14 Apr Timekeeping Management Solutions for Uninterrupted Business Operations During the Coronavirus
Do you have employees working from home due to the coronavirus? You can minimize disruption to your business operations with our timekeeping software.
Payroll Partners employee solutions for the coronavirus
(and when the situation has calmed down)
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- TimeWorksPlus: time and attendance, geofencing, companion mobile app
- TimeSimplicity: advanced employee scheduling, self-service shift trading, mobile alerts
Paying employees accurately
This is the bedrock of the employer-employee relationship. Knowing when and where each team member clocks in is critical, especially when there is anxiety and confusion due to a burgeoning pandemic. Don’t pay more for labor due to confusion about at-home employee time tracking. Since your entire business can’t operate without paying your employees, you want to track time correctly.
This keeps you from overpaying them and going over your labor budget. It also protects you from failing to pay an employee when he/she is owed compensation.
Bill clients correctly
If you bill employee time per client, you need a system with that capability. If your contractors do the same, it makes things easy on their end as well. If you have contractors who work by the hour and send you an invoice, you need to verify their billable hours.
Track time for hourly and salaried workers
Tracking salaried employees is just as important as tracking time for hourly workers. FMLA and other mandated protections are based on employee hours. And as was discussed previously, it allows you to bill clients for employee time accurately as well.
Easy clock in for at-home employees
TimeWorksPlus makes it easy to track employee time and attendance. Employees access it with any connected device. That means they can clock in from a phone, tablet, or laptop.
Easy clock in for mobile employees
Employees on the go are already using connected devices. Here are two examples of how mobile employees can use the TimeWorksPlus mobile app.
Home health aides can clock in with the tablet they use to track medications. Whether their shift starts when they leave home or when they arrive at their first patient.
An electrician working on a job site can clock in with the tablet used to access the wiring diagrams. It’s quick and convenient.
What is the TimeWorksPlus time and attendance app?
TimeWorksPlus can do more than track employee time. It makes employee time and attendance easy during coronavirus anxiety or any other issue that could disrupt operations.
- Schedule adherence tracker: Ensure the right employee is clocked in at the right time at the right place.
- Compliance verification with audit trail: Confirms you are following labor laws regarding leave, overtime, shift length, meals/breaks. FMLA leave is especially important during a health crisis.
- Payroll data source: Delivers accurate time data to payroll, ensuring employees receive proper pay.
- Labor cost controller: Make sure labor costs are well understood to minimize unplanned costs. When the economy may be weakening a bit, you need to keep overhead in check.
- Accruals tracking: Define PTO policies, apply limits, carry negative balances.
- Time-off visibility: Calendar view of time-off requests with status (pending, approved, conditionally approved, and rejected).
- Employee scheduling: Create and modify schedules quickly and conveniently. Employees can see updates in real time.
- Employee self service timecards and schedule: Employees can view shift schedules, PTO balances, and time off requests with 24/7 mobile access.
How to track location for employees who are working remotely during COVID-19
Geotracking and geofencing for remote employees adds an increased level of oversight for managers. With geotracking, managers can see where their employees are when they clock in and out. Geofencing restricts punches to the authorized locations.
What is geofencing?
Geofencing is a tracking capability used in concert with a pre-set virtual boundary. The virtual boundary is called a geofence. It is based on an actual physical location. TimeWorksPlus has geofencing (for an additional fee).
How do you use geofencing for employee time tracking?
In TimeWorksPlus, draw a geofence around a site on a map. You can identify multiple geofences. Assign employees to designated areas. The app tracks their location relative to the geofence. You can see where employees clock in and out.
Your managers may be at home as well
Your managers need mobile workforce management to keep their teams functioning. Regardless of where their teams are working—at home, in the office, on the road—your managers have oversight from their own mobile device.
9 Benefits of geofencing for at-home and mobile employees during the coronavirus
- Identify employees who clock in or out beyond their authorized location
- Receive a notification in real time if a punch occurs outside the geofence
- Generate reports of punch times and locations for a specific employee or group
- Track employee hours for accurate payroll
- Retain employee timecards for FLSA and FMLA recordkeeping
- Enforce time and attendance policies
- Ensure employees know they are at the correct location
- Track employee hours per project or job location
- Track employee mileage for company reimbursement
Geotracking for home health aide providers
Here is an example of how home health providers use geotracking. Home health aides are on the front lines of the coronavirus situation. Owners and managers will be dealing with staff shortages due to quarantined aides. Managers are trying to cover shifts with smaller staffs.
Using TimeWorksPlus with geotracking, a manager can see exactly where her aides are. If an employee can’t make it to a patient, the manager can text the closest replacement to cover the visit. This helps ensure that each patient is taken care of.
TimeSimplicity for advanced employee scheduling
If you need more complicated scheduling, TimeSimplicity is the solution. TimeSimplicity easily handles the most complex team schedules. Managers/schedulers rapidly assemble and publish demand-based schedules that give employees advance notice and the power to adjust through shift trading.
Schedulers and managers create and assign shifts, then approve/modify employee drop/trade requests to meet business demand, budget, labor law, and employee preference. Schedule constraints protect you from violating overtime limits, shift length limits, and break rules. Track required certifications, and alert external timekeeping systems for schedule enforcement.
The last thing you need during the COVID-19 situation is a labor violation. Reduce schedule errors and improve attendance by instantly notifying managers and employees when schedules change.
During the coronavirus, manage by exception
Managers are more effective when they don’t have to monitor mobile employee time and attendance. Spend more time training, mentoring, and ensuring projects are completed on time. The system sends an alert if an employee punches outside of the geofence. Managers can focus only on problem punches, not in-bounds punches. Managing by exception saves time and improves efficiency.
Shift coverage for virtual tech support teams during the coronavirus
When there is shift confusion there is a risk of understaffing. Don’t risk losing customers due to understaffed offsite support teams. Nothing hurts your business like long wait times for customer service. And your customers are dealing with the coronavirus as well.
Shift coverage gaps are also hard on the employees who have to pick up the slack. Service reps know that customer frustration intensifies with each minute they wait in the phone or live chat queue.
Ease of use is priority during a time of uncertainty
Any cumbersome system—for time tracking or otherwise—makes life harder for everyone. It hampers employees, managers, Human Resources staff, and ultimately the business owner. Ease of use is especially important when everyone is preoccupied with the latest coronavirus news.
Payroll Partners will help you operate successfully during the coronavirus outbreak and protect your business from disruption. Contact us at (817) 226-8111 or info@payrollpartners.com to sign up for these TimeWorksPlus and/or TimeSimplicity features.