Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Management Philosophy 101 for dealing with staff turnover: The best way to reduce turnover costs is to reduce turnover.

The real cost of employee turnover is difficult to fully quantify because it is based on many variables but it is always more than you think it is.

In the restaurant, retail and hospitality industries, turnover is especially high – but, TimeForge, a labor management solution, can improve staff morale and efficiency in order to effectively reduce turnover and improve your bottom line. One way to find the cost of turnover at your business would include the following, some of which are hard to measure:

1. Lost productivity – Other staff members will have to pick up the slack of a missing employee, which reduces everyone’s overall productivity.
2. Temporary cost of replacement (i.e., contractor wages) – Some positions can be filled by others picking up the slack, resulting in no incremental expense. However, if this is a frequent occurrence, morale can suffer — leading to more turnover. Other positions will need to be filled with temporary or contract workers, which results in additional cost.
3. Recruiting/hiring expense – This is the literal cost of filling the position and can include search fees paid to agencies or headhunters, referral fees paid to employees, ads in newspapers, job board posting fees, etc.
4. Management time – Time management has to spend going over resumes, scheduling and conducting interviews, evaluating candidates and making job offers. TimeForge can slash the time spent collecting and storing a new hire’s documentation, but interviewing and evaluating applicants is a time-consuming skill that remains unavoidable.
5. Training costs – This includes all the costs associated with ensuring that new staff members have all the skills and tools they need to do the job.
6. Learning curve – The time it takes the new employee to perform at an optimal performance level.
7. Knowledge replacement – This is impossible to measure. Employees leave with accumulated knowledge that is hard to quantify and even harder to replace.

For an even more accurate and comprehensive determination of costs, include the following where appropriate:

1. Calculate the cost of training your company has invested in the employee leaving. Include internal training, external programs and external academic education. Include licenses or certifications the company has helped the employee obtain to do their job effectively.
2. Calculate the impact on departmental productivity because the person is leaving. Who will pick up the work, whose work will suffer, what departmental deadlines will not be met or delivered late?
3. Calculate the cost of department staff and include discussion on their reactions to the vacancy.
4. Calculate the cost of losing customers that the employee is going to take with them, or the amount it will cost you to retain the customers of the sales person or customer service representative who leaves.
5. Calculate the cost of drug screens, educational and criminal background checks and other reference checks, especially if these tasks are outsourced. Don’t forget to calculate the number of times these are done per open position, as some companies conduct this process for the final two or three candidates.
6. Calculate the cost of the various candidate pre-employment tests to help assess a candidate’s skills, abilities, aptitude, attitude, values and behaviors.
7. Calculate the cost of supervisory time spent in assigning, explaining and reviewing work assignments and output. This represents lost productivity of the supervisor. Consider the amount of time spent at seven hours per week for at least eight weeks.
8. Calculate the cost of coworkers and supervisory lost productivity due to their time spent on bringing the new employee “up to speed.”
9. Calculate the cost of mistakes the new employee makes during this elongated indoctrination period.
10. Calculate the cost of bringing the new person on board, including the cost to put the person on the payroll, establish computer and security passwords and identification cards, business cards, internal and external publicity announcements, telephone hookups, cost of establishing e-mail accounts, costs of establishing credit card accounts, or leasing other equipment such as cell phones, automobiles, pagers.
11. Calculate the cost of a manager’s time spent developing trust and building confidence in the new employee’s work.

Research continues to show that real turnover costs can run anywhere from 25% to 150% of the position’s salary and benefits, depending on how many of the above costs are applicable to the position.

TimeForge can help reduce your turnover by providing staff and management a superior means of communication, keeping everyone “in the know” at all times. TimeForge reduces turnover by:

• No more confusion! Keeping employees from being scheduled at times they are unavailable, and communicating schedule and availability changes to staff and management alike.
• Easy communication! Making online shift swaps, pickups, and time off requests a one-click process (with manager’s approval where necessary, of course)
• Easily Accessible! Web-based, text message, facebook, and printable schedules, time cards, and upcoming shift reminders.
• And much, much more!

The number one reason management-level staff members resign is the time, pain and high rate of error that comes with their job including constructing employee schedules – an issue that TimeForge makes obsolete. As opposed to inefficient and cumbersome Excel spreadsheets and paper logs, TimeForge will save management hours and virtually eliminate errors each week in various HR duties, including documentation/certification creation, storage and sending, schedule construction, and all of their various employee management tasks.

Money spent proactively on employee training, staff morale, career development, staff-management communication and other benefits can have significant return on investment when it leads to reduced turnover, and TimeForge reduces the time and cost associated with accomplishing these vital employee hiring and retention techniques.

TimeForge makes building schedules, tracking attendance, exporting and approving payroll and much more a fast, easy, point-and-click process. With TimeForge, your staff will communicate better, work more efficiently and eliminate costly mistakes associated with human error.

Additionally, our software makes your business more environmentally-friendly by drastically reducing paper usage, which has been shown to elevate staff morale and improve employee retention rate – employees feel good about being associated with a company that’s environmentally-conscientious.

Sign up for a free trial of our labor management software, and start improving your bottom line today.

Related articles or pages

• Track Staff Certifications and Qualifications (0)
• TimeForge Improvements (0)
• Reduce Turnover (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)
• Your Manager’s Log Doesn’t Work (1)

The number one reason managers quit a restaurant job is because of frustration associated with scheduling. After dealing with all the employee requests and working around personal schedules, managers invest large amounts of time and effort into a schedule which inevitably fails to make everyone happy. Some managers employ a “if the schedule doesn’t work for you, too bad” attitude to reduce their frustrations. This definitely reduces a manager’s stress, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this directly increases turnover rates, which cost your business money. Whether managers are accommodating to employees or not, the frustration of scheduling reduces managerial job satisfaction, ultimately resonating through the ranks to all employees.

According to retensa, 94% of turnover is preventable, so money spent proactively on employee training, staff morale, career development, and staff-management communication can have significant return on investment by resulting in reduced turnover. TimeForge reduces the time and cost associated with accomplishing these vital employee hiring and retention tasks. TimeForge makes building schedules, tracking attendance, exporting and approving payroll and most other management duties fast and simple, which makes managers and staff happy!

Instead of dealing with inefficient and cumbersome Excel spreadsheets and paper logs, managers who use TimeForge are less inclined to feel negatively about scheduling. TimeForge saves management hours and eliminates errors. TimeForge handles HR duties, including document and certification storage, schedule construction, and most labor management tasks.

With TimeForge, your staff will communicate better, work more efficiently, and eliminate costly mistakes associated with human error. Additionally, TimeForge helps make your business more green by drastically reducing paper usage.  Being a green business has been shown to elevate staff morale and improve employee retention rate – staff members (especially Gen Y employees) feel good about being associated with a company that’s environmentally conscious.

Click here to sign up for a free trial of TimeForge and start improving your bottom line today.

Related articles or pages

• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business (0)
• Managing Breaks and Meal Periods Is Simple (0)
• Going Green is Good for Profits (0)
• Dinerware (0)
• 7 Ways Turnover Costs You and Your Business (0)

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 (0)
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
• Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)
• Labor Management Software Update Simplifies Employee Scheduling (1)
• Generation Y Part One: Marketing (2)

Some of TimeForge’s November and December updates included improvements to scheduling and enhanced multi-unit capabilities, as well as new training videos (available on the TimeForge Manual).

In addition, we have improved our Point of Sale connectivity and integration, with our POS vendors, including Dinerware, Aloha POS (from Radiant Systems), and Micros.

Some of the Dinerware improvements with TimeForge include:

• Use a fingerprint scanner with your Dinerware system to stop buddy punching and keep employees from riding the clock. To use a fingerprint scanner, you’ll need to clock all staff members in to Dinerware one time. You need to do this step, because Dinerware requires that employees be logged in for a variety of reasons, including meal coursing and printing.  After this initial clock in, all additional clock in and clock outs can be done on TimeForge, using a separate time punch terminal with a fingerprint scanner attached.

Use a Fingerprint Reader with Dinerware

• Forecast sales and inventory using Menu Item Groupings inside of Dinerware. While building a labor schedule, you may want to track gross sales, individual item sales, covers, labor hours, or other metrics.  Additionally, you can now build schedules and forecast sales by grouping menu items together.  For example, you may want to schedule staff members based on the hourly sales of porterhouse steaks, crab cakes, and apple turnovers.  Using TimeForge and Dinerware, you now can.

Forecast and Record Menu Items and Menu Item Groups

• You can view Dinerware sales information on your cell phone and view real-time sales and labor information at the same time. Any Menu Item or Menu Item Group that is being forecast or collected by TimeForge can be viewed on your cell phone using the secure TimeForge RSS feed.  Receive real-time labor and sales information on any compatible smartphone or PDA.  You can read more about this in the TimeForge Manual.

• In addition, TimeForge is now compatible with Dinerware version 2.9.1 – the latest offering from Dinerware. This latest version of the Dinerware POS offers a number of improvements for Dinerware and TimeForge customers.  Talk to your Dinerware representative about upgrading today!

You should be using a labor management system with your Dinerware POS system to make your life easy!  TimeForge can quickly and easily build your employee work schedules, manage attendance while enforcing the schedule (and stopping employees from clocking in early), reduce labor costs, and streamline staff management.  Sign up for a trial today to use TimeForge with your Dinerware POS system.

Related articles or pages

• Downloads (1)
• TimeForge Provides Labor Management and Online Employee Scheduling to Dinerware Customers (0)
• National Restaurant Association 2009 (0)
• Powerful Online Labor Management and Employee Scheduling Available to Restaurateurs Worldwide (0)
• Employee Schedules are not Payroll. Payroll Must Always be Paid from a Time and Attendance System (2)

What are you doing about the minimum wage increase?  If you are an operator in the food-service, hospitality, retail, or other service-oriented sector, the recent increase in federal minimum wage likely affects your bottom line – the profits at your business.

A number of other articles discuss the impact of this federally mandated change on businesses, including some of our favorites:

• Minimum Wage Hike Could Threaten Low Earners’ Jobs
• With Minimum Wage Set to Rise, Tipped Employees Seek Their Share
• The Dangerous Minimum Wage Mirage
• Local Workers Discuss Minimum Wage Increase

As a business, how do you combat the extra expense of workers?  One way is smarter labor management tools that can save you money – like TimeForge.  TimeForge can save you 3-5% of your labor costs by improving your staff retention, decreasing turnover, freeing up manager time, and enforcing the labor schedule — all of which provide direct improvements to your bottom line.

Turnover and Retention are important metrics at any business.

• It can cost more than $3,500 to replace a single employee making $8.00 / hour, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).  This accounts for recruitment, training, interviewing, hiring, reduced productivity, etc…  If the turnover at your business is 80% – that means that 16 of the 20 employees you hire in any given year, are no longer with your business.  What does that turnover cost your business?  16 * $3,500 = $56,000 in lost profit because 16 employees left.  That’s serious money out of the business!

Manager time is expensive, use it wisely.

• Most managers in the hospitality industry take more than two hours to build a labor schedule, every week.  With a low annual salary of only $40,000 (below the annual average), two hours weekly is $2,080 in direct manager costs for building a labor schedule.  This excludes the time necessary for rewriting the schedules, answering phone calls, updating availability, and all the rest of the scheduling duties a manager needs to do.  And while the manager is building schedules, they cannot run the business.

Enforcing the employee schedule has immediate savings.

• Employees commonly ride the clock, clocking in early and clocking out late.  Every few minutes adds up.  A staff member clocking in early two times a week, and clocking out late twice per week, who earns the new minimum wage of $7.25, will burn through an extra $362.50 per year from the business.  With 20 employees, that is more than $7,250 per year, and an additional 20% in benefits, taxes, and other fees.  More than $8,700 in extra labor costs.

So, with only 20 employees, the business is likely losing:

• $56,000 in turnover and retention costs
• $  2,080 in schedule building costs
• $  8,700 in schedule enforcement costs
• $66,780 in direct labor costs

That is $66,780 in profits that the business is losing.  What will TimeForge cost a business with 20 employees?

TimeForge Lite will cost the business about $25 per month, or $300 per year – well below the cost of even a single manager’s time to build a schedule.

TimeForge Max will cost the business about $100 per month, or about $1,200 per year – complete with labor scheduling, accounting integration, attendance monitoring, and everything else needed to properly manage labor.

What happens with five stores? Twenty? Three-hundred? Labor costs go up drastically, the more stores that a business operates.

Use TimeForge labor management software to put money back in the business and save thousands every year.

TimeForge will reduce turnover, improve retention, free up manager time, and increase store profitability at your business!  TimeForge employee scheduling and labor management software is used by owners and operators of hospitality, food-service, retail, and other service-oriented businesses around the world.

Related articles or pages

• Social Media and Labor Scheduling (0)
• Schedule Staff the Way You Want! (1)
• Recession-Proofing with Forecasting (0)
• Labor Scheduling is Easy for Employees Too (0)
• Is Employee Scheduling Complicated? Not Anymore! (0)

If your gym is like most, you’re managing instructors, front desk staff, personal trainers, janitorial or maintenance staff, and maybe even massage, nutrition, or spa staff. Scheduling a diverse staff like this can be a real headache. And it’s not just the wide range of skill sets and certifications that are required – you have to also juggle varying availability, part-time schedules, accrued PTO, time-off and shift swap requests, and your club’s busy times during any given day.

It’s tedious, time consuming, complicated and (particularly in this challenging economic climate) extraordinarily important.

Under-schedule the club and you could lose members. Over-schedule the gym and you could lose money.

Smart staff scheduling and monitoring of attendance can cut labor costs and spell the difference between a successful and barely-surviving health club. For many gym managers it can take hours of mind-numbing detail work: tracking down staff with the appropriate expertise to accommodate shift swaps or cover for time-off requests, juggling the schedule to find the most efficient use of staff without compromising coverage, and trying to consider alternative schedules without investing too many more hours into the process. Not to mention monitoring attendance across schedules that encompass far more than a regular 9-to-5 day to prevent punch-in abuses or unnecessary overtime.

And when the schedule is done, you move on to stage two of the schedule process: communicating the schedule to all the employees, fielding endless inquiries about next week’s schedule (or worse, scrambling to fill a missed shift due to confusion over schedules), and when faced with an unexpected time off or shift swap request—doing the entire thing over again, and communicating the changes to all the employees. It’s no wonder that for many gym managers, scheduling and employee monitoring is requires Ibuprofen.

TimeForge allows health club managers to cut employee scheduling and attendance monitoring time from hours to just minutes.

The ability to manage schedules at one or many locations, schedule those with stronger (or specific) skills in the high volume time slots, keep an eye on attendance, and monitor and forecast your labor costs makes Timeforge not just a time-saver but a money-saver. In fact, TimeForge can increase gym profits by 3-5%.

Add in the ability to integrate simply with payroll systems, to notify employees of upcoming schedules and schedule changes by email or text message (and the resultant drop in late or absent employees), and the ability to your energies on the urgent managerial duties facing an health club manager on any given day (rather than mind-numbing scheduling minutia), you’ll probably find that the time saved first week alone pays for the investment.

Related articles or pages

• Employee Schedules are not Payroll. Payroll Must Always be Paid from a Time and Attendance System (2)
• Employee Labor Scheduling from RunningRestaurants.com (0)
• Aquatic Centers (1)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 2) (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)

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! (0)
• Easily Manage Labor with Innovative Staffing Reports (0)
• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business (0)
• Employee Labor Scheduling from RunningRestaurants.com (0)
• Building a Labor Schedule is Complicated. Use Tools to Keep Managers and Employees Happy. (3)

Whew!  We are done with our whirlwind through the NRA 2009 tradeshow in Chicago, IL – what a great two days.

We are a technology company with a focus on operations and human resources for restaurants, retailers, and other businesses that hire part-time employees – we spent a lot of time examining the tradeshow and looking for improvements in technology for operations or human resources.

Some of the very neat technology at the show included:

• Dinerware POS is a phenomenal Point of Sale system, and one of our valued partners.  Several sales staff and other partners were on site to show off their latest version.
• Silverware POS recently debuted and released a best-of-breed restaurant POS product, Avrio, which was onsite at the show.  What a wonderful group of individuals, and a great product!
• MonkeyMedia Software displayed their rocking catering software outside of the Technology Pavilion.  They caused a bit of a comotion by handing out bananas!
• QuandraNet is similiar to OpenTable, but with a very, very smart table management software program that increases table turns in addition to handling reservations.
• Corvirtus was showing off their products that take the guesswork out of hiring. Very neat algorithms, and years of research create a great hiring tool.  Wonderful stuff.

Overall, the show attendance seemed to be down compared to last year, which seems to be the general consensus.

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

Related articles or pages

• Labor Scheduling Software Article at Nation’s Restaurant News (0)
• Dinerware (0)
• TimeForge Provides Labor Management and Online Employee Scheduling to Dinerware Customers (0)
• Support for Salaried Employees from within Dinerware (0)
• Powerful Online Labor Management and Employee Scheduling Available to Restaurateurs Worldwide (0)

TimeForge is a best-of-breed employee scheduling and online labor management system for the hospitality, restaurant and retail industries.  It works with your Dinerware POS system to stop employees from riding the clock, enforce posted labor schedules, and provides rapid communications between managers and staff members.  Decrease turnover, increase retention, and improve the profits at your business.

Read The Case Study

Ready to see the improvements that employee scheduling and a labor management solution can provide when combined with your Dinerware POS system? Read the lastest TimeForge-Dinerware Case Study here.

How it works

TimeForge is a web-based system that becomes a direct extension of your Dinerware POS software.  During the day, Dinerware and TimeForge “synchronize” information that is necessary to manage the labor at your business.  Sales data and time and attendance information is sent to TimeForge, and schedule information is sent to Dinerware to provide a seamless and easy to use workforce management solution.  Access to TimeForge data is provided for employees and managers through an easy to use web interface, Facebook, or a compatible smartphone (such as a Blackberry or iPhone).

Increase your Profits

TimeForge will increase profits at your business with improved labor cost controls.  Directly monitor and control labor costs and stop employees from riding the clock or clocking in early for scheduled shifts.  Enforce the labor schedule with the click of a button.  Indirectly control labor by reducing turnover and improving retention – stop spending money training employees!  Improve the bottom line with an instant Return On Investment.

Text Messages, Facebook, and Online Communications

Employees stay happy when kept in the loop!  Retention at your business will stay low when staff members know what is expected of them, and can schedule both their personal and their work lives.  Using TimeForge, employees can use TimeForge to swap shifts with coworkers, change availability, view their timecard, or request time off.  Employees also receive email and text messages about any schedule changes.  Staff information can be viewed using the TimeForge website, a smartphone (such as an iPhone or Blackberry), or Facebook!

Fast Employee Scheduling

Employee schedules your way!  Build schedules every week, bi-weekly, or monthly.  The back of house and front of house can use the same schedule, or separate schedules.  Use departments, add rules for scheduling minors or seniors, and input required certifications.  The TimeForge AutoScheduler™ learns how managers and supervisors build employee schedules, and automatically creates schedules that adhere to the best labor management techniques while reducing labor costs.

Employee Schedule Enforcement and Remote Monitoring

With TimeForge, management has the tools necessary to monitor when staff members are clocking in and out.  Staff members can be required to clock in and out of Dinerware within a “grace period”, providing managers with a one-click override when your business requires more staff on the clock.  Management can monitor who is clocked in with the use of RSS feeds, a compatible smartphone (such as a Blackberry or an iPhone), or through Facebook.

Compare Employee Schedules and Attendance to Sales

TimeForge synchronizes sales at your business, employee schedules, and staff member attendance.   The TimeForge sales module accurately forecasts the upcoming sales, and can predict usage needs for Dinerware menu items as well!  Use the forecasted sales figures to manage employee time off and changes to availability, order inventory items, and schedule for future needs.

Two Products, One Database

TimeForge calls and reports directly to your Dinerware system, and positions, employees, attendance, and sales are automatically synchronized between Dinerware and TimeForge – no duplications and nothing extra to back up.  Need to make a change?  Just change it in Dinerware, and the changes are automatically sent to the TimeForge website during the next synchronization!  TimeForge extends the capabilities of your Dinerware system – there is no duplicate functionality.

Instant Return On Investment

The TimeForge-Dinerware Bridge is built from the ground up to ensure a fast Return On Investment for your business. Managers keep track of labor costs through payroll reports, schedule enforcement, and fast employee schedules. Employees are always in the know, and can help build schedules by being in the loop and providing constant feedback.  When integrated with Dinerware, TimeForge improves business profits and increases retention while reducing turnover.

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, and TimeForge Daily Log – all three products are included with our Dinerware integration!

Related articles or pages

• Spend Less Time Scheduling Labor – More Time Managing Your Business (0)
• Restaurant Business Article on Workforce Problems (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)
• TimeForge Provides Labor Management and Online Employee Scheduling to Dinerware Customers (0)
• Powerful Online Labor Management and Employee Scheduling Available to Restaurateurs Worldwide (0)

• 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 (0)
• Employees are Assets, Not Liabilities (0)
• Employee Schedules are not Payroll. Payroll Must Always be Paid from a Time and Attendance System (2)
• Employee Labor Scheduling from RunningRestaurants.com (0)
• Workforce Labor Scheduling Updates (Part 1) (1)