredible customer support.  Responses to the help menu item are emailed within 24 hours, and a live person actually answers the phone to respond to your questions.  I look forward to using TimeForge and would be pleased to talk with any prospective user of the scheduling program.

If you would like to see what TimeForge can do for your restaurant, hospitality, or retail business, then please sign up today for a free trial or contact our sales department for more information about TimeForge.

How long does it take to make an employee schedule for your employees? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your pizza, restaurant, hotel, bar, club, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!

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

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.

It’s been one day since the release of TimeForge Version 1.9, which introduced a number of new features such as easy-to-use calendar availability, improved multi-location (multiple unit) scheduling, and many other improvements. And we’re excited to announce that more than 800 businesses have signed up for the most simple and powerful labor scheduling tool on the market: www.TimeForge.com

Although we are obviously excited by the number of TimeForge users, we are more excited about the time savings and cost savings that have been provided to our users. For example:

• On average, managers spend more than 2.64 hours making the schedule, every week with a spreadsheet program such as Excel, by hand, or with an inefficient scheduling system (like most Point of Sale systems).

• On average, managers spend 15 minutes making the schedule, every week using TimeForge.

• On average, managers in retail and hospitality businesses receive an annual salary and benefits package equivalent to more than $62,500. That’s more than $31 per hour.

• TimeForge is directly saving our users more than $59,272 every month! That’s more than $710,000 a year.

Of course, there are dozens of other benefits like reporting, employee notification, reduced employee turnover, less time fragmentation (employees calling your business), etc… which are more difficult to calculate in a direct dollar-to-dollar return on investment (ROI).

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.

Our goal is to provide you with the best scheduling tool available, and we’ve built TimeForge.com so that it’s usage requires very little training.

Unfortunately, for TimeForge.com to work properly, it must know about your positions / job codes, employees, and required shifts at your business – and entering this data can take a few minutes. The Free Schedule Entry service is a fast way to be up and running on TimeForge.com with almost no work required for you!

To ensure that you are able to use TimeForge.com as fast as possible, you can take advantage of our Free Schedule Entry service. Our team will need you to complete a small spreadsheet, which can be downloaded from our website (by clicking here). Once you are complete with the schedule (there are only about six columns!), send us the spreadsheet and two of your existing schedules. You can send the documents by email (support@timeforge.com) or fax (806.799.1024). That’s it!

Our data conversion team will setup all of these items:

• Positions / job codes
• Employees
• Schedules
• Templates
• Our team can also enter availability and requests

The schedule entry process can take between 2 and 5 days. When we’re done entering your business’s data, you can login and make schedules in seconds!

Interested in more information? Visit our free schedule entry page, or send an email to support@timeforge.com

How long does it take to make employee schedules for your foodservice business? 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, bar, club, or business.

In a recent entry, we discussed where improper labor scheduling led to very poor customer experience at a local Taco Bell store. In addition to upsetting their guests, the labor shortage caused several other problems within their store – many of which will have long-term negative consequences for the restaurant.

What did the labor shortage cost them?

1. Guests were unhappy. This includes myself and the man in front of me, at a minimum. The guests inside were not very happy either. Will they come back? There is no way to know, but Taco Bell has two direct competitor’s (Mexican QSR food) less than two blocks away.
2. Employee Satisfaction. There is no doubt that the employees were upset because of the increased workload, pressure, and the guest dissatisfaction. The labor shortage was likely a management decision, which has directly affected the employee morale.
3. Increased Turnover. Most QSR employees have prospective jobs within a few yards, and this fast-food concept is no different. While sitting in the drive-thru, I could spot at least six other businesses that would readily hire any of the Taco Bell employees.
4. Reduction in sales. One customer every six minutes? Assuming that this restaurant concept averages $1.00 in net profit per customer, they are making only $10 per hour in profit. How did we calculate their profit? 60 minutes / 6 minutes per customer = 10 customers served. $1 per customer = $10 in profit per hour. By improving their serving time to 1 customer per minute, they could have made $60 per hour!

What could they have done to properly allocate their work-force?

1. Could they have chosen a more skilled cook to work alone as the line cook? A skilled worker may be hundreds of times faster than an un-skilled worker. (TimeForge can assign employees to shifts using skill levels!)
2. Could the drive-thru order processing and the front-counter clerk duties been merged to one person? This would have put a second body in the kitchen, potentially more than doubling their kitchen output. (TimeForge can track labor costs, helping managers decide which job functions can be combined)
3. Could they have scheduled a fourth employee? This would have increased their labor cost, but the extra worked could be sent home after their sales and labor peak passed. (TimeForge can schedule additional employees with a single click).
4. And many other options!

It might be time for the management of the store to look for a cost-effective scheduling tool, such as TimeForge!

How long does it take to make your labor schedules? 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, bar, club, or business.

Lubbock, TX – May 21, 2007 – TimeForge.com, a scheduling application designed for the food-service industry, was released in February and has been quickly adopted by the hospitality industry. For years, electronic scheduling has been a growing alternative to “pen-and-paper” scheduling, but most electronic systems have been overly complex and cumbersome to use. Employee scheduling is now simple! The TimeForge.com software is easy to use, quick to implement, and provides an effective combination of quality software and extensive features, with monthly programs starting under $10 / month.

Along with the basic ability to quickly and easily create schedules that work for your business (including multi-week or monthly schedules), TimeForge.com includes AutoScheduler™, an automatic scheduling tool developed with leading industry experts. The AutoScheduler™ program simplifies the creation of schedules by accurately balancing employee requests, payroll costs, and staffing requirements. With the click of a mouse, the AutoScheduler™ can create an entire 7-day schedule for your business in under 30 seconds! Blazing fast scheduling combined with industry-leading reports puts you and your managers back where you belong …. on the floor with your customers.

TimeForge.com will automatically alert employees of newly posted schedules and schedule changes on a continual basis. Employees can be notified through the TimeForge.com website, email, or even daily text message alerts. Multiple notifications provide a solid scheduling system that eliminates any confusion about staff responsibilities. TimeForge.com also reduces the amount of time that managers spend on the phone with employees. Employees can log in to their individual TimeForge.com accounts and enter a work request (time off, school schedules, work preferences, etc…); the manager can then approve or deny employee requests at their convenience.

TimeForge.com can save your business time and money, and can reduce confusion and tension between the management and staff.

Sign up for your free trial at www.TimeForge.com today!

About TimeForge.com
TimeForge.com is an employee scheduling application designed for the hospitality and restaurant industries. Currently used by more than 100 restaurants, bars, and clubs from all over the United States, TimeForge.com is designed from the ground-up to simplify the complicated process of employee scheduling, with a single task in mind: to put management back where they belong – on the floor with customers.