Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Something a little different for us in this blog post … a testimonial from one of our own staff members!

At TimeForge, we use our own product for scheduling staff, clocking in and out, enforcing the schedule, and staff communication. In the world of technology, this is often called “eating your own dogfood“, and it ensures that if there are critical bugs, or if some new feature doesn’t work – we know immediately, and we feel the same pain that you, our customers, feel (talk about a great reason to fix something!).

A few weeks back, we hired Morgan, an aspiring soccer athlete and summer intern to help answer the phones, respond to emails, and expand our online labor management manual to help our customers manage their labor. Morgan has friends who are doing all sorts of summer jobs, working in grocery stores, life guarding, waiting tables, bar tending, etc… She hears their complaints about staff scheduling, requesting time off, and all of the other issues that go along with being managed (or managing) at your place of employment.

After using TimeForge for about a week, she had this to say about our product line …

This is my first week working here at TimeForge and I have learned that this software is an easier way for both employees and managers to do scheduling, request shifts, clock in and out, and view your time card.

I have many friends who work at retail and grocery stores and they request time off by using a request book. When managers use a request book, it usually takes hours of time to go through everything. After declining or accepting the employees request you have to reschedule and switch swifts for the staff members. Instead, with TimeForge, it only takes a few minutes to do all the rescheduling. Employees log on and request time off, or swap shifts. TimeForge can communicate with management with TimeForge messaging or email, keeping everyone in the loop. You can also receive text messages reminding staff members when to be at work, just so they don’t “forget“.

I have also learned that staff can view their time cards on TimeForge. Your time card shows the amount of hours you worked, the days you worked, and your hourly wage. My friends have also told me that when they clock in, they first have to go to the service counter and they will highlight your name to show management when you worked. With TimeForge all you have to do is log in and click “clock in”, and that’s it! TimeForge saves everyone’s time and it helps get things done quickly.

We can work at marketing and selling TimeForge all day long, but that’s about as powerful of a testimonial as it gets – from someone who has only used our software for a few days.

If you happen to call our offices, and get in touch with Morgan, make sure to say hello!

Related articles or pages

• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Using QuickBooks for Accounting? Use TimeForge for Labor Management!
• Tips for Employee Scheduling and Time Tracking Software
• Simple Employee Scheduling – Version 1.8.5 (Part 3)

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!

Employee dissatisfaction is common among businesses in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries, and will lead to a high turnover rate. High turnover in a business is extremely costly, as new employees need to be recruited, trained and properly certified , each one costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.

To assist with managing the labor requirements of your business, TimeForge offers extensive reports for many tasks including labor costs, breaks, and scheduled labor, among many others. This week, TimeForge introduced several new reports to make labor management more efficient and decrease turnover in your business.

Shift Ranking:

Are your staff happy with their work environment? From the point of view of your staff members, are there problems with certain shifts that need to be addressed? How would you know which shifts are causing issues with your staff, so that you can address the needs of your staff and your business? You’d use TimeForge!

Using TimeForge, employees have the ability to record whether they were satisfied with the shift they just worked. Our new Shift Ranking reports allow managers and business owners to review a comprehensive account of how many employees were happy with their shift , and how many were unhappy , as well as the ratio of satisfied vs. dissatisfied employees, by either position or shift.

These remarkable new reports, an industry first, provide employers the ability to pinpoint problematic shifts and staff positions in order to decrease turnover and maximize profits for the business. Another report displays shift satisfaction among multiple locations to allow multi-unit operators to remotely monitor their business.

Shift Swapping:

Did you start the week with the perfect schedule, but by the end of the week you are paying unexpected overtime and have unhappy staff? One possibility is that staff are making too many shift swaps, changing around the staffing schedule in an unpredictable manner. Use TimeForge to identify heavy shift swapping and make profitable business decisions!

Our latest shift swap reports allow employers to view the shifts that employees are giving up and picking up, during any period of time, as well as the ratios of shifts given up vs. picked up. These reports provide employers the unmatched capability to gain understanding and control over employees’ shift-swapping habits to successfully remedy employee scheduling problems and overtime abuse.

Managing a workforce requires some give-and-take between management and staff members to ensure that the business runs successfully. Use TimeForge to gain insight into the day-to-day labor management at your business. Just look at what TimeForge customers have had to say about our revolutionary product.

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing

One of the features that makes TimeForge easier to use and more efficient than other labor management platforms is our newly released, visually-demonstrated weekly schedules. The new weekly schedule charts allow business owners and managers in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries to save time and capital when scheduling staff, keeping businesses ahead of their competition.

While building an employee schedule, a comprehensive daily graph is visible to demonstrate an interactive version of the day’s schedule. While managers are building their staff schedule they can view a weekly staffing chart to see a visual representation of employees’ schedules, by position and times, in an organized, color-coded chart to make scheduling staff members easier than ever.

Easily Schedule Staff by Looking at the Weekly Schedule

TimeForge founder Anthony Presley sought to solve some of the problems business owners often experience with employee scheduling:

“TimeForge has had daily staffing graphs and visualization for years, allowing managers and owners to quickly and easily visualize their staffing load throughout the day. Our new weekly graph extends this one step further, providing one click schedule validation and visualization. Managers can spot holes in the schedule where their business may be under or over-staffed.”

Take a look at our press release about the latest TimeForge features.

Sign up for a free trial of our labor management tool today!

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1)

Simple and easy communication between the management team and the staff members is a requirement for every business, in any industry.

It is important to keep track of daily notes, task lists, todo items, and sticky notes in every business – big or small, independent or chain. The task of managing all of these items is quickly cumbersome for all but the most disciplined staff members.

Scheduling human resource tasks, upcoming maintenance events, human resource tasks, management meetings, and other necessary items across multiple shifts (where the manager or staff member that created the event may not be the person responsible for the event) quickly becomes a management nightmare.

And, as your business grows, keeping up with the pile of paperwork and small notes can quickly become a nightmare.

Many businesses tackle the tornado of paper and notes by raiding the local office supply store – lab notebooks, 3-ring binders, and other similar products. While these paper products are very cheap, the disadvantages are obvious:

• Paper products will tear and can be destroyed with any mild abuse.
• Writing with pens or pencils can be smudged or unreadable by spilling a drink, or with wet hands
• Searching through dozens of paper notebooks for historical data is impossible..
• Staff who use ink pens will scratch out notes from other employees, making notes unreadable.
• Notebooks are easily be lost in a back office under piles of other notes.
• Handwriting that is made in a hurry can be unreadable minutes, or months, after the note is made.
• Organizing notebook or 3-ring binder notes into categories on a day-by-day basis is cumbersome at best.
• Multiple location / multi-store operators have no insight into the day-to-day operations of individual locations without faxing and scanning pages back and forth.

In most cases, the paper log book is simply insufficient for modern businesses. Many niche businesses provide organized paper notebook equivalents of the 3-ring binder or lab notebook, like Red Book Solutions and CommLog. While these product are somewhat better than the paper notebooks available at your local office supply store – all of the disadvantages of the paper process remain. In addition to the paper problem, these pre-printed log books are organized in a format that may, or may not, work for your business.

The TimeForge Daily Log is a superior solution to organize the notes and todo tasks at your business.

Use the TimeForge Daily Log for easy notes and communications

Use the Daily Log as your manager log and staff log – and for much more.   Read more about the TimeForge Daily Log!

Related articles or pages

• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports
• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• On-boarding is Simple with TimeForge HR
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling

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!

Related articles or pages

• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Enforce Scheduled Positions and Clock In Times
• Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Turn the AutoScheduler Off or On

TimeForge can directly control labor costs – and improve the bottom line – at your restaurant, retail store, hotel, or other business by stopping employees from riding the clock.   TimeForge can disable early clock in’s by staff members, and can also stop late clock out’s.

To enforce the employee schedule, you must be using both TimeForge Attendance and TimeForge Scheduling together.   Inside of the TimeForge Attendance Options, you will find two options:

1. Do you want to allow employees to clock in at any time, with any allowed position, regardless of their schedule?
2. Do you want to allow employees to clock out at any time, regardless of their schedule?

The first option controls staff member clock-in’s, and if set to “Yes”, employees can clock in at any time.   The second option control staff member clock-out’s, and if set to “Yes”, employees can clock in at any time.   To stop employee’s from riding the clock, change both of these settings to “No”, and then set an appropriate grace period.

Employees who are clocking in must clock in during their grace period, and if they are too early for their shift, a manager needs to let them in.   The same is true of clocking out!

TimeForge also requires that employees clock-in using the scheduled position, in addition to the time clock enforcement.

You can enforce the labor schedule using the standard time clock within TimeForge, or any other supported timeclock functionality, such as the TimeForge Online Time Clock, Dinerware Point of Sale, TimeClock Mode within TimeForge Attendance, and others.   In fact, you can also use our biometric fingerprint scanner with schedule enforcement!

Use this TimeForge enhancement to control labor costs by removing the ability for employees to ride the clock!

Are you using a labor management product to make your life easier?   TimeForge can quickly and easily build your employee schedule, manage time and attendance, reduce labor costs, and streamline employee management.   Sign up for a trial today!

Related articles or pages

• TimeForge Dashboard
• Time and Attendance Made Easy
• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• New Labor Management Reports
• Efficient Labor Management with the New TimeForge Today Page!

We’ve improved our already simple to use employee shift swapping system! Staff members can now give up a shift to any employee who can work the applicable position (by choosing Anyone), or a shift can be given specifically to another employee (by choosing that employee’s name from the drop-down list).   Shift swaps created in this way must still be approved, or denied, by an appropriate manager or supervisor.

Employees can swap shifts with any applicable staff member, or a specific employee

This new shift swapping feature allows direct communication between staff members while attempting to trade or swap already scheduled work shifts.

When approved by management, TimeForge will automatically notify the employee who is giving up the shift that the shift swap has been approved (and they are no longer responsible) , and the employee picking up the shift (that they are now responsible).

How long does it take to make a staff schedule for your employees? It should take less than 5 minutes!   Did you know that TimeForge can reduce labor costs and streamline labor management by effectively scheduling your restaurant, hotel, bar, club, grocery store, or retail business.   Sign up for a trial today!

Related articles or pages

• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports
• TimeForge Improvements
• PTO, Sick, Vacation, Overtime, and Other Improvements
• Part Two: Recruiting and Retaining Gen Y Employees
• New Labor Management Reports

One magazine that restaurateurs should be reading is Restaurant Startup and Growth , it is targeted at independents, owner/operators, and small chains.   Their monthly articles focus on inventory, labor, restaurant tips, staffing questions, leasing, marketing, and other important topics for independent restaurants (though most of the advice is applicable to retailers that are in other industries as well).

This month, July 2009, there is an excellent article from Jim Laube, entitled “Fairy Tales! The Top 10 Myths of Restaurant Profitability“.   Two of these myths focus on labor, and labor costs, including Myth 5 and Myth 6.

Paying Higher Wages Increases Labor Costs: Myth 5

As Jim explains, every restaurant (or retail business) has its superstars.   An employee that can twice (or more) the amount of work as any other staff member.   A cook that can cook more than anyone else.   A busser who can keep the whole store clean without any help.   A cashier who can run two lines.   These employees are, to put it frankly, “busting it“, and should be paid more than someone who just does the “minimum“.

However, paying a superstar more than their co-workers doesn’t increase labor costs , it often decreases them.   Which scenario would you rather have, assuming that both scenarios are able to serve an equivalent number of customers?

Scenario 1:
Two bartenders making $8.50 / hour, working a 5 hour shift?
Total wages:   $8.50 per hour * 2 employees * 5 hours = $85

Scenario 2:
One bartender making $12.00 / hour, working a 5 hour shift?
Total wages:   $12.00 per hour * 1 employee * 5 hours = $60

A superstar bartender (Scenario 2) can outwork, and at a lower overall cost, two mediocre bartenders.

Finding these superstar bartenders is part of the difficulty in managing , but if you can find them, and promote them, your business will profit.

Paying Overtime is a Sign of Bad Management or Poor Scheduling:   Myth 6

In most restaurants, there is an operational mandate to ensure that part-time staff members work less than 35 or 40 hours per week.   This is in effort to keep from paying overtime, which is commonly 50% more expensive (time and a half), or even 100% more expensive (double time).   While this is a great idea from an hours and cost perspective, this mandate does forget about one key factor , the employee.

Commonly, employees who are working in part time positions need extra hours to make ends meet.   These staff members, who may be critical to the business, have certain financial needs and sometimes need to work extra hours to meet these needs.   By not allowing these staff members to work extra hours (perhaps 45 to 50 hours) occasionally, they may seek employment elsewhere , creating higher turnover, and costing the business in hiring, turnover, and lost business while seeking a replacement.

If at all possible, try to accommodate employee needs , be it with the occasional extra overtime hours, or scheduling staff on certain days to work around a second job or specific availability.   Staff members are less likely to go elsewhere if all of their needs can be met at one particular job.

Make sure to read some of the other myths, available online.

TimeForge employee scheduling software is used by managers and operators of independent restaurants, and retailers, as well as franchises and chains of companies in the hospitality, food-service, retail, and other service-oriented industries.   TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business!

Related articles or pages

• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1)
• Updates to Employee Scheduling and Time and Attendance Software
• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business
• Off Topic: Inventory Managment for Restaurants

Building employee schedules can be a time consuming and laborious task, and getting a schedule wrong means higher turnover and lower profits. With TimeForge, managers can quickly and easily review and post labor schedules, approve (or deny) time off, and manage employee shift swaps – all in a few seconds!

TimeForge Scheduling has been designed from the ground up to keep managers on the floor, not stuck in the back room working in Excel or on a clipboard!

TimeForge is a web-based employee scheduling and labor management system that ensures staff stay informed of any schedule changes with text messages, email messages, Facebook, and smart phone access (such as a Blackberry or iPhone) – automatically!

More than 2,500 businesses around the world have used TimeForge to manage their labor – retail stores, restaurants, bars, clubs, pharmacies, valet companies, doctors offices, children’s health clinics, child care centers, churches, and many other businesses!

Build a Schedule in Seconds!

• Ease to Use
  There is no software to install, and includes a fast web-based setup.
• Cost-Effective
  Weekly schedules can be created in under a minute.
• AutoScheduler
  Gives you and other managers more time “on the floor”.
• Balanced Schedules
  Balance staff requests and labor requirements to create a perfect schedule.
• Daily Reminders
  Staff members receive daily reminders about work schedules
• Reduce Turnover
  Automatic labor management keeps staff happy, reducing turnover!
• Automatic Notifications
  TimeForge automatically notifies staff of any schedule changes.
• Control Costs
  Control labor costs with sophisticated reporting
• Instant Return On Investment
  Instant ROI so you can focus on growing your business
• Affordable
  TimeForge provides plans that are affordable for businesses of all sizes!

Employee Scheduling Software is also known as Labor Scheduling Software, and some companies refer to this type of software as Enterprise Employee Scheduling Software. Whatever your organization calls it, TimeForge Scheduling is the most powerful tool available to manage labor and control profits at your business! Read more about the capabilities of TimeForge Scheduling, or Sign Up for a Free Trial.

Download a TimeForge Media Kit, which contains more information about TimeForge Scheduling.

Related articles or pages

• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore!
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports
• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business
• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy.
• Simple Employee Scheduling – Version 1.8.5 (Part 3)