Workforce Management: Time and Attendance

Welcome to the Institute for Workforce Management Virtual Event. Thank you to everyone for your participation and support. Over 6000 attendees have joined us to increase their expertise in Workforce Management. They have been on their journey to set themselves apart from their peers. Don't get left behind! Come join us and learn how to become a leader in Workforce Management. This two day event is the 7th since the Institute’s launch in 2011. The purpose of this introductory session is to provide you with an update on webcast topics and introduce you to speakers that will be presenting on September 17&18th. In addition, for those of you who have not participated in one of these events in the past, you will be shown how to register for any newly-added webcasts and make use of the virtual Exhibit Hall, where you can increase your knowledge on product and service suppliers in the compensation arena. You will also learn how to network with your peers by visiting the lounge. All of these webcasts have been approved for HRCI recertification credits – with the exception of this introductory webcast. We will review the certification program - have you signed up yet? If not, there’s still time. Get an update on the hours accumulated to date. Find out what you have missed, and take a look at what is coming up for the next couple of months. During this session we will:
• Introduce you to the Advisory Board
• Introduce you to the Institute and the Certification program
• Help you learn how to become an expert in Workforce Management.
• Offer an opportunity for YOU to host an educational session and educate your peers.
• Learn why this Institute is important to the Workforce Management Industry and how you can contribute to its success.
If you are new to the Institute for Workforce Management this introduction will cover not only our past accomplishments but also explain why you should continue to participate and be a part of this community. For those with questions regarding the Institute and its content this is your chance to share your ideas. Looking forward to your participation in this event.

The benefits of installing a workforce management system in an organisation have been well documented over the years; however, who should actually be involved in such projects is not always so obvious. In this webinar we will explore why the most senior HR management in organisations are now getting actively involved in these projects. The area of Workforce Management (WFM) has undergone significant change in recent years. Some of this change has come about due to advances in technology, and some due to the way modern businesses operate, compete and utilise labour resources. Workforce Management is essentially the process of balancing work requirements with available resources. It is a planning and accountability framework that enables organisations, to ensure that strategic objectives are met in an efficient, cost effective manner, while at the same time balancing the needs of the employees.

Modern WFM Platforms, build a bridge between the operational and the strategic elements of a business. Complex scheduling constraints and local flexibility can now be woven into a framework, that preserves local flexibility, while also delivering, improved corporate governance, cost control and payroll to revenue alignment. In this webinar we will look at the role of the HR Director and how this fits with WFM Projects. Following this, we will look at how the active involvement of the HR Director in WFM projects can provide a framework, to ensure that the objectives of both the HR department and the organisation are achieved. And finally, we will reveal why today’s HR Directors recognise both the importance and the benefits of taking an active role in WFM Projects.

*****THIS PRESENTATION DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR IHR & HRCI CREDITS*******

This session will focus on absence management in the workforce today. Proper absence management is key to helping organizations maintain the highest levels of productivity, minimize the total cost of labor, and ensure compliance with constantly changing Federal and State leave management legislation. There are several absence management best practices that can, and should, be used to help organizations achieve these goals.
Effective absence management starts with the proper calculation and allotment of benefit accruals. Automating this process eliminates the risk of manual calculation errors and provides employees accurate information on available benefit days. To take this a step further, moving the leave request and approval process from manual to electronic makes the leave request process more efficient and provides transparency for employees and managers on available leave days. Managers and employees have the visibility into current account balances, future accruals, historical time taken off, and can receive notifications throughout the approval process.
With growing regulation of Federal and State leave compliance, it is imperative that organizations begin to centralize their case management processes and integrate them with leave management. Tracking FMLA and State Leave cases electronically brings leave management into a centralized location, allowing employees to take the appropriate time off, whether that is FMLA, Vacation, or Sick time. It allows for the tracking of case and period thresholds and makes sure leave time is allocated and used appropriately. Through the use of notifications, managers and administrators can monitor absences in real-time and regain control of the absence management process.
In this session, we will focus on absence management best practices and common tools to help you manage employee leave, increase transparency, and maintain compliance with common leave management policies.

Employee scheduling software can save businesses time and money. It organizes and balances employee hours with store coverage needs to keep everything running effectively and efficiently.

The main purpose of employee scheduling software is to create work schedules that simultaneously handle the needs of the business and the needs of the employees. In industries like retail and restaurants, employee scheduling software ensures high customer satisfaction while avoiding high labor costs. In other industries, efficient scheduling ensures that projects are completed on time. Employee schedule software guarantees a particularly streamlined approach to labor management, because it removes all the paper work associated with requests, availability, employee certifications, and work hours calculations.

HR professionals can utilize programs with certification tracking and enforcement to save hours of time processing alcohol and safe food handling certifications. With the recent changes in Canadian alcoholic beverages regulations, many Canadian businesses will be experiencing expired certifications for the first time within the next few years. The right scheduling software can help ensure that these businesses avoid fines and license revocations associated with uncertified employees by automatically preventing employees with expired certifications from being scheduled (or clocking in) without renewing their certification first. In fact, with some web-based labor software, employees can even upload their renewed certifications to the website so that management has it on file.

Besides the streamlined operations, scheduling software can save businesses and HR professionals time through easy storage and retrieval of employee information. Data such as employee names, contact information, and wages can be easily input. HR professionals can easily create regular schedules, assign shifts, make changes to accommodate sick leave, shift swaps, and organize time off.

Most schedule software is able to notify and inform employees of their schedules via printouts, web notiifcations, email, or through text messages.

A particular time saver is simply ease of use. Spreadsheets simply do not offer the readily available information that a cloud-based system does. Additionally, using a quality labor program will ensure that there are never overlaps (no double scheduling). Features like online red books help store records of absences and tardiness of employees, and will allow HR personnel to upload disciplinary action forms, make notes about specific staff members, and store everything in an easy-to-retrieve format.

All of these features add up to the simple, primary benefit of using a quality scheduling software: better communication between the employer and employee. Employee scheduling software saves everyone time, and saves the business money.

Employee scheduling software increases efficiency for HR professionals. It leaves you more time to focus on high priority items that can't be automated by a software system!

The workforce management space continues to have tremendous opportunity and has gone through numerous operational, iterative, and technical changes over the past decade. Always remaining a constant business requirement, every healthcare system, retail chain, manufacturer, casino, and school system with hourly employees uses a, or part of a workforce management suite of software and hardware solutions, to empower employees, budget hours, schedule employee’s time, enforce pay practices and rules, manage leave and attendance, and track their highest controllable cost, their people.

The balance they face is to improve customer service and control and reduce labor costs at the same time, while retaining and improving employee satisfaction and retention, not an easy task.

After many years of personally selling, consulting, and guiding hospitals and retailers as their trusted workforce management advisor, you realize that the workforce management space is both always changing and constantly growing. In healthcare you will find a different set of scheduling, time and attendance, and analytics solutions, than in retail, or casinos. Knowing which solution to go with is the difference between a three to five year painful road trip with the wrong vendor, or performance and productively improvements across the organization with the right vendor and service partner.

Analytics can help uncover hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in unnecessary and costly labor dollars, empower managers, and provide deep insight into where to focus your future operations and HR efforts.
An organization with 1500 employees and an average of 14 minutes of ‘wasted’ time each day will have an estimated 2.3 million punches to manage and cost more than 1.6 million dollars per year.

Employers have a well-established legal right (and responsibility) to track labor hours and certain activities of employees who are using company resources and mobile devices during work hours. This requires good management and accurate tracking of employee arrival and departure times as well as their online activity while “on the clock”. It is the responsibility of the employer’s management team to bring out the productivity of employees under them.

Understanding what tools are available and what elements must be considered when defining a workforce strategy can be difficult for even a seasoned HR professional. With new technological advances in monitoring solutions and Time and Attendance applications, not to mention the changing workforce demographics, this material will tie the two topics together in a way that helps the participant understand the benefits.

Other related discussion will briefly introduce more specific topics such as written policy considerations, the use of Biometrics to reduce “ghost punches”, e-mail privacy, Department of Labor audit considerations, cost consideration of calculating a manual time card, benefits such as PTO and sick pay, the direct benefits of exporting time and attendance data into the payroll system, labor reporting and more.

A brief discussion will transpire on how to shop for software and what an employer can do to engage employees in a workforce management system which includes Performance Management options. Change Management will be introduced where it pertains to management, the organization and the employee. Communications, reporting and employee management tools are all considered and discussed in the presentation.

Time is money!
In today’s competitive marketplace, every dollar counts.
Tracking employee time is unfortunately treated as an afterthought at many organizations. However, your choice of time and attendance tracking solution can have a significant impact on workforce efficiency, compliance risk and organizational profitability.
Efficiency: For many businesses, increasing efficiency and improving labor utilization are not simply “nice to do,” they’re a matter of business survival. Accurately measuring employee work time allows you to calculate workforce utilization, efficiently schedule your labor force, and control unnecessary overtime.
Risk: The Fair Labor Standards Act requires you to accurately record the work hours for overtime-eligible employees (both hourly and salaried). Failure to do so can lead to budget-busting fines and penalties. Wage and hour related lawsuits make up the largest and fastest-growing segment of employment law. Maintaining reliable and accurate employee time records helps protect against both costly lawsuits and adverse Department of Labor audits.
Profitability: Labor is typically the largest cost component for many businesses. Every day, organizations everywhere lose money to “time theft.” Employees arrive late, leave early and take longer breaks than they should. Even a few minutes a day per worker can add up to thousands of dollars in wages paid to employees for time they are NOT working. A time and attendance tracking system, properly installed and regularly used, can greatly reduce or even eliminate “time theft.”
In this lively session, we will discuss the various time tracking methods available, their impact on your business and how to select the right workforce management solution for you. We’ll also offer tips for best practices to ensure a smooth implementation and maximize the effectiveness of a new system.

Many companies are taking advantage of the benefits of an extended workforce that includes contingent workers, independent contractors, and SOW consultants. While temporary workers can provide on-demand resources and specialty skills, the accurate tracking, reporting and payment for hours worked, deliverables achieved and expense reimbursement is a major challenge for employers today.

As with all workers, FSLA forms the basis for minimum wage, child labor restrictions, and other compensation standards. Strict guidelines exist for compensation of exempt and non-exempt employees.

In addition, federal and state regulations for specific employee types including civil servants, government contractors, and workers in regulated industries require that these individuals are properly categorized, paid the prevailing wages and associated benefits, and receive earned vacation and holiday pay. Penalties for non-conformance range from severe fines to exclusion from government contracts.

To further complicate matters, company-specific requirements for various worker groups must be accommodated. Union-negotiated wages and benefits may affect some workers. Labor expenses may need to be tracked by project, location, department or enterprise. And, there may be a need to track workers who perform different duties – at different compensation rates – over the course of the day.

Time tracking technology can assist in ensuring accuracy. Systems have evolved from the early time clocks to sophisticated rule-based online systems that allow time entry from any device, then automatically route time entries to identified approvers, and create pay checks and invoices.

This session will review the requirements of FSLA, SCA, DCAA and other key employment legislation. Best practices and pitfalls in time reporting, approval and tracking will be highlighted. Methods of time tracking, and technology options, will be examined.

****THIS SESSION DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR IHR OR HRCI CREDITS AS IT IS A PANEL DISCUSSION*****

This look into the technology status of the workforce management industry will be hosted by The Work Force Consultant Group and will have guest appearances by software vendors, hardware vendors, workforce management service consultants and business leaders that have been through many workforce management implementations. The participants have all been chosen based on their commitment to helping pave the road to the future in the Workforce Management world. The Work Force Consultant Group will host questions based around where technology is today, where we see it going in the next couple years and how these changes will affect your business and the workforce you manage every day. Some of the topics that will be discussed are; Workforce Management technology's current state, recent innovations in time clocks and how this will affect your business, insight into how other businesses are using technology to help their workforce and how analytics are changing the way we see our current and future state. There will be an open forum discussion with the participants followed by an analysis of the groups discussion by The Work Force Consulting Group. We will open the forum to any questions on the discussed topics from the audience. These questions will be answered by all of the participants in the presentation. From analytics and big data to touch screen time clocks and real-time reporting, our work place is becoming faster and more efficient and our goal is to demonstrate how you and your organization can make all of these new developments work for you.

There are many options on the market today when choosing a Time Clock. Time Clock choices include prices ranging from hundreds of dollars to thousands, dumb to smart, small to large displays, limited to large keyboards, office vs. industrial cases, and many I/O choices including biometrics, barcode, magnetic stripe, and proximity.

In addition to the Time Clock, this presentation will also look at logistical issues around implementing a time collection system. Who will be using the Time Clock is also an important consideration. There are many types of workers in a typical business from the receptionist to the chief executive.

What data is collected? Where are the Time Clocks located? There are many choices to consider including entry points or locations closer to the work environment.

When are workers using the Time Clock? Most will clock in at the beginning of the day and clock out at the end. Will they use the Time Clock for breaks and lunch periods? Are there other pieces of data that could be captured about that worker important to management? Why do we need to keep careful track of time and attendance.

In this session, we will look at all of these factors and try and apply it to various work environments whether you track the time of production workers in a rugged factory environment or data entry clerks in an office setting. Each of these environments presents its own unique set of challenges for the person responsible for gathering automated time and attendance data.

The rapid adoption of tablets and smartphones by consumers is reshaping the computer hardware and software industry as we enter the post-PC era. This wave of innovation is now sweeping over the enterprise.

Join EmployTouch in an exploration of how employee-facing tablets can drive operational improvements and employee engagement through revolutionizing time collection, employee self-service and task management with TouchBase.

TouchBase is an innovative, Android-powered tablet-based solution for labor data collection, employee self-service, and collaboration. The wall-dockable tablet allows you to replace single-purpose, legacy time clocks, clunky kiosks, and high maintenance shared PCs.

In this session, you will learn about the market trends resulting in “Consumerization” and the positive impact that mobile technology can have on improving workforce management activities. You will also see an example of a complete solution that realizes this impact and allows you to do the following:

● Record accurate labor data - TouchBase handles time clock functions with ease, identifying employees using PIN entry, barcode, or RFID badges, and collecting time and labor data. TouchBase also provides additional capabilities that greatly exceed those of traditional time clocks.

● Prevent costly buddy punching - TouchBase prevents costly buddy punching by taking photos when employees log in to the system. Taking photos has several advantages over fingerprinting and hand-scanning, leading to better user adoption.

● Comply with labor regulations - TouchBase reduces employee errors, helps to prevent costly retroactive adjustments, and ensures compliance with labor rules. TouchBase saves valuable time for front line supervisors and managers.

● Empower your workforce – TouchBase allows you to reach your entire workforce, not just employees with desktop computers. Employee self-service lowers the administrative burden on your HR department and payroll staff and frees up front-line managers to focus on more productive tasks.

● Reach your workforce - TouchBase enables you to communicate with your workforce, and gives you the confidence that your messages have been received. With TouchBase integrated messaging, you can keep your employees connected and aligned with your business strategy.

● Be anywhere - TouchBase can be unlocked and undocked to provide employees with a mobile tablet through which they can access productivity systems. Employees and front-line managers can use TouchBase anywhere on the premises.

Don’t miss this virtual live event to find out more.

The chances are good that your company has one or more contact centers. There are about 62,000 formal contact centers in North America, employing over 3 million agents. They go by many names – customer support, help desk, telephone sales … They answer telephone calls from customers or fellow employees and increasingly they handle other on-demand communications such as e-mails, or chat requests.

Management of human resources is key in contact centers. Agents account for more than 70% of the cost of running a typical contact center.

In contact centers, the workload depends on demand from clients. These may be customers of the business enterprise or co workers in need of support. Usually clients expect an immediate response from a contact center, and contact centers need to have the right workforce available at all times to meet client demand. But they also need to manage closely to avoid costly overscheduling

In this session you will learn the basics of contact center workforce management. You will learn the steps in creating and managing a contact center schedule. You will learn the vocabulary of contact center workforce management and you will learn about key performance metrics for agents and for the contact center. You will also learn how employment policies and work rules interact with the special demands of contact center scheduling.

We will cover the fundamentals of planning, operations and analytics and you will learn about the tools available to accomplish these tasks. You’ll learn how to be prepared for employee churn, understand the impacts of seasonality on your business, and project future staffing requirements based on growth and other changes to the business. We will review the best means to meet not only the needs of the business unit but also the needs of the workforce with regard to vacations, training, coaching and schedule constraints. Although the bottom line is a primary consideration, factoring in employee preferences and fulfillment will reinforce your critical recruitment and staff retention goals.

We will complete the picture by showing you the analytics side of a workforce management solution where you can track the expenses in your business unit at a macro and micro level. You will also be able to drill down to the individual employee level to focus on individual employee productivity and performance.

Our basic proposition: a workforce management solution can be a critically effective tool for businesses of all sizes with a contact center, enabling them to plan for the future, manage the current staff, and determine the cost components of unit operations.

In today’s business environment, the level of guest service a hospitality organization provides is critical to its profitability and on-going success. Labor costs are without question a hospitality firm’s largest operating expense and, as such, management is constantly challenged by the balance of payroll cost containment and uncompromised guest services. To maximize yield and operate at full efficiency, hospitality organizations must equip their management with real-time information to monitor staffing, analyze budget performance and control labor costs, all while continuing to focus on outstanding guest service.
Given recent industry recession and economic downturns that have occurred, the hospitality industry is currently dealing with labor management issues and challenges.

Within this session we will highlight the importance of managing the labor and workforce challenges currently plaguing the hospitality industry in order to increase efficiency and functionality allowing for hospitality operations to remain competitive in an uncertain economic climate.

The goal of this session is to outline the labor management challenges facing the hospitality industry and the need to adopt workforce management solutions in order to operate profitability and efficiency into the future.

The future of the hospitality industry will be immeasurably worse without the adoption of workforce management solutions that help raise efficiency and increase profitability, while at the same time resolving some the integrated strains that are unique to the industry.

Who Should Participate:
Any HR/ Workforce Management professional

What you will learn:
In this session attendees will learn about:
• The state of the hospitality industry
• Growing trends and challenges facing the hospitality industry
• Workforce management solutions designed to alleviate these challenges
• Discuss the future of the hospitality industry from a WFM perspective

Are you one of the employers out there trying to manage the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), state family and medical leaves, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and company leaves using your time and attendance system? Have you tested your approach for compliance?

Currently the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Department of Labor are upping their game and actively looking for employers whose programs provide for systemic violations of employees’ rights. In fact, the past few years have seen a significant increase in litigation in FMLA and ADA cases. In this climate employers need to thoroughly evaluate their program compliance to ensure they are behaving appropriately to protect themselves from needless litigation. They need to look critically at their business processes and technologies to ensure that their programs stand up to the rigors of the current legal and compliance landscape.

While time and attendance systems do a good job of tracking time worked, employees’ absences and work schedules, they were not designed for leave compliance, yet many employers use them for this. This is because leave compliance requires ensuring the consistent and equitable application of leave rules which requires more information than is typically available from time and attendance systems. In this session, Presagia’s Compliance Officer, Allan Compagnon, will explain why a time and attendance system plays a key role in the organization and how integrating that information with a leave management system provides the best support for your compliance programs.

Mr. Compagnon will review typical data maintained with time and attendance systems and highlight key compliance elements that are most often overlooked in using such systems. He will also share with attendees the data that systems should be capturing and sharing to facilitate leave management compliance.

The primary goal of this session is to provide attendees with best practices they can relate back to their own organizations to evaluate their existing time and attendance systems and leave programs for compliance.