Starting a business with hourly employees? Don’t neglect the importance of automated employee Sprinter time and attendance. If you don’t tame the beast, employee timekeeping and scheduling will eat you alive.
Solve Sprinter time and attendance problems first with automated workforce management. It’s a foundational business process you need out of the way before you can focus on building success.
Let’s cover the basics, first…
How To Set Up Employee Time and Attendance For a New Business:
- Step 1. Choose Sprinter time and attendance software designed for your business.
- Step 2. Choose an employee time clock that fits your needs.
- Step 3. Create an implementation plan (and follow it!).
Those are the basics of starting your automated Sprinter time and attendance system.
At this point, you have some questions. Let’s look at some answers…
What Is An Employee Time and Attendance System?
An automated timekeeping system is a software application linked to an employee time clock. When employees punch in and out with the time clock, the data is sent to the time and attendance software.
A time clock may be a physical device, an online portal, or a mobile phone-based app. In either case, employees use the device to record Sprinter time and attendance data. An automated software system records the data for use in payroll.
The software uses the data to:
- Calculate hours worked
- Create digital time cards
- Export time records to payroll
- Store archive records
Employee Timekeeping + Scheduling = Workforce Management
Sprinter employee time and attendance systems include scheduling features. Integrated time and scheduling is workforce management.
Advanced workforce management systems do the following:
- Allow employees to punch in from telephone, computer, or internet-enabled device
- Track employee time to the minute
- Calculate paid time off (PTO) including vacation and sick days
- Verify location of punch in/out with Global Positioning Satellites (GPS)
- Prevent unauthorized punches with schedule enforcement
- Omit punch errors with employee status prompts
- Enable managers to easily make complicated employee schedules
- Allow scheduling by job codes
- Alert managers when an employee is nearing overtime
- Automate labor law compliance including Fair Labor Standards Act, Affordable Care Act, Fair Workweek Laws, Sick Leave, and state or local ordinances
- Provide employees with self-service time card management
- Have an online trade board for employees to handle their own shift trades
- Share HR tasks with employees
- Accommodate employee schedule preferences
- Show managers who is working when and where
- Prevent “buddy clocking” (a form of wage theft where an employee clocks in for a co-worker who is not at work)
- Compile detailed timekeeping and schedule data
- Prevent payroll errors
Manage Your Biggest Expense
Labor will be your largest budget item. Time and attendance software will keep it as low as possible. But that’s only one of the reasons it’s critical for start-ups. Here are just a few of the benefits for a new business:
- Maximizes productivity
- Prevents overpaying for labor
- Ensures accurate payroll
- Protects against time theft
- Streamlines payroll
- Improves employee communication
- Makes creating and managing schedules fast and easy
- Simplifies compliance and reporting
- Helps employees focus on their work, not admin
Time and Attendance For a New Business
1. Choose Your Time And Attendance Software
Do lots of research—it will pay off in spades. Look for time and attendance software designed especially for your type of business. Industry-specific templates save tons of time. Get input from all departments.
The software must be easy to use. Bells and whistles are pointless if nobody uses them. Watch for new features that can help you do things you didn’t know you needed.
Here are some questions you will need to answer when evaluating systems:
- Implementation: how long it will take to set up?
- How long does it take to learn the system?
- Does my time tracking software provider offer tech support? What type? Does it cost extra?
- How will I pay for my time and attendance software? One time fee, yearly, or per employee?
- Will it scale with me?
- Do I want cloud-based or on-premise?
On-premise systems are housed on your company’s servers. Cloud-based systems are hosted on your time and attendance vendor’s servers. There are a lot of advantages to cloud-based systems for new business.
Many of the questions above are answered with cloud-based systems; you would do well to start in the cloud.
Industry-Specific Tools
Each industry has specific needs. That’s not to say that industries don’t share similar problems. Regulations, workflow, location, and specialty are all important considerations.
Following is a list of unique considerations for each of a handful of industries. Scan through to find your specific niche, and review the items listed as a starting point.
Take a look at some of the complimentary industries, too. You may find you’ve forgotten something to consider for your automated system.
Here are some industry tools to look for:
Food and Beverage
Service-based businesses rely heavily on scheduling. Shorthanded shifts diminish customer experience. With low margins, overstaffing can be a crippling expense.
Tipped workers compete for lucrative weekend dinner shifts. But if you don’t schedule equitably—you’ll have angry servers.
- Restaurant job codes simplifies scheduling
- Self-service shift trading prevents coverage gaps
- Minimize payroll errors
- Employee-aware prompts reduce punch errors
- Pinpoint attendance trends before they cause problems
Healthcare
This industry is characterized by long shifts that often span two calendar days. A time and attendance system needs to be able to handle numerous job codes for the various certifications.
Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) requires precise reporting for staff-patient ratios and work hours.
- Balance departmental staffing
- Payroll Based Journal tracking
- Mobile app with GPS for offsite workers
- Prevent nurse burnout with custom scheduling rules
- Sick leave tracking
- Shift differentials
Hospitality
Hotel staffs have a high degree of pay variation. Many employees have little supervision which creates time theft vulnerability.
Consider ease-of-use if you have workers with limited English ability.
- Hotel pay rate codes
- Filtering functions for department-specific scheduling
- Check schedule conflicts at a glance
- Adjust schedules in real time
- Schedule enforcement prevents abuses
- Manage multiple locations from the same system
Manufacturing
Adjust schedules to production variations and machine downtime. 24/7 schedule access important for large work crews. Allowing employees some control over their schedules can help employers attract qualified employees.
Adequate shift coverage is critical for production lines. If you have large work crews clocking in at the same time, consider proximity time clock. Ditto for dusty workplaces.
- Match schedules to production workloads
- Schedule trade board for simplified shift trading
- System warnings prevent unplanned overtime
- PTO tracking
- One manager can schedule for large workforce
- Affordable Care Act compliance tools
Retail
You don’t want your customers to leave a store empty-handed because your sales associate says, “I don’t know. It’s my first day.” Minimizing employee turnover is vital as inexperience leads to poor customer service.
Retail environments also suffer wild seasonal swings. Staffing for holiday and end-of-year sales adds pressure to scheduling tasks. New employees and additional staff create opportunities for employee time theft.
The trend toward longer business hours also brings scheduling and compliance challenges.
- Quickly cover a shift when someone calls in sick
- Schedule enforcement prevents overpaying for labor
- Predictive scheduling law compliance tools
- 24/7 manager oversight
- Employees can clock from any computer, tablet, or smartphone
Education
Helping employees achieve a work/life balance is key to attracting the best talent in a competitive labor market. Tight education budgets nationwide continue to pressure districts to optimize workforce management.
Millennials—who are replacing retiring teachers—run their lives with smartphone apps.
- Track employee types—full-time, year-round, seasonal, part-time
- Handle custom pay rules
- Comply with union contracts
- Education-specific vacation policies
- Coordinate with grant-tracking and work-study
Construction
Tight margins require strategic workforce management. Scheduling by trade certifications prevents mixups. Mobile clock in/out is not a luxury but a must-have.
Transfer HR tasks to workers with employee self-service.
- Employee time card management
- Mobile app for offsite crews
- Create schedules for numerous job sites
- Track license expiration
- One manager can schedule for large crew
