Building the Case for Automating Time and Attendance

Yesterday’s Advisor featured consultant Mollie Lombardi and product manager Jim Mansfield’s tips for automating time and attendance. Today, more of their practical advice, plus an introduction to the all-things-HR-in-one-place website, HR.BLR.com.

What Can Be Gained with Technology and Integration?

In a word, efficiency and productivity, says Mansfield. An employee asks for a day off. The request is logged, the manager is alerted and reviews the request. If approved, the information gets onto the schedule and to payroll. If necessary, qualified substitutes are found.

Time Management

There are lots of challenges for managers in today’s complex workplace, says Lombardi. One way to help is to reduce the time spent on routine workforce management. Especially in jobs like retail and manufacturing, but really in any workplace, you want your managers out there making it happen, not in a back office dealing with time and attendance recording and reporting.

Building the Case for Automation

As you build your case for automation, consider the following factors, Lombardi says:

Productivity. Productivity is king. Make sure you’re getting the most out of your workforce and the resources you have. Studies show that organizations with automated time and attendance achieve 12 percent greater productivity.

Awareness. Gain a better handle on who’s working, when they’re working and integrate this with performance data.

Cost savings. A well-designed system should produce significant direct and indirect cost savings.

Compliance. Improved data and reporting means better audits and better documentation in case of suits and charges.

Engagement. Supervisors and managers and employees are more engaged when less of their time is spent on routine annoyances and more on what’s important to the organization.

Influence. HR’s influence in the organization will grow when it can offer more meaningful and accurate data and demonstrate cost savings.

Decision making. Automation helps ensure that data are clean and accurate. That results in better data, better reports, and better decisions.

Accuracy. A decrease in the error rate means less manual involvement. In turn, that results in savings in labor costs.

So, when making your case, certainly mention efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy, but also mention what it does for managers and employees, Lombardi says.

HR budget cuts? Let us help. HR.BLR.com is your one-stop solution for all your HR compliance and training needs. Take a no-cost, no-obligation trial and get a complimentary copy of our special report Critical HR Recordkeeping—From Hiring to Termination. It’s yours—no matter what you decide.

The Curveball of the ACA

And then there’s the big curveball, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It may have a significant impact on workforce management strategy and also a significant impact on workforce technology. Many companies will have important—and potentially costly—strategic decisions to make. And many of those decisions will be data-driven.

Regardless of your ACA strategy (pay or play, etc.) your administrative burden is huge. Especially, the burdens of tracking eligibility and reporting will be eased by automation and the associated tools.

Millennial Generation Offers Clues

Mansfield coaches his son’s hockey team. After a game in which they didn’t play very well, he put them in a room and told them to work together to figure out how to play better. After a while, he went into the room, and they were doing what he had asked—talking to each other via smartphones and tablets.

Mansfield realizes that companies may not be able to meet all their employees’ technological preferences and, in those circumstances, you have to work to find a balance.

But you can still work toward a system that is:

• Attractive and engaging
• Integrated
• Easy to use and intuitive
• Mobile
• With information available real time.
• Able to produce data that help view employees as assets

You need a go-to resource, and our editors recommend the “everything-HR-in-one website,”HR.BLR.com®. As an example of what you will find, here are some policy recommendations concerning e-mail, excerpted from a sample policy on the website:

Privacy. The director of information services can override any individual password and thus has access to all e-mail messages in order to ensure compliance with company policy. This means that employees do not have an expectation of privacy in their company e-mail or any other information stored or accessed on company computers.

Find out what the buzz is all about. Take a no-cost look at HR.BLR.com, solve your top problem, and get a complimentary gift.

E-mail review.All e-mail is subject to review by management. Your use of the e-mail system grants consent to the review of any of the messages to or from you in the system in printed form or in any other medium.

Solicitation.In line with our general policy, e-mail must not be used to solicit for outside business ventures, personal parties, social meetings, charities, membership in any organization, political causes, religious causes, or other matters not connected to the company’s business.

We should point out that this is just one of hundreds of sample policies on the site. (You’ll also find analyses of laws and issues, job descriptions, and complete training materials for hundreds of HR topics.)

You can examine the entire HR.BLR.com® program free of any cost or commitment. It’s quite remarkable—30 years of accumulated HR knowledge, tools, and skills gathered in one place and accessible at the click of a mouse.

What’s more, we’ll supply a free downloadable copy of our special report, Critical HR Recordkeeping—From Hiring to Termination, just for looking at HR.BLR.com. If you’d like to try it at absolutely no cost or obligation to continue (and get the special report, no matter what you decide), go here.