Tracking employee time through the use of a time clock is a timeless practice. But the ability to accurately track employee time to the minute makes all the difference as it can literally amount to thousands in additional labor dollars, overtime and payroll taxes each year for employers. Time clocks have evolved enormously over the less 10 years technologically… and perhaps even over the last two years. But tracking time is not always as simple as it sounds. Some environments and workforces are far more challenging than others.

With today’s web-enabled technologies around us, typically some basic resources are needed to fully benefit from today’s automation, such as a power source and/or internet connection. While that’s not an absolute, for environments without these general resources, specific technologies are available to help employers track hours. Let’s review what those time tracking options are relative to automated time and attendance solutions.

Mobile and Remote Workforces

Today’s workforce is more dynamic and mobile than ever. The notion of 9 to 5 from a central company location is giving way to remote workforces and a generation of work-from-home professionals. Clearly, technology is facilitating this evolution. Whether your workforce is partially mobile, off-site, or some combination in between, there are options to track employee hours efficiently.

• Mobile Timesheet App – Perhaps the most common solution for mobile and remote workforces is a mobile timesheet app. Employees can record hours from their smartphone, even when a cell/Wi-Fi connection is not available. The punches can then be reported as soon as a connection is established. Through GPS pinpoint punch stamps, you can verify employees are where they are supposed to be as punches are recorded. Another useful option with the mobile app is the ability for supervisors to clock in a group of employees at once, such as a construction crew.
• Browser-based Web Clock – If a traditional time clock is not available but a web browser is, your staff can easily record punches through any typical web browser. This can be both desktop or mobile-based.
• Telephone-based Time Clock – Another mobile option to record punches is a hosted Voice Clock solution that allows employees to call in to record punches. Punches can even be restricted based on the caller’s phone number to minimize misuse of this method.

Technology has changed how and what types of services we enjoy every day from vendors. While there is a tradeoff to employing a remote or mobile workforce compared to the traditional, technology has allowed employers to continue to track employee productivity remotely while gaining new benefits and the ability to deliver new services like never before. If your workforce, however, is on site and more traditional there are numerous options available.

For On-site Work Environments 

For your employees who clock in/out on site, let’s review the most common solutions:

• Biometric Time Clock – Perhaps the most popular choice of time clock today is a biometric fingerprint-based clock. Because technology in this sector has come so far, the cost is no longer a limitation. In fact, this technology is very affordable. The benefit is the ability to ensure the right employee is clocking in each time, eliminating the costly behavior of “buddy punching.”
• Proximity Badge Clock or Key Fob – Another economical and common choice of time clock is the proximity badge clock. Employees can clock in simply by waving their prox card or a key fob, which is often as simple as waving a key chain or wallet across the time clock as the employee arrives for work.
• Hand Geometry Biometric Clock – For environments that are more challenging where a biometric finger scan is not feasible due to grease or dirt, another common solution is a biometric hand geometry time clock. This clock measures the size and shape of an employee’s hand to recognize the employee and record the punch. Common examples for this application include dish washing crews, mechanical services, landscaping, nursery and garden, etc.
• PIN or Badge Card – If a simple, inexpensive time clock is all you need, perhaps a basic time clock that only requires an employee PIN or badge swipe is for you. Although the cost to use a proximity badge or biometric solution is comparable, perhaps this basic method is your preference.

While there are countless environments and logistical challenges to consider for employers, accessibility to time tracking technology should be available in most cases. You may be surprised at the types of applications that are made a reality every day. If you have a unique work environment and have questions about accurately tracking employee time, contact us at 941 Timekeeping.

Creating, adjusting and managing employee work schedules is a tremendously time-intensive task. That’s no surprise to those involved in the process. Workforce planning can occupy countless hours for your key staff each pay period, including department managers and HR. For managers, the hours it takes to consider service staffing needs, employee availability, time off considerations, and seasonal fluctuations is immense. Then inevitably, the unexpected happens your employees, resulting in change requests that require supervisors to scramble to find suitable replacements. This cycle has gone on for many years, but today, through the convenience of drag-and-drop, advanced employee scheduling automation, this costly routine can be reduced to from days to hours and hours to minutes.

The Convenience Drag-and-drop Employee Scheduling

As someone who creates and manages employee schedules, if you have never experienced the exceptional convenience of a drag-and-drop scheduling software solution, you’re in for a delightful surprise! Employee scheduling software has made leaps and bounds in recent years in the simplicity of how supervisors can now create employee schedules, assign the schedule in a few clicks, accommodate changes, and manage oversight for workforce costs. Simply put, by combining the ease of drag-and-drop scheduling with the power of intelligent workforce automation, managers can save invaluable hours in the scheduling cycle each pay period.

Employee Schedules Features that Cut Hours from the Process

In general, businesses are constantly seeking ways to innovate processes, eliminate wasted steps and increase productivity. At the same time, organizations are seeking to get more with less, or in other words, increase value output while reducing expenses. This is precisely what an advanced employee scheduler can do for your organization.

Let’s review a brief list of some of the scheduling features now available to make this happen.

1. Online Employee Schedule Builder – Is your organization still using hard copy schedules, spreadsheets or some other legacy scheduling tool to build and communicate employee schedules? If you’re not already using a web-based scheduling solution, you’re already in a position to immediately cut numerous hours from the ongoing process… simply by moving to an online solution.
2. Drag-and-drop employee schedule builder – Not all employee scheduling solutions are created equal. In fact, there can be significant efficiency differences on many levels. Some schedulers will save you more time and drive better results than others. One of the most important features is ensuring your scheduling solution offers drag-and-drop ease of use when it comes to setting and adjusting employee shifts. Be sure your choice of scheduler offers this important convenience.
3. Email and Text Collaboration – Another essential feature of your employee scheduler should be the ability to automate emails and text messages to eligible employees when shift changes occur. This way, your valuable managers and even employees are not on the phones looking for help when the process could be tackled in minutes through automation. This method limits the need for employees to share personal contact information. It also allows them to drop or pick up shifts near effortlessly (with supervisor approval).
4. Schedule Shift Templates – Building work schedules is a very demanding exercise. However, you can save a great deal of time by turning your schedules into “templates” for reuse. Your managers can even build their own unique set of templates, and assign those templates to employees in a few clicks… quite literally.
5. Employee Workgroups – Your employees often belong to formal and informal groups, whether that’s within or beyond their department. Scheduling needs may depend on others within the group. Now your supervisors can organize employees into workgroups to streamline how you manage scheduling, assign settings, or even allow supervisors to have shared groups of employees for cross-departmental scheduling.
6. Scheduler Coverage View – Is managing overstaffing, understaffing or scheduling gaps a problem for your organization? With a simple “Coverage View” screen, now you can immediately identify coverage issues, reducing workforce costs, improving service performance and saving time for managers.
7. Employee Best-fit Wizard – When employees request changes to the schedule, it can be very costly to the organization. It can cause managers to scramble in an effort to find a replacement and it can result in unplanned overtime expenses. One of the greatest time-savers in moving to advanced scheduling automation is the ability for managers to instantly identify the best alternative employee when changes occur based on hours worked for the week, overtime and other eligibility considerations.

Managing employee work schedules is a very important driver to your company’s productivity and workforce costs. By investing in a simple, affordable automated scheduling solution you can reduce the administrative impact on your managers and organization while improving employee satisfaction and flexibility. Contact us at 941 Timekeeping to learn more about the benefits of an advanced employee scheduler.

Supervisors are an exceptionally busy group of people. Triage and prioritization is the norm for this group of individuals who often don’t have enough time to meet the demands of their job… and then comes the added administrative responsibilities of payroll every period. With payroll comes time card reviews, approvals, exceptions, edits, time off requests, updating schedules… and the list goes on. Who has a time for administration?

Perhaps one of the greatest tools available to HR and supervisors in reducing routine administration is an automated time and scheduling software solution. Today, employers who take advantage can cut precious hours of admin out of the weekly grind simply by adopting this automated time clock solution, particularly if the solution includes mobile app functionality.

A Mobile Timesheet App for Supervisors On-the-go

There are countless environments under which supervisors operate. Clearly, not all supervisors have access to a computer throughout the bulk of their workday, which limits the ability to monitor and influence employee time management. In these cases, a mobile timesheet app is the perfect answer.

In some cases, a business may only have one or a few computers on hand for essential tasks, such as retail or manufacturing environments. This is a common limitation in the managerial level’s ability to edit and approve time sheets. But connecting managers to time management data through a mobile device can be highly valuable in increasing productivity and reducing the cost of labor. The ability to review schedules, edit and approve employee time sheets or approve time off requests are just some examples.

Today, you can empower your supervisors through a mobile app that puts these time-sensitive tasks at their fingertips. With supervisors in a position to quickly respond to exceptions and employee time off requests, employee satisfaction improves, payroll accuracy improves, and employee productivity increases as well.

Features that Save Time for Supervisors

With the many tasks that supervisors must juggle, finding ways to remove steps and reduce time is clearly very valuable. An automated timesheet solution with a mobile app does just that. The following are some examples of how a mobile timesheet solution adds convenience for supervisors:

• See who’s clocked in, out and on vacation – For supervisors on the move, knowing on-demand who is working, clocked out, on vacation or otherwise can be very valuable. With our mobile app, supervisors can check that info any time.
• Edit and review employee time cards – An employee’s time sheet is an important indicator of an employee’s productivity. But also, exceptions occur, requiring notes to be added to a card or edits to occur. With a mobile app, this step no longer requires a trip to the office and delay. Supervisors can easily view and edit time cards or when it’s most convenient.
• Approve Time Off Requests – Time off is an important part of employment. But supervisors or HR are often tasked with managing difficult decisions related to time off approvals without adequate data. Approvals can take time, frustrating employees and supervisors who don’t have the time for requests. With a mobile timesheet app, these steps are simplified.
• View employee schedules – Supervisors often manage diverse groups of employees and shifts throughout the day. Put scheduling data in the hand of your key staff with mobile.

Time and attendance software can be a tremendous investment for employers, minimizing administration and workforce costs. But with the added convenience of mobile, your managers are empowered to connect with critical workforce data that has been perhaps inaccessible, improving productivity and time management in a convenient way. Contact us at 941 Timekeeping to learn more about how mobile timekeeping and advanced employee scheduling software can help your organization.

As an employer with hourly employees, is your organization still rounding employee punches to the nearest 15-minute mark on timesheets? Do you allow employees to manually enter their time on a time card or spreadsheet, resulting in estimations and approximations? If you are, you’re likely paying much more for employee wages, overtime and lost productivity than your competitors… each and every pay period.

Although it was historically common practice to record employee in/out times to the nearest 15-minute mark due to a lack of technology and affordable tools, today most employers are taking advantage of automated time and attendance technology systems to conveniently track employee time to the exact minute, eliminating countless hours of overpaid minutes and lost productivity.

The Fair Labor Standards Act and Rounding Time 

Punch rounding is very expensive for employers, but beyond this principle, another important question to ask for employers is if it’s legal. While many states have additional guidelines beyond those at the federal level, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does allow for punch rounding when it’s applied correctly (i.e., neutrally, not in favor of the employer). However, there are some practices still in use today that are not FLSA-compliant and could result in costly wage and hour violations.

Here’s the guideline taken from the Department of Labor’s website: “Some employers track employee hours worked in 15-minute increments, and the FLSA allows an employer to round employee time to the nearest quarter hour. However, an employer may violate the FLSA minimum wage and overtime pay requirements if the employer always rounds down. Employee time from 1 to 7 minutes may be rounded down, and thus not counted as hours worked, but employee time from 8 to 14 minutes must be rounded up and counted as a quarter hour of work time.” In other words, the rounding must be applied neutrally, to the nearest 15-minute mark, and regardless of whether it’s in the employee’s or employer’s favor.

Why Rounding Promotes Late Arrival, Early Departure and Lost Productivity 

For some employees, arriving on time to work can be a struggle. It’s just a part of life, but some struggle more than others. But for employers who use punch rounding or allow employees to enter their time on a timesheet from memory, late arrivals and early departures are often a much larger and costlier problem.

You see, punch rounding generally promotes late arrival to work and after breaks… and early departure from work. Employees are quick to learn the boundaries for getting fully paid and being considered on time. When correctly applied, punches must be rounded to the nearest 15-minute mark, which means an employee who arrives at 8:06 a.m. will have an in time of 8:00 a.m. Leaving at 4:53 p.m. will appear as 5:00 p.m. If employees are entering their own time, they’ll simply enter 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on their time card, virtually always rounding in their favor. And what happens for the lunch period? Do employees take advantage of similar patterns?

A Costly Example in Punch Rounding 

To demonstrate the steep cost of allowing for employee punch rounding, consider the following example. Employee X arrives as usual at 8:05 a.m. in the morning (recorded as 8:00 a.m.). Having been an employee for some time, he knows he has up to 7 minutes to arrive late before he’ll actually be marked as late. For the lunch hour, the employee leaves at 11:55 a.m. to get an early start on the lunch rush (recorded as 12:00 p.m.). He returns after lunch a few minutes late, getting caught up in traffic to arrive at 12:34 p.m. (recorded as 12:30 p.m.). Seemingly, this is “not a big deal.” And finally, after a long day of work, he leaves at 4:56 p.m. (recorded as 5:00 p.m.) to get ahead of evening traffic. In this very typical example, Employee X has been paid for 18 minutes of additional work in single day. Feasibly the employee could have been paid as many as 28 minutes extra if he had “taken full advantage” of the 7-minute grace period.

Now let’s say we have 20 employees following the same practice. 18 minutes multiplied by 20 is 360 minutes or 6 hours of overpay and/or lost productivity per day. Now let’s multiply this by a typical 21-day work month. That’s 7560 minutes or 126 hours of overpay and/or lost productivity each month. At $15 per hour, that’s $1890 in lost wages… per month. Fortunately, fixing this problem with an automated time and labor solution would only cost a fraction of that amount each month!

End the Costly Practice of Punch Rounding 

If you’re still rounding employee times or permitting employees to enter their times manually on a timesheet, it’s time to take control of that cost. There are numerous simple, affordable tools to immediately and conveniently fix this problem. With an affordable plug-and-play time clock, your organization could eliminate these added costs of wages, overtime and lost productivity. Contact us at 941 Timekeeping to learn more.

In today’s work environment where technology has allowed work to follow employees 24×7 through the multitude of devices we use each day, work-life balance has become a highly valuable commodity. The luxury of having a flexible work schedule has always been a prized possession, and paid time off continues to be one of the most coveted benefits around.

In a perfect world, employers could offer employees unlimited paid time off while maximizing, or at least meeting, their revenue objectives. Although this reality may not exist for most, technology is enabling employers and employees to achieve schedule flexibility while also making the most of their paid time off.

Mobile Employee Self Service (ESS) for Timesheet Management 

Paid time off is a precious resource to any employee. There’s simply never enough, and maximizing the use of these hours for the greatest impact is always at the top of an employee’s wish list. For employers, the ability to offer meaningful time off can be equally as important. PTO is a critical tool and resource for recruiting and retaining talent.

Although employers can’t always offer as much time off as they’d like, there are now ways through technology (automated time and attendance) to maximize the impact of what is available. Clearly, it makes sense for both sides to invest in maximizing an employee’s use of paid time off hours. Today, achieving this is more feasible than ever through a time and labor software solution that offers Employee Self Service (ESS) with a timesheet and scheduling app.

Accelerate Time Off Approvals by Supervisors

So often, employees wish to take time off only to find out the request is delayed or denied resulting in a missed opportunity. In other cases, employees feel too trapped to even request time off. If your employees perceive they are unable to take time off… for whatever reason, you have a costly cultural issue that can result in burnout and turnover. Address this problem with a time and labor solution.

Supervisors are often too busy or not equipped with the necessary on-demand data to quickly respond to such requests. On-demand data is needed regarding the employee’s eligibility and available staff alternatives. This ongoing disruption and delay causes undue frustration for all parties. And because employees often don’t have the visibility needed to know what days are open for time off requests, they are often denied and supervisors waste valuable time repeating this cycle.

With a mobile timesheet and scheduling app, these problems are solved. Here are a few ways how:

Convenient Time Management Features Your Employees Will Love

• Request time off and view accrued hours through on a mobile device – When employees have convenient access to view their available accrued time off, both in the present and future, it’s a win. But when employees can also conveniently request time off and have confidence their supervisor will be empowered to quickly review and respond to the request, employees are finally able to take time off when it means the most.
• Convenient supervisor reviews and request approvals – When a request for time off is made, supervisors have a lot to consider. How much time does the employee have available at the time the days are needed? Who are the ideal replacements for that individual and are they available? With automated time and attendance, answers to these questions are convenient and immediate.
• Increase schedule flexibility through an employee shift trade board – When employees have the ability to maintain a flexible schedule, job satisfaction improves. But supervisors don’t always have the tools and time to allow such flexibility. With a timekeeping solution, now they can. Employees can easily swap shifts through an Employee Trade Board that utilizes text and email collaboration to notify and fill open shifts in mere minutes.
• View the best days to take off through an Employee Calendar – Nobody appreciates the lost time involved when a time off request is denied. But with advanced employee scheduling, employees have the ability to see when taking time off is optimal. Employees not only gain the ability to easily request future time off based on earned hours, but they can also see if others in the department have already received an approval for time off. This reduces the time involved for supervisors while increasing approval rates for employees.
• Clocking in and out with GPS pinpoint verification – More than ever, workforces are becoming more mobile and remote. For employers, tracking these employees has always been a leap of faith, difficult, and costly. Today, with GPS pinpoint verification, employees can now conveniently clock in or out through a mobile time (if authorized) and validate their location, giving employees convenience and employers accountability.

The value of meaningful time off is high for both employees and employers. The ability to offer work flexibility to employees can also be a competitive advantage for employers in attracting and retaining their staff. By investing in a simple, affordable time and scheduling solution, not only can you reduce the cost of workforce management, but you can also better offer the priceless sense of work-life balance to your staff.

Contact us 941 Timekeeping to learn about how a mobile timekeeping solution can improve work-life balance for your staff.

There once may have been a time when an employee had to climb the corporate ladder to pursue and attain a certain level of responsibility before being awarded true autonomy. Once telecommuting or working from home became a possibility for most staff, an unprecedented level of trust was suddenly required of employers. More than ever before, accountability had to be quantifiable, measurable via a reliable system. Today, cost-effective software exists and achieves just that, even for small businesses. However, there are still challenges employers may face.

Trusting Telecommuters

While working from home is more common than ever, the influence of our culture, history and education has not been eliminated by any stretch of the imagination. Employees will always share that basic training, implemented since grade school, to wake up and report to an authority figure early in the morning, until permitted to leave at the pre-ordained time. As a result, on-site staff may be prone to gossip when it comes to telecommuters. The pressure for accountability will come from within the organization, which is wholly unnecessary.

In the past, this might propel an employer to check the company’s VPN logs, which are basically a record of employee activity, such as internet access, downloaded files, etc. This method is indirect and fails to promote trust. The idea is to take advantage of modern technology’s ability to diminish any sense of remoteness or distance. Telecommuters should be able to clock in with a sense of punching in alongside co-workers. Once co-workers feel the same, the trust that their colleagues at home are being held accountable will be enforced.

Telecommuter Technology

It is essential to our business that our timekeeping software not only remain ahead of the competition but that it successfully integrates with all the other current technology that enables modern employment practices like telecommuting to be successful. While it is reasonable to expect our services to facilitate timekeeping, payroll and benefits tracking from home, it will still more than likely be a necessity to communicate face-to-face at some point. The era of Skype has made doing so via the internet a mundane feat. We would fully expect an employer to rely on this capability in conjunction with using our software.

Some workplace clichés hold on for dear life but end up proving useful. For example, on-site staff should feel much better about their remote colleagues once they are able to gather at the “virtual watercooler”. Our focus may be on the relationship between you and your remote staff but we remain savvy to the big picture of the work environment. In addition to investing in our software, we expect you to round out your virtual office with complementary tech.

Automated timekeeping does not, nor will it ever, exist in a vacuum. That lonely little clock on a wall in a break room does not suffice as an image that represents what we do. Martial arts legend Bruce Lee famously said “Become like water, my friend.” At every new juncture in your business’s growth, we wish to be there to fill your needs. Should you feel increasing the number of employees working from home, we will guarantee success.

Employee absenteeism can be a significant cost on employers… in terms of lost productivity, company culture, and bottom-line profitability. But is employee absenteeism a result of personal issues or employer environmental issues? The answer is it’s likely both. But do you know the cost of your absenteeism? It is argued by some that only a small percentage of employers actually measure the impact of absenteeism. If you’re not one of them, fortunately, there are affordable tools available to reduce the large cost of absenteeism.

The usual answers might be to implement an employee wellness program, look for activities and programs to reduce stress levels across the organization, allow for remote work when staff members are sick, or update your Handbook to make accountability and time off more clear or manageable for employees. We’ll take a more technology-driven approach here.

Technology Makes Accountability More Manageable 

Certainly there are many factors that lead to absenteeism. On the employer side, it begins with accountability, or how companies track and hold employees accountable for their time. If you want results, typically, measurement is required. If your company attendance policy lacks some structure, that’s part of the problem, and when an imbalance is perceived… big cultural problems begin to develop.

But if you lack standard tracking tools to ensure employees are aware of their own attendance habits, you should almost expect abuse. Historically, this technology has been costly or inconvenient. Today, it’s simple to use, affordable, but also very smart. It’s called automated time and attendance or advanced employee scheduling. It reduces the paper trail challenge of tracking and approving employee time and exceptions down to minutes. The good news is, you can have a timekeeping solution set up very quickly and inexpensively.

Convenience Leads to Employee Accountability

Inconvenience is one of the greatest contributors to employee time mismanagement. When employers ask employees to manage spreadsheets, manual timesheets or otherwise, accountability is a time-consuming burden. Employees don’t necessarily seek to avoid accountability… but it can be cumbersome to adhere to, especially for managers who lack the time to handle the added administration.

With a mobile app, for example, employees get convenience and employers get accountability. Employees can manage their timesheet, paid time off, time card approvals, and employee schedules with ease. With an automated time and attendance solution that offers mobile or instant online access, employees can conveniently manage their time and better plan for absence allowances.

Give Employees More Control Over PTO 

For some employers, managing absences and paid time off is a real administrative struggle. With a lack of reporting and tools, absences tally up with limited understanding of how that factors into time off hours throughout the year. Another stress is time off requests. Supervisors are busy, HR has lots to manage, and employees often don’t feel they have control over their paid time off. It may even be stressful just to ask.

With great technology, this all changes. Supervisors have instant access to the data they need to make quick approval decisions. Employees can easily see how much time is available and what days are better than others for time off as other employees may be asking for the same days. Also, employees can better manage their time off from long-term perspective. When PTO requests are simple and convenient to manage, morale improves and employees can better manage how much time they are accruing and using.

Advanced Employee Scheduling Reduces Absences 

Creating and adjusting employee schedules simply takes a lot of time for managers. As a result, it may not be practical for supervisors to allow for changes. But when employees are sick or have emergencies, absences may be necessary. Smart, employee scheduling, however, can minimize the disruption and cost of these changes. Through a simple Shift Trade Board that uses email and text collaboration, employees and supervisors can re-route and fill shifts almost effortlessly and within minutes. Supervisors can even see who the best alternatives are for shifts using a “Best Fit Wizard.” Now, supervisors have quick, qualified replacements for potential absences and employees are better positioned to plan around them.

Employee absenteeism is not something you can eliminate altogether, but you can minimize the cost through simple, affordable technology. Contact us at 941 Timekeeping to learn more about ways to reduce labor costs and absenteeism.

Property management is the sort of business where a mobile, web-based timekeeping and payroll system can really strut its stuff. While other operations may be based under one roof or in a central location, the geographical range of a property management company can be quite wide, with staff spread all over.

A landlord starts as a staff of one. A property management company accumulates multiple properties, relies on their respective managers and retains the services of a real estate attorney. All the usual applicant screening and rent collection is still a big part of the day-to-day, as is responding to maintenance requests. Most, if not all of these aspects are already computer-aided. Keeping track of employee time and attendance should be no different.

The Big Picture

Business owners have to be able to do their own work without losing sight of the big picture. A property management team can mean multiple managers with multiple properties of their own to visit. To say that such a staff is scattered and tough to keep track of would be an understatement.  Thankfully, that capability is now virtual. Employees once again feel as if they are under one roof. The means to know where they are and what they are doing can be stored in one’s pocket. Using a mobile device, the owner of a property management company can do the following:

• Use GPS to verify work: Relying on remote operators is no longer a hassle thanks to GPS tracking. If your business is property management, your staff will expect a degree of freedom without micromanagement or being constantly checked on. Once again, technology comes through and makes this easy to accomplish.
• Track location and IP addresses: The ability to track IP addresses will ensure accuracy regarding clock-in times. Employees won’t be able to have someone else clock in for them, nor will they be able to enter false times.
• Get real-time, detailed updates: Thanks to cloud-based software, each time an employee clocks in, a plethora of information is instantly available. Where they clock in and what they are working on can be viewed at any time. You will even be able to generate reports according to the job, the project, the client, etc.

 Peace of Mind

At first, business owners were probably not too keen on the fact that digital technology would mean anyone could reach them at any time, even on vacation. Now, they realize it means vacations can be taken any time, regardless of the destination. That’s even better than peace of mind, isn’t it? After all, property management is still just as 24-7 as being a landlord. It is a business that must be able to carry on without you. Managers must be able to work autonomously, regardless of whether you are on vacation or not. Just how does advanced timekeeping play a role in this?

• No ‘buddy’ system: Thanks again to IPS address tracking, old tricks like the ‘buddy’ system, where employees have other employees clock them in, are obsolete. Trust is based on more than this, but it’s a sound basis for feeling able to rely on staff while enjoying your time off.
• Safety & back-up: With SSL encryption and daily backups, our system for storing data is secure.

Staff Approval

Members of a property management team must be self-sufficient. Their job satisfaction depends on that fact just as much as your peace of mind. The benefits their approval will likely hinge on include:

• Ability to track their own hours: Whether it be vacation time, PTO hours or just regular work hours, staff can enter their own information and double check its accuracy. They will be able to do so from virtually anywhere, from any device.

• Accountability: The type of employee best suited for property management thrives when left to account for their own time. Independence and autonomy are byproducts of our services that just happen to be prime motivators for individuals in this field.

Once upon a time, payroll was the domain of a small staff of employees responsible for collecting timesheets and calculating hours. Matters of staffing required staff members. There will always be a human element but some industries have always required more streamlined, efficient methods. With mobile, web-based payroll services, a centrally located department is not as necessary. The onus of timekeeping is shared unilaterally, company-wide. For those working in property management, the very definition of ‘workplace’ is as fluid as their schedule.

Are meal and break periods putting your company at risk for wage and hour violations? More importantly, meal and break periods may be costing your organization thousands each pay period in increased wages, overtime and lost productivity. If you’re not using a web-based time clock or time and attendance solution to track your break periods, you’re likely at risk. Fortunately, through technology you can minimize the cost and risk of non-compliance penalties.  

Are you at risk as an employer?  

Before addressing the cost of break periods, let’s touch on the compliance risk. One of the most common sources of wage and hour violations with the Department of Labor involves employee breaks and meal periods. Working through lunch is perhaps the most frequent issue. Disrupting or preventing eligible employees from taking full breaks is another.

Often, employers don’t fully understand both the federal and state guidelines required by law to be compliant. In other cases, the employer may have poor tracking systems, policies or a work culture that can put the company at risk for a complaint or violation. Most commonly, supervisors simply don’t understand the law and/or cross the line. This puts the employer at risk for serious compliance violations, penalties, or minimally, unhappy employees and turnover.

Are break and meal period costing you thousands? 

On the other hand, meal and break periods often cost employers thousands every month due to inadequate tracking, lost productivity and overpaid wages. Tracking meal and break periods has always been a bit complicated for employers, particularly the break period. Generally, breaks are paid time, but what if the employee needs to run an errand that takes longer than the allotted 15 minutes? Are these minutes sorted on the timesheet as paid and unpaid? What if employees are simply in the habit of taking longer breaks than what’s permitted? Is there a system in place to track this? If not, who pays the difference when tracking is not accurate? Clearly, it’s the employer!

Due to countless circumstances, employees often fall into the habit of arriving late and leaving a few minutes early. It’s also common for employees to take longer breaks than what’s permitted. The employee may or may not be aware, but these minutes add up quickly, often creating 5 to 25 minutes per day per employee of lost productivity or overpaid wages. With time and attendance tracking, this challenge can be solved.

Supervisors may be unaware, may not have the tools, or simply don’t want to strain relationships by constantly nagging employees to keep meals and breaks punctual. This is one reason why having an automated system that conveniently positions employees to be accountable is so important. Even 5 to 25 minutes per day, per employee can cost employers thousands each month in increased wages, overtime, productivity and payroll taxes.

Timekeeping Technology is the Solution

If you’re not currently or accurately tracking meal and break periods, you’re most likely losing both on productivity and wages. Many employers apply a break period automatically, which is a risky practice for compliance and productivity. With a simple, affordable online timekeeping solution, however, this challenge can be minimized. Common tracking issues with breaks include:

• Determining which employees are eligible for break periods.
• Tracking the criteria to earn the break.
• Automating paid and unpaid time if the employee takes a longer break period.

Contact 941 Timekeeping 

Managing your meal and break periods can produce tremendous savings both from a wages and compliance perspective. Through an online time and attendance solution, you can begin to realize savings in these areas. Contact 941 Timekeeping to learn more about our automated time, labor and scheduling software solutions.

Retaining your best employees has a major impact on profitability, cost and customer satisfaction. But retaining employees certainly isn’t easy. One of the most important factors for an employee in choosing an employer, and perhaps more importantly, staying with an employer long-term… is perceived job flexibility. In fact, this benefit alone can be enough for an employee to stick around for fear of losing such an important convenience.

But for employers, offering work schedule flexibility comes at a cost. Employers want to minimize change and labor costs. Further, it is especially taxing for supervisors and departments to accommodate the change as it has historically required a great deal of research and coordination. The good news is, through technology, many of these challenges have been virtually eliminated… or at least automated through today’s advanced employee scheduling software. Yes, employers can now offer flexibility… without the overhead.

Advanced Scheduling Automates Employee Flexibility 

What if employers could offer employees a great deal of flexibility and influence over their schedule without the significant increase cost and overhead? If employees could simply submit a request for a shift swap, and that request was distributed and filled automatically. If supervisors had an auto-generated list of “best-fit” candidates to fill in based on wage, skill and overtime considerations. Or if supervisors could simply allow all eligible employees to be notified of the opportunity, pick up the shift, and simply approve the change once filled. These types of conveniences and many more are now possible through advanced employee scheduling software.

Advanced Scheduling Features

The truth of the matter is that business runs through people, and people have lives and unexpected circumstances that cause them to need a degree of flexibility. Unfortunately, supervisors rarely have enough time to manage day to day tasks let alone accommodate constant change. For employers who can offer such flexibility and minimize the cost on personnel, those employers will see reduced costs related to turnover, labor, and workforce administration.

See below for an introductory list of key features that allow for increased flexibility without the overhead:

• Drag-and-drop Schedule Builder – With advanced scheduling software, supervisors gain the ability to create, adjust and maintain employee schedules in a fraction of the time with drag-and-drop convenience, automated notification and edit processes, and improved visibility.
• Email and Text Collaboration – Through automated email and text alerts, when employees need to swap a shift, the supervisor doesn’t have to put everything aside to find a replacement. Eligible employees can be notified and elect to pick up available shifts in a matter of minutes, pending the supervisor’s approval.
• Set Employee Availability – With advanced employee scheduling, employees can conveniently designate when they are and are not available. They can also identify which days are already unavailable for time off within the department. This way, both the system and staff know when and who can fill shifts.
• Best-Fit Wizard – Finding a replacement is not always a simple decision, but with automated alerts to employees AND a system that can automatically recommend employees based on the appropriate criteria, such as skill and cost, filling shifts becomes extremely convenient.

The need to make work schedule edits based on life circumstances is inevitable for employees, but reducing the time and emotional toll on both supervisors and employees is a great competitive advantage for employers. Contact us at 941 Timekeeping to learn how an advanced employee scheduling solution can improve your employee retention while reducing the associated costs.