Labor Management. NOW Simple.

Employee Scheduling for Pools and Aquatics Centers

apresley — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:35:47 +0000

Aquatics centers and pools are often a challenging employee scheduling environment. Pool managers must ensure that an adequate number of lifeguards are on duty for the number of swimmers in the pool, but also must monitor recession stands, front-office staff, trainers, coaches, cleaning crews, and management personnel.

State and local regulations often require regular breaks for on-duty employees, as well as staffing minimums for pool occupants. To further complicate the process, scheduling and attendance management needs to account for staff members who are underage, fluctuating school schedules, changing availability, young / inexperienced staff members, buddy punching, employees riding the clock, and much more!

Babysitting the time clock to ensure staff members aren’t riding the clock or punching each other in isn’t much fun, but successful aquatics center managers know that labor management can go a long way towards cutting budget draining labor costs.

Over-scheduling could drain away profits. Under-scheduling could drain away your customers (and get you fined!). Skillful scheduling of staff members for your pool isn’t easy - it can be tedious and time consuming. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be. TimeForge turns labor scheduling and attendance monitoring into a simple management task, giving you back your weekends and increasing profits.

Labor Management for Childrens Retailers

apresley — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:28:55 +0000

This is one of the most difficult retail environments in recent memory for children’s product retailers. Still, history has shown that retailers who survive - and thrive - through recessions are those who take the downturn as an opportunity to make changes; to streamline and refine operations. Because seemingly small changes have big impact.

Babysitting the time clock to ensure your employees aren’t riding the clock or punching each other in isn’t much fun either, but successful managers know that attendance monitoring can go a long way towards cutting and forecasting labor costs.

Over-scheduling could drain away your profits. Under-scheduling could drain away your customers. Skillful retail employee scheduling and attendance monitoring isn’t easy. It can be tedious and time consuming. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be.

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

Auto Supply Stores Need Staff Scheduling and Attendance Management Too!

apresley — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:10:44 +0000

During bad economic periods, monitoring labor costs, employee schedules, and managing attendance are crucial to maintaining a profitable business in the auto parts and automobile supply industry.

Even in the best economic climates, staff scheduling for auto parts and supply stores can be a headache. The manager building the employee schedule has to consider staff abilities and skills, the expected sales volume, employee availability and requests, accrued PTO (and sick and vacation time), labor laws for employees who are minors, overtime, and the total labor costs.

TimeForge works wonders for businesses in the auto supply or auto parts industries - managers and employees alike can benefit from the speed and clarity that TimeForge brings to the business. Employees can check schedules online, request time off, view timecards, and send messages to other staff members. Managers benefit from the instant employee scheduling, real-time notifications of schedule changes, employee messaging, and one-click payroll exports.

With TimeForge, employee turnover goes down, employee retention goes up, and profits rise.

Read more about TimeForge for Auto Supply and Automobile Parts businesses.

TimeForge labor management and employee scheduling software is used by owners and operators of automobile parts and auto supply stores, car washes, retail, food-service, and other service-oriented businesses around the world. TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business!

Southwest Food Expo

apresley — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:15:41 +0000

We’re back from the Southwest Food Expo, which was held in Dallas, TX at the Dallas Convention Center.

Last year, the show was one of the largest restaurant and food service shows in the UNited States. In fact, we exhibited during the 2008 show, and spoke to hundreds of independent and chain restaurants, as well as a few retailers, and a number of culinary students and schools. The response to TimeForge was great!

However, this year the show was much smaller — only about 400 exhibitors, and the show seemed to be slow, similar to what we experienced at the National Restaurant Association (NRA) show, and at the National Association for Food Equipment Manufacturers (NAFEM) trade shows in 2009. The exhibitors we spoke to said it was slower as well.

If you are in the Dallas, Houston, or Austin areas and you need a Point of Sale system, a full service labor management system (employee scheduling and/or attendance management), or just help with your computer systems and networks, please make sure to check out our partners!

TimeForge employee scheduling software is used by owners and operators of foodservice and hospitality related businesses around the world. TimeForge will reduce turnover, improve retention, and increase profits at your business!

Labor Management for Car Wash Companies

apresley — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:26:05 +0000

TimeForge has always been the leading employee scheduling and attendance management for the hospitality, food-service, and restaurant industries. Did you know that TimeForge works just as well for other industries in the service and retail markets?

TimeForge works great for car wash businesses - both conveyor and self-service car washes have complicated labor management needs, and can benefit from the speed and convenience of TimeForge. In a recession, efficient employee scheduling at a car wash operation can spell the difference between survival and success.

Read more about TimeForge and car washes here.

TimeForge employee scheduling software is used by owners and operators of car washes, retail, hospitality, food-service, and other service-oriented businesses around the world. TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business!

June Newsletter

apresley — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:29:43 +0000

Our staff has been hard at work continuing to improve TimeForge - ensuring that it is simply the best employee scheduling and labor management tool on the web.

This newsletter includes some details about new features in TimeForge, several scheduling and labor tips, and other information. As always, if you have any suggestions for TimeForge, please let us know!

New TimeForge Partners

TimeForge is proud to be a certified Dinerware partner, providing advanced labor management and employee scheduling for restaurants, country clubs, casinos, wineries, and hotels. Read more about the TimeForge-Dinerware integration here.

We are also very excited to welcome Factor One Technology as a TimeForge Partner. Factor One provides Point of Sale systems to retail and restaurant businesses in Canada.

Also, TimeForge now supports exporting attendance and payroll data to the world’s premier online payroll company, SurePayroll. Exporting payroll has never been easier!

New TimeForge Features

Enjoy the brand new TimeForge Today page - with improved access to schedules, attendance, shift swaps, and much more!
Perform “What If” scenarios on your labor schedule, and quickly restore previously saved schedules using Schedule Snapshots.
Bulk insert or update employee, position, and department-level information by using an import file.
Access TimeForge on an iPhone, Blackberry, or other RSS capable device to receive up-to-the-minute schedule and labor information.
And much, much more.

Did you know that you can access TimeForge on Facebook? Check schedules, see who is clocked in, receive and send messages, review time cards, and much more!

Follow TimeForge on Twitter!

Make sure to check our blog for the latest information about TimeForge.

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

Efficient Labor Management with the New TimeForge Today Page!

apresley — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:45:16 +0000

Due to overwhelming demand, we released our new Today page for managers, providing an executive dashboard for labor management. This new Today page includes all of the previous information (bar charts for who is working, labor costs for the day, which employees are clocked in, pending requests and shift swaps), as well as a number of new items to ease the burden of managing the employee schedule.

1. The first row of data shows how many employees are scheduled for the day (unique shifts), and if you click on this link you will get the bar chart that you are used to seeing, which can be printed, just like the old chart could be printed.

2. The second row of data shows any unconfirmed shifts from your staff members, providing you with some idea of how many employees have confirmed receipt of their schedule through TimeForge. Clicking on this link will allow you to further examine which shifts have been confirmed, or not confirmed.

3. The third row of data displays how many Pending Shift Swaps need to be approved for that day. Pending Shift Swaps are exactly the same as the Shift Swaps that were shown before on the Today page, and clicking on this link will take you to a screen to approve or deny the pending shift swaps. This functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

4. The fourth row of data displays how many Open Shifts occur on that day. An Open Shift is a shift that has been Given Up, but not yet Picked Up. Clicking on this link will take you to a page displaying more detail about the Open Shifts, as well as any Pending Shift Swaps. Again, this functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

5. The fifth row of data displays today’s schedule in a bar chart format, very similar to the first row.

6. The sixth row of data will provide the day’s schedule in a Horizontal or Vertical format, allowing you to print the schedule and place it your pocket. Again, these links function exactly like they did on the old Today screen.

7. The seventh row of data will allow you to quickly see how many staff members are clocked in, and clicking on the link will send you to the “Clocked In” Employees page. This also functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

8. The eighth row of data displays the number of Daily Log entries for the day, and clicking on this link will take you to the Daily Log.

9. The ninth row of data displays the day’s scheduled labor costs, if any labor costs have been entered for staff members.

10. The tenth row of data displays the actual cost of employee’s who have clocked in and out for the day, and is the total of your day’s labor. This functions exactly like it did on the old Today screen.

11. The eleventh row of data displays the difference between the scheduled labor costs, and the actual attendance - if the number is in green, the actual labor costs for the day are less than what was scheduled (good job!), if they are in red, then the labor costs are higher than what was scheduled.

12. The last row of data displays the rolling labor cost for the day, and resets based on when your schedule starts. You can use this number to keep track of your labor costs for the week. This works just like the previous “Week To Date” cost did.

You can move forward and backwards in time, and have access to all of the data on this page that you had previously including:

Shift swaps requiring approval,
Requests that require approval,
The bar chart describing the labor for the day,
The labor costs for the day,
The week to date labor costs,
And much, much more.

In between the “Next Week” and the “Previous Week” are two links, “Approve or Deny Shift Swaps” and “Approve or Deny Pending Requests”, which will be shown if there are ANY shift swaps or pending requests to approve, regardless of which day the requests or shift swaps fall on.

iPhone, Blackberry, and Smartphone access for Employee Schedules

apresley — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:35:46 +0000

Now available! Managing labor at your business just became even more simple. TimeForge Mobile recently launched, providing managers and staff members the ability to review employee schedules, check timecards, send and receive online messages, and perform other labor management related items on an iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, or other smartphone.

TimeForge Mobile can be accessed by pointing your favorite web browser or RSS reader at the TimeForge website. To ensure the confidentiality of the information that is available, the RSS reading program must be able to use both SSL (bank-level encryption and security) and authentication (username and password). Some of our favorite RSS readers include:

Viigo on the Blackberry
NetNewswire and Pro RSS on the iPhone
Others (mostly for the desktop) can be found here

Accessing TimeForge Mobile is very simple! Just add the website or URL of:

http://www.TimeForge.com/Scheduler/rss.html

to your RSS program of choice - enter your username and password - and your schedule, timecard, availability, and messages will automatically load into your RSS program.

Managers and supervisors have additional capabilities, and multi-unit and multi-store operators can view additional information (such as which staff members are clocked in, the days labor costs, and gross sales for the day). A full list of RSS URL’s can be found inside “My Settings” page within TimeForge.

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

Import Employees, Positions, and Departments

apresley — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:06:46 +0000

One of the most frustrating aspects of labor management systems is the process of inputting all of the data needed to use a employee scheduling, time and attendance, or complete labor management system.

Almost all of the labor management systems on the market today (including TimeForge) require that users input and set up:

Employee names
Positions and job codes
Base pay rates
Basic labor rules (how many hours per week an employee can work, etc…)
Email addresses
Department names
Phone numbers
Usernames and passwords
Specific pay rates for employees
Hire dates
Birth dates
Payroll ID’s
… And other data points that are relevant to labor systems.

Most frustrating is that most users already have much of this information living inside of other documents, such as the payroll system, point of sale system, or various Excel documents. Re-inputting all of this data can be a huge waste of time.

TimeForge recently introduced an Employee, Position, and Department Import Tool, allowing users to import most of the above information directly from a CSV file or an Excel file. The tool is very simple to use - simply collect the information together into a CSV file, and then upload the file to TimeForge.

You will have the ability to view the data before it is import, and TimeForge will automatically handle any necessary updates to your existing data. The Import Tool can be found in the Setup menu.

TimeForge labor management software provides employee scheduling and attendance management for operators, managers, and owners of bars, clubs, retail stores, restaurants, and other businesses to improve profits, reduce turnover, and increase retention.

National Restaurant Association 2009

apresley — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:43:43 +0000

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.