3 Ways Timekeeping and Scheduling Tools Help You Manage

You've probably heard about the recent changes to the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act). As Forbes puts it, these changes will make millions more employees eligible for overtime while making compliance more challenging for business leaders. This new rule is just one reason you should be thinking about automated timekeeping and scheduling.

Another stark fact - studies have found that each time an employee is distracted during the workday (e.g., checks their Instagram feed), it takes them an average of 23 minutes to re-focus. Using today's average wages, that's $8.69 an employer is throwing away - per distraction. Multiply that by many distractions and you're wasting hundreds per week. 

Enter timekeeping and scheduling. The right tools can help your employees stay motivated and productive, saving your business money, while maintaining the important relationship between an employer and employee. Let's examine three big ways these tools can help.

1. Know Your Coverage

To create and foster an efficient workplace, you must evaluate the demands of your business and line these demands up with your employee schedules and strengths. Scheduling technology helps you identify:

• Busy times throughout the day (is the lunch rush covered?)
• Schedule conflicts (everyone wants to take off the week of Thanksgiving)
• Employee capabilities (we can't schedule Pam during the sales rush because she only knows bookkeeping)

2. Project Your Labor Costs

Cost of labor is defined as the sum of all wages paid to employees, as well as the cost of employee benefits and payroll taxes paid by an employer. Labor costs can also be considered the costs of producing one unit of output. Managing the number of hours your employees work can increase the productivity of your everyday operations and create a lasting, efficient schedule. 

A simple scheduling tool might seem to just shuffle around your employees. Sure, the schedules are efficient, but what about costs and revenue? Scheduling and timekeeping, when done right, can also tell the story of your business costs and revenue. How can you ensure a healthy business with the help of these tools?

• Project costs based on scheduled hours
• Monitor actual hours worked by each employee (and time wasted)
• Evaluate high and low demand time periods and schedule accordingly

3. Communicate Easily and Effectively

Finally, efficient scheduling should lead to easy communication between employer and employee. Gone are the days of Excel spreadsheets or Word docs sent by email.  There are several ways a proper scheduling tool can build an efficient relationship between employer and employee:

• Accurately track your employees' hours, cutting down on wasted time.
• Notify your employees of scheduling changes or work opportunities in a timely manner. You can do this via email or even a text message, keeping your workforce communications organized and searchable. 
• Choose from a variety of devices (whichever fit your needs), including mobile phones, swipe time clocks, fingerprint readers or even facial recognition tools. When you choose a device your employees like, your communications and relationships can only improve. 

Need help sorting through the tools? Wonder if you're actually losing money on manual timekeeping? Contact us today, or click below for your timekeeping worksheet.