Author: tasmin

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How the Lake Elsinore Storm’s HR manager improved staff engagement

In Lake Elsinore, California, baseball does more than simply entertain the local community – it also gives people the opportunity to chase their dreams. 

“I’m a big sports fan,” says a beaming Katie Strehlow, the HR manager for the Lake Elsinore Storm. “Once I graduated, I knew it would make a lot of sense to go work for a sports team because it’s something I’m interested in, something I’m passionate about.”

This passion is something she hopes to pass along to the 200 staff members she assists daily at the Storm’s stadium. A minor league affiliate of the San Diego Padres, the Lake Elsinore Storm draw over 6,000 fans for every game. It takes careful coordination and execution to make sure all staff members perform their tasks up to customer standards. Together, they pursue a common dream: to bring to life one of the world’s most beautiful sporting atmospheres. 

CHALLENGE

While games unfold on the field and fans roar in the stands, Strehlow has her hands full behind the scenes making sure all staff members are engaged and productive. In the stadium, she oversees the success of a wide range of employee initiatives, including concessions, ticketing, and the grounds crew. 

“Everyone on our staff is essential to ensuring a good experience for our fans,” says Strehlow. “Everyone is important because every piece contributes to the bigger picture.”

To satisfy fans and achieve the bigger picture, Strehlow strives to keep her employees engaged and fulfilled in their work. For a long time, this required excessive paperwork and constant grappling with a disorganized workforce management system. Employee engagement was suffering as a result.

“Employee engagement is really important,” says Strehlow. “We need to make sure that our employees are happy so that they want to continue working here. So I do my best to communicate with the employees, make sure that they know me.”

Strehlow knew the team’s attendance and scheduling capabilities needed to be updated. She needed the ability to actively track where staff were during games, as well as more tools for staff communication and feedback. She also required access to metrics that would help her pinpoint where burnout or lack of engagement was occurring. 

“We want to make sure that our employees are working the appropriate amount of time so that they don’t get tired. Especially in this type of environment,” says Strehlow. “There’s a lot of moving parts … if employees aren’t up to their peak, they might perform badly.”

SOLUTION

All of Strehlow’s staff were brought into Workforce.com, making it easier for her to organize and engage with them on a daily basis. The updated system eliminated time spent on manual data entry, allowing Strehlow to focus on improving employee engagement and performance. She can quickly schedule staff, check their attendance, and view engagement metrics on the go as she runs throughout the stadium during games. 

“I use Workforce.com every single day, basically constantly,” says Strehlow. “I am always checking on schedules, making sure that we have the right people in the right places … as someone in HR, it is very helpful to have all of that live data right in my hand.”

RESULTS

By overhauling the fundamentals of their workforce management system, the Lake Elsinore Storm succeeded in bolstering both customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Here are some of the ways in which Strehlow and the team as a whole experienced success:

Visibility into employee experience

Staff use Workforce.com’s feedback tool to rate and review their shifts. “I definitely read all of those through very carefully to find out what we’re doing well, what we can improve on,” says Strehlow. Consistently receiving feedback on shifts helps her identify engagement problems early before they become major issues.

“I prefer getting feedback every day from employees so that I know that we don’t have problems that are brewing … if there’s a minor fix that I can take care of that day or maybe that week, I know that we’re better set up down the road.”

Increased customer engagement

Perhaps most importantly, the Lake Elsinore Storm are experiencing a major boost in sales following their partnership with Workforce.com. In 2019, every fan on average spent between $24-$25 per game between parking, ticketing, retail, and food and beverage. That figure has since doubled, with the average fan now spending $47-$48 at games. 

Less time spent on administrative tasks

With all her staff operating on Workforce.com, Strehlow no longer finds herself chained to her desk slaving away at time-consuming administrative tasks. “You’re more likely to find me out interacting with the staff where they’re working. Being able to use my phone to check on things as I’m going is very helpful and makes a big difference.”

The software handles all timekeeping and scheduling matters, allowing Strehlow to engage with her staff in person while keeping an eye and a finger on things right from her phone.

Simple shift replacement

With Workforce.com’s shift replacement tool, Strehlow and her staff can post open shifts that need to be claimed. When an employee requests to take the shift, all Strehlow needs to do is tap her finger to approve the replacement. “I can go with, see who’s not available for a shift and who is available to pick it up and don’t have to worry about reaching out to people. It’s all right there.”

Best of all, the functionality significantly increases staff engagement and motivation. “I know that if somebody selects a shift that they’re actually going to be here and do a good job because they made that decision to come into work that day,” Strehlow says. 

Straightforward adoption

Onboarding staff to the new system proved tremendously easy, requiring very little time and effort in getting people comfortable using the array of user-friendly tools. 

“They were excited to use an app. They jumped on it right away, download it and use it daily now. So, it was easy,” says Strehlow. 

The Lake Elsinore Storm are knocking it out of the park now with fan experience, and it all comes back to how Strehlow brings the best out of her staff.

“I need them to be energetic and enthusiastic so that they can help make the fans energetic and enthusiastic,” she says. “That actually can affect the performance on the field.”

For Strehlow and the Storm, a winning culture on the field requires a winning culture in the workplace. Going forward, the team will continue to inspire productivity and passion in their sports-loving staff thanks to their mastery of workforce management.

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The four essential elements your time clock system should offer

When as many as 38% of employees admit to turning up late to work at least once a month, it’s clear that a time clock system that accurately tracks when staff start and finish their working day isn’t something companies can afford to overlook. Research has found that the accumulated minutes lost to tardy workers costs $1 billion a year in California alone.

If you’re considering implementing time clock software at your business, or if you’re one of the 38% of companies still relying on physical time cards and feel it’s time to upgrade, this checklist of features will ensure you choose a time clock system suitable for the modern labor market.

Electronic records for easier data handling

Verifying when employees start and finish their working day is only the start of what time and attendance data can do. This information is at the heart of your HR processes, so you need a time clock that integrates with other departments and systems, from payroll to tax compliance.

This is where the companies still relying on older time clock systems are really losing out. Not only does copying across time and attendance data into payroll or accountancy software add unnecessary hours of work, but it also adds the risk of payroll discrepancies, which can in turn lead to costly legal exposure. The Department of Labor raised more than 24,700 back pay compliance actions in 2021, totaling $230m in underpaid wages.

Using specialist time and attendance software to collate and update your data automatically as employees arrive and leave means more robust labor compliance. It also provides the ability to integrate that data over time, generating internal reports on productivity and efficiency to guide your future business decisions.

Automatic verification for efficient clocking in and out

Shift-based businesses don’t just lose out when workers are late. Managing shift changes as smoothly as possible is also vital, and a time clock system that creates bottlenecks as staff wait to clock in and out adds to your problems rather than solves them. If managers also have to spend time transcribing attendance data or double-checking timesheets, then you’re losing valuable hours every day at all levels of your business.

Once again, manual time clock systems that use punch cards or paper timesheets will struggle in this area. Even electronic code entry systems or key cards can slow down your workflow, as employees spend time pushing buttons or digging in their pockets and bags for whatever they need to satisfy the time-entry requirements.

When speed is of the essence, the latest biometric time clock systems have a clear advantage. Employees only need a thumbprint or to face a camera, and they’re ready to work. Managers benefit, too, with time and attendance data that’s accurate and ready to use as soon as staff is through the door. Mobile apps can speed the process up even more, allowing staff to clock in using their own phone as they arrive.

Manager oversight for company peace of mind

Trust is vital to the viability of any company. Research has shown that employees who feel their employer trusts them are 50% more productive and 76% more engaged in their work. The best time clock systems are therefore unobtrusive for staff and still give managers visibility and authority over time and attendance issues.

Manual time clock systems that rely on self-reporting arguably skew this dynamic in favor of staff, giving managers no reliable way to verify the data. The practice of “buddy punching,” in which staff clock in for absent colleagues, is a typical weakness of this sort of time clock system.

Biometrics swing the pendulum in the opposite direction, using staff’s biological data — fingerprints, retinal scans, facial recognition — to prove they are where they say they are when they claim. It’s airtight from a management perspective but unpopular with employees. A survey found that 69% of the public is uneasy with the use of biometrics.

Time clock systems that utilize mobile apps offer a great compromise. Employees clock in using GPS and sometimes a selfie on the premises, which their manager then checks against their schedule before approving the clock in or out time. This system also gets around some concerns regarding biometrics, as the selfie is approved manually rather than storing the data in a database or feeding it through a third-party biometric algorithm.

Many automatic time clock systems also display cost variances for shifts, showing money saved or lost if there is a difference between an employee’s scheduled time and the actual time they work. Offering oversight into labor costs at a granular level is one of the main benefits of a precise time clock system.

Precise entry tracking for spotless payroll

This one may seem obvious, and you might think every time clock system being used today would be able to correctly log the exact time workers arrive and leave, but anything that relies on employees or managers manually recording hours worked is prone to inaccuracy.

As many as 80% of U.S. employers report having to fix mistakes in manually submitted timesheets, as staff forget to clock in or out or because errors creep in as information is copied across by hand. That’s a big problem when you consider that 1 in 10 companies still rely on inaccurate printed timesheets or offline spreadsheets, according to Workforce.com’s 2021 research.

At the very least, when shopping for a new time clock system, make sure to invest in a digital point of entry that automatically records the precise time employees start and end their shifts so managers can easily check against their scheduled hours. Some WFM software offers mobile GPS tracking for this very purpose, setting up a geofenced area around your workplace that staff must be inside in order to clock in on their phone. If there’s ever a dispute over hours worked or wages paid, you need your data to be irrefutable. If your only defense is an easily edited spreadsheet or drawer full of handwritten paper records, you’ve weakened your position for no good reason.

Future-proof your time clock system for the best return on investment

The labor market is changing fast, and you want a time clock app that can evolve and scale to your circumstances for the foreseeable future. Many of the systems currently used by U.S. businesses are outdated and will only become more inefficient over time.

It’s not enough to simply think of a time clock as an HR tool for checking time and attendance. It’s a holistic part of your entire business and should be as up-to-date as any other vital system. Whichever method you use to get staff clocked in and out, Workforce offers state-of-the-art app-based time clock solutions, deep reporting options, and is able to scale and grow alongside your business.

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6 reasons to choose best-of-breed software

Summary

  • All-in-one systems stretch themselves too thin, underperforming in most areas and severely limiting what businesses can achieve.

  • A best-of-breed approach lets businesses mix and match a variety of specialized softwares, integrating them seamlessly with open API.

  • There are 6 key reasons why businesses should choose best-of-breed over all- in-one. 

For some, one of the cardinal sins of showering is using the notorious 3-in-1 wash. This unholy combination of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash is often a useless attempt at solving a nonexistent problem of inconvenience. Not only is it a lazy way to somehow make showering easier, but the three components counteract one another, in the end proving less effective at their designated functions when combined than they would as standalone products. 

Most likely you would not sacrifice the expertise of specificity for mere convenience in the case of personal hygiene – shouldn’t it be the same when it comes to software solutions?

All-in-one vs best-of-breed systems

The 3-in-1 wash of the software world is the classic all-in-one ERP system. These systems consolidate all the core business functions of a company into a single platform provided by one vendor. They provide basic capabilities for all departments, forcing every user to adapt to a shallow, yet serviceable, experience. 

The problem with these all-in-one software suites is that users between departments have very different needs. Oftentimes, these systems lack depth in many areas, leading to overall inconsistent user operation and mediocre functionality across the board. Instead of focusing on a specific core competency, these all-in-one systems build out a “features checklist” over time in order to upsell customers.

It’s a “jack of all trades and master of none” situation, if you will.  

The alternative is to select an array of software solutions from multiple vendors who each have a definable core competency. For instance, a company would buy dedicated workforce management software for scheduling and attendance, top of the line HCM software for human resources, a specialized CRM platform for sales, and DBMS system for finance and accounting. Each platform integrates seamlessly with one another, creating a software stack that provides the benefit of an all-in-one system without all the limitations. This best-of-breed approach makes up for what all-in-one suites lack in capability, flexibility, and depth.

For a long time, the debate between a best-of-breed stack like this v.s. an all-in-one system was hotly contested. However, in recent years, the debate is becoming somewhat of a non-issue, as the best-of-breed approach is becoming standard practice. In fact, according to a 2019 Gartner survey, only 29% of businesses preferred all-in-one systems; this percentage will only shrink as we move further ahead into the future. 

6 reasons for choosing best-of-breed

Selecting best-of-breed solutions from multiple software vendors is the smartest and most effective way to take a business to the next level. Here are the reasons why this approach is far superior to utilizing an all-in-one suite:

In-depth tools and functionality

Best-of-breed software comes with richer and more diverse tools due to its specialized nature. The expertise of the software empowers businesses with increased functionality to maximize performance within a particular niche.  

Vendor flexibility

With the best-of-breed approach, it is easy for a business to remove or consolidate systems over time as required. If something goes wrong in one area, that vendor can easily be swapped or paired with another while keeping all other systems in place. With an all-in-one system, changing vendors affects the entire company. 

Frequent updates

Best-of-breed software prides itself on retaining the title “best.” To do this, it needs to constantly stay up to date on consumer feedback and market trends, and react accordingly by rolling out new features and improvements. As a client, it’s always nice to be on the receiving end of these continual updates. 

Scalability

Having systems that are adaptable to change is critical. Best-of-breed software is designed to work for all clients ranging from small businesses to large corporations. As such, it is flexible from right from the beginning, capable of scaling as necessary to whatever changes a client goes through.

Seamless integrations

Open API is the standard now for best-of-breed software, allowing for easy integration and data exchange between vendors. For instance, the right workforce management system usually integrates perfectly with most payroll platforms, busting the data re-entry myth surrounding the use of best-of-breed. At this point, API integration is so advanced that a collection of best-of-breed vendors almost feels like a single system.

Faster implementation 

Rolling out an all-in-one system requires an enormous amount of time and near-endless planning. It is much quicker to implement a best-of-breed system for a specific part of a business. There are fewer moving parts, fewer people involved, and lower training costs. 

 

We are living in modern times. Modern times call for the specialization of labor; as such, best-of-breed software increasingly proves to be the right choice. Just as a general practitioner should not perform brain surgery, all-in-one software should not try to handle specialized functions that are far beyond their capabilities. Workforce management is one such area that often gets overlooked and lumped into underwhelming all-in-one systems – do not settle for this. 

Businesses everywhere should understand this and enlist the help of multiple software solutions that are best in breed. A software that does one thing, and does it well, benefits a company tremendously; the benefit is only compounded when other specialized vendors are brought into the equation. 

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How the CEO of COVIDCheck Colorado successfully orchestrated over 300,000 vaccinations

With half a million people out of work, out of school, and disconnected from their communities across Colorado during the COVID-19 pandemic, Eric Parrie felt an urge like never before to serve.

 “I was raised by my mom and dad with the idea that every individual person counts,” said Parrie. As CEO of COVIDCheck Colorado, he coordinated over 2,000 frontline workers in the successful testing and vaccination of thousands of people throughout the state. “I’m fired up every day to do this as fast as possible and at the biggest scale.”

This fire inside both Parrie, as well as his employees, was critical to the success of COVIDCheck Colorado’s emergency services. 

CHALLENGE

When COVIDCheck Colorado first launched, it faced a monumental task. The emergency response program needed to provide testing and vaccinations for thousands of people desperate for a return to normalcy. To conduct an operation of this scale quickly while also maintaining the best possible patient outcomes, Parrie knew he must solve workforce management. First and foremost, this meant utilizing his supply of public resources as effectively as possible. “We wanted to optimize the use of resources so that every public dollar was spent for maximum public health impact,” he shared. 

Efficiently using public resources like this required empowering his teams with software capable of operational excellence. Moreover, he needed software that could adapt and scale quickly to change.

“We were in a world of tracking through spreadsheets, Post-it Notes, and text threads. It was hard to know where people were supposed to be, and when they were supposed to show up. It was highly inefficient and frustrating for our staff, and it was leading to worse outcomes for [patients],” reflected Parrie. 

He also needed a workforce solution that would clearly align everyone in the organization with the same priorities and values as well as something that maximized positive patient outcomes.

“The way you ensure the outcomes you want … is to really steep everyone in core values,” said Parrie. “Humility, action, and excellence are the ones we chose for ourselves.”

SOLUTION

Parrie decided Workforce.com was the perfect partner to help COVIDCheck Colorado accomplish its mission in a rapid and effective manner. 

“As the CEO, I’m not doing my job, if I’m not empowering all the other leaders on my team to do theirs. And Workforce.com is a part of that power,” shared Parrie. “It’s giving the team the tools they need to excel.”

The software unified scheduling, time and attendance, and compliance into a single, intuitive platform for all teams to use together in real-time. It provided Parrie’s employees with the tools they needed to deliver effective and compliant care across the state, while also aligning them better with the overarching mission, values, and strategy of the organization as a whole. 

The system proved scalable, adapting to new testing sites being set up weekly, while also handling last minute scheduling and attendance changes seamlessly. Most importantly, the new system reduced time spent on tedious administrative tasks, allowing Parrie and his organization to focus instead on ensuring high quality outcomes for patients. 

RESULTS

Under Parrie’s direction, COVIDCheck Colorado grew to 55 sites and administered over 800,000 tests and 300,000 vaccines. Throughout it all, Parrie had Workforce.com by his side. Here are some of the benefits he and COVIDCheck Colorado experienced with Workforce.com:

Improved patient outcomes and satisfaction

With updated technical abilities for attendance tracking, communication, and labor allocation, patients experienced a higher level of care.

“[Communication] came alongside being nimble in the use of technology to quickly get patients the service they needed … that yielded great results for us,” said Parrie. “We surveyed patients … and consistently our Net Promoter Score was in the 90’s.”

Efficient allocation of labor across multiple sites

The centralized location of employee and demand data made it easy for managers to coordinate where and when labor was needed.

“We were able to look at the number of appointments that were booked at a given site, on a given day, and rightsize the hours, staff, and availability at that site, in accord with that data,” said Parrie. 

Enabled further growth and scale

COVIDCheck went from “4 to 1,400” employees in a matter of weeks; this coincided with new testing sites opening consistently. Even in the face of this massive amount of growth, they remained organized and efficient in their operations.  

“Workforce.com enabled us to take action better,” says Parrie. “We could very quickly set up and organize a staff, even at a site that had not existed a day or two prior.”

The intuitive nature of Workforce.com’s interface as well as the ability to create new locations instantly in the system made scaling across the state of Colorado hassle-free. 

Strategic and operational alignment across teams

Parrie knew he needed all his employees on the same page in terms of the mission and drive of the organization. In order to operate an emergency response organization like COVIDCheck Colorado, communication and alignment of values is essential. 

“Our site optimization team, operations, finance, legal … they’re all stitched together with our mission and values. That is the soul of the organization,” said Parrie. “But the skeleton of it is tools, like Workforce.com, that actually enable them to communicate and deliver on shared goals.”

Minimization of compliance risks

Parrie’s site optimization teams used Workforce.com to keep track of important medical compliance requirements. For instance, managers could use the qualifications feature to make sure only medically certified employees were administering vaccines. 

Through his leadership with COVIDCheck Colorado, Parrie helped thousands of people return to normal life. As CEO he was faced with a tremendous amount of responsibility – and he chose Workforce.com to help shoulder some of that responsibility. 

“The value and magic of something like COVIDCheck Colorado and of a system like Workforce.com is that the system actually is merciful,” reflected Parrie. “It’s delivering care and service in a way you may never see and never know or acknowledge, but it’s there doing work – and that is incredibly powerful.”

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How GreenForce Staffing quickly fulfills labor requests with Workforce.com

Back in 2016, GreenForce Staffing recognized an opportunity to revolutionize an emerging cannabis industry within the state of Oregon. 

“There was a gap. So, there was an opportunity. The industry needed it. The state needed it,” reflects CEO and founder, Ryan Rosenfeld. 

A full-service staffing and temporary employment agency based in Portland, Oregon, GreenForce provides cannabis farms across their state with trimmers, packagers, and harvesters. They have now grown to 200+ staff covering 50 job sites – and they aren’t done yet. 

“I think ultimately, we’re in an interesting time in our industry,” says Rosenfeld. “I think we’re going to be a great solution. [The cannabis industry] is going to create a lot of jobs … we want to contribute to that in any sense possible.”

CHALLENGE

Unlike with most other organizations, the lifeblood of a staffing agency is found within its decentralized labor. “One of the things that makes GreenForce unique but is also a challenge is that we manage a mobile remote workforce across the entire state,” says Rosenfeld. “So, there’s a lot of layers that go into scheduling and getting the right person for the job.”

For GreenForce, the ability to dispatch employees with speed and accuracy to job sites is a top priority. Eventually, however, they found that remotely managing a vast array of employees and clients like this proved to be extremely difficult. 

“I think one of the biggest challenges is always going to be having enough people to fulfill our labor requests,” says Anne Daniel, the director of operations for GreenForce. “Our industry moves fast. We get labor requests in each week. That means we need to rally 200 employees and get them scheduled and get information out to them as quickly as possible.” 

Management often found themselves struggling to efficiently fulfill labor requests, having to juggle variables like employee certifications, labor costs, and shift preferences. Even after sending out schedules and dispatching employees, GreenForce faced the problem of not having real-time visibility and control over frontline employee issues. 

“We need the ability to pivot if there is some sort of absenteeism. So, for us, the ability to flip a switch and be able to activate our labor force in a fast fashion is of the utmost importance,” says Rosenfeld. 

GreenForce knew it needed a solution that would unify and organize its entire workforce management process. It needed something that provided better tools for fulfillment, scheduling, attendance tracking, and timekeeping. Moreover, due to their favorable position in an emerging industry, they were looking for an extremely scalable provider.

SOLUTION

Together, GreenForce and Workforce.com are breaking ground in staffing management. Workforce.com provides a powerful cloud-based platform that can handle increasingly large numbers of remote employees and locations while also keeping GreenForce compliant in an emerging industry. 

“Workforce.com has given us the ability to conduct the movement of information on a large scale, but with still being able to pay attention to the minutia of the intricacies of each individual and each job site,” says Rosenfeld. 

It is in this minutia where GreenForce now thrives. The agency has successfully streamlined all its scheduling and attendance operations into a single system, empowering them to efficiently deploy workers and directly manage them in real-time. This success stems from having access to granular employee, client, and cost data. 

RESULTS

Since partnering with Workforce.com, GreenForce has made major strides in efficiency within its staffing operations. Here are only a few examples of areas where they have improved: 

Smarter employee and client matching

GreenForce can now retrieve employee shift preference data regarding where and when they like to work. Most of this information is collected via the shift feedback tool as well as patterns seen in past scheduling habits. 

“We can pull reports on employees to see where they’ve worked successfully,” says Daniel. “We can do it monthly and just have those sites show up in their profile. So they’re automatically matched to the sites.” 

Beyond this, GreenForce can also view employee certifications to make sure they are properly qualified to perform specific jobs for clients.

Greater visibility into their remote workforce

All stakeholders are united on a single, cloud-based platform. Because of this, it is easy for everyone to see in real-time when and where people are working. GreenForce has many teams and locations set up in Workforce.com to further organize how they distribute their labor among clients. 

“Our clients also have backend availability to look at the employees scheduled,” says Daniel. “They can log in, see who’s coming to their site each day.” 

On the employee side of things, they have the ability to clock in and out from their phones directly on-site. Field managers can also approve timesheets through the app. 

Faster invoicing

Workforce.com’s custom-made report does all the heavy lifting for GreenForce when it comes to gathering data for invoicing.  

“Workforce.com was able to build out an invoicing filter report for us, which has been really awesome because it comes up with the billing rate and our profit margin,” says Stephanie Yoo, an administrative assistant for GreenForce. 

The custom report streamlines the whole process, eliminating previously monotonous work that slowed down how quickly GreenForce could bill clients. 

Efficient fulfillment of labor requests

GreenForce can quickly create schedules and publish them live on Workforce.com for both clients and employees to see. This has resulted in 10 hours saved in operations a week.

“We’ve used Workforce.com to schedule probably 4,000 to 5,000 shifts, which will rapidly grow month in and month out,” says Rosenfeld. “It’s been a great partner and platform to quickly dispatch information to both our partners and our clients.”

Enhanced visibility into labor costs

Utilizing GPS location on the mobile app, GreenForce can accurately see where workers are clocking-in. This functionality helps them pinpoint potential time theft and where they are overspending on labor. 

Additionally, their custom invoicing report lets them view labor costs compared to client billing rates.“We see how much we’re paying each employee … and we’re able to compare that to what we’re actually making from billing the clients. It’s a great tool,” says Yoo. 

In light of the pandemic causing many people to reassess their career paths, GreenForce has noticed an increased interest to enter the cannabis farm industry. Their goal is to provide people with as many opportunities during this industry reshuffle as possible. 

“I think having a happy and supported workforce makes people want to grow with us because we’re such a rapidly growing company in a rapidly growing industry,” reflects Alyssa Philbrick, a recruiting coordinator. 

Together, GreenForce and Workforce.com have worked together to ensure these workplace values are upheld. 

“For other staffing agencies, I would definitely suggest Workforce.com,” says Daniel. “There is a benefit to having a flexible system that’s able to quickly retrieve information and data that’s needed to support your operations and your staffing.”

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Choosing the right attendance system for your business

If you found out a core part of your business relies on systems over 100 years old, you’d probably be shocked — and more than a little concerned. Yet more than a third of U.S. businesses are doing exactly that every single day as their shift workers clock in and out using manual time cards.

Recording time and attendance is a crucial part of any shift-based business — but switching attendance systems is expensive and complex, so many businesses avoid it entirely. If you’re thinking it’s time your business got its attendance system fit for the 21st century, this overview of the current options will steer you in the right direction.

Time card attendance systems

Using manual time cards to punch in and out of work is a system that goes back over a century. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong choice for tracking time and attendance in your business, but the drawbacks drastically outweigh the benefits.

Benefits of manual time cards

  • Familiarity: The chief benefit of manual time cards in the modern day is that they’ve been around so long that almost everybody understands how to use them. For companies with an older workforce, in particular, the prospect of switching to a more high-tech attendance solution can be off-putting for employees and HR alike.

Drawbacks of manual time cards

  • Inefficiency: Manually recording crucial timesheet data for dozens or hundreds of employees is very prone to errors. In fact, 80% of manual timesheets have to be corrected, an administrative burden few businesses can afford.
  • Time-consuming: Turning all those manual time cards into usable digital data for your business eats up hours of work, pulling staff away from other duties or requiring additional data entry.
  • Unreliable: Manual attendance systems offer employers very little protection from practices like “buddy punching,” where employees clock in for absent colleagues.

Key card and entry code attendance systems

Requiring employees to swipe themselves in using a magnetic card reader, key fob, or electronic entry code is a step up from physical time cards but is still severely limited compared to more modern systems.

Benefits of key cards and codes

  • Accuracy: The system logs the exact time the employee clocks in, and the data is stored electronically, meaning no more laborious data entry.
  • Security: Not only do you know employees are arriving on time, but you also get peace of mind that only people with the right card or code can enter your premises.
  • Internal tracking: Key cards and codes can be used to restrict or monitor staff movements inside the business, such as secure areas or breakrooms.

Drawbacks of key cards and codes

  • Easily lost or forgotten: Replacing or resetting lost cards or codes can become a frustrating distraction for admin staff.
  • Outdated software: If your business has an older card or code-based entry system, it may still be running on easily hacked HTTP protocols or defunct Windows platforms, creating a potential security vulnerability.
  • Scalability: Managing cards and codes across more than one building can be a problem. Buildings often rely on local networks for authentication, making them less than ideal for multi-location businesses.

Biometric attendance systems

Biometric attendance systems, including technology such as facial recognition, fingerprint ID, and retinal scans, are fast becoming normalized. However, just because some people are happy to use biometrics to access their smartphones doesn’t mean they’ll welcome it in the workplace, regardless of how many attendance issues it streamlines for the company.

Benefits of biometrics

  • Accuracy: Using biometrics nearly eliminates the practice of buddy punching — employees can only be clocked in if they’re at work.
  • Time-saving: Biometric access is much faster than other methods, removing bottlenecks at shift changes as staff no longer need to retrieve key cards from their wallets or key in codes.
  • Greater security: By making sure the person clocking in is who they’re supposed to be, biometric access is even more secure than key cards and codes.

Drawbacks of biometrics

  • Controversial: Tread carefully during the so-called Great Resignation as employees are less likely to accept workplace changes they strongly disagree with. Biometrics are unpopular at work, and if employees feel railroaded into handing over more personal data than they’re comfortable with, they’ll leave.
  • Accessibility: Biometric attendance systems raise more questions over usage and access, especially for those with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide everyone with equal access to the workplace, and anything that prevents the blind or people in wheelchairs from doing so could expose you to legal fallout.
  • Legislation: The U.S. is ranked as one of the worst countries for biometric security as there are no federal laws governing how such data is collected, stored, and used. This means employers introducing biometric attendance systems now should prepare for potential rule changes.

Mobile attendance systems

One thing all the previous attendance systems have in common is that they involve some kind of physical device on your premises where all staff must register their attendance. That’s no longer necessary as the latest time and attendance systems can clock employees in using their own smartphones.

Benefits of mobile attendance systems

  • Convenience: Staff can clock in as soon as they arrive using their own phone, so there’s no bottleneck of people waiting to use a physical time clock. This also means your business avoids the expense and hassle of installing physical time clocks on the premises.
  • Accuracy: Mobile attendance apps use GPS tracking to prevent employees from clocking in while still on the bus or at home. Managers can see exactly where people are when they clock in.
  • Oversight: Often, employees are required to take a selfie when clocking in – it’s a fun and easy way for managers to manually double-check for buddy punching. Since the photos aren’t automatically scanned by a third party database or run through facial recognition algorithms, staff can rest assured that their biometric information is not being used.
  • Efficient: The same app that employees use to clock in at work is also the app they use to request time off, check or change their shifts and receive their digital payslips. Unlike other systems which are only concerned with clocking in and out, mobile attendance systems bring all aspects of staff management together in one place for both managers and employees.

Drawbacks of mobile attendance systems

  • Access: Not everyone has a smartphone, which would exclude them from being able to use mobile attendance systems. Hardly a deal breaker from an employer point of view, but worth bearing in mind.

Mobile attendance systems are the future

As attendance systems become more sophisticated and effective, staff concerns about privacy become more pressing. Choosing the best attendance system for your business means finding a workable balance between the administrative benefits for your company and peace of mind for your employees.

Mobile attendance systems offer the best of both worlds right now, and will only improve as the technology evolves. That’s why Workforce.com puts mobile at the heart of its time and attendance software, with an app for both managers and staff. If your company is still using timecards, keycards or other outdated attendance systems, book a demo today and see how we can streamline your business.

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What you need to know about the Biden Administration’s new vaccine mandate

Summary

  • The Biden Administration issued a new vaccine mandate on Thursday, Nov. 4

  • The mandate includes two different rules, one from OSHA and one from CMS. Both have Jan. 4 deadlines.

  • Businesses must reassess how they track vaccination, testing, and PTO for their employees.

 

Back in September of this year, the Biden Administration announced a controversial vaccine mandate. On Thursday it released an update, explicitly outlining two new rules for U.S. businesses to follow heading into the new year. 

Here is what you need to know.

Rule #1

Issued by OSHA, businesses with more than 100 employees must require all their workers to be vaccinated or to provide weekly negative test results. The rule affects roughly 84 million workers across the United States. Here are some further details:

  • The deadline is Jan. 4. Businesses must ensure that all their employees are vaccinated or at least are willing to provide weekly negative test results before this date.
  • Employers are subject to fines up to $13,653 per willful violation of the mandate.
  • Unvaccinated employees must wear masks while at work.
  • Workers must receive paid time off to get vaccinated as well as sick leave if additional recovery time is needed.
  • Employers do not need to pay for weekly testing.
  • The federal rule will take precedence over any inconsistent state laws that deny employers the authority to require vaccination, masks, and testing.
  • While it is mostly up to employers to enforce these rules, OSHA does plan to conduct workplace inspections to check that employers are staying in compliance.

Rule #2

Beyond the OSHA mandate, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also issued a rule requiring 17 million people working in Medicare and Medicaid facilities to be fully vaccinated, with no weekly negative testing alternative. It will impact 76,000 federally funded healthcare facilities in the United States. Below are a few extra details:

  • All Medicare and Medicaid facilities must ensure their employees are completely vaccinated by a Jan. 4 deadline – the same deadline as the OSHA rule.
  • Facilities that do not comply could face fines, denial of funding, and possible termination from the Medicaid and Medicare programs.
  • Workers can apply for medical or religious exemptions

Going forward

With Biden’s new vaccine mandate comes the inevitable pushback. It’s a tale as old as…well 2020 I guess. 

While Republican lawmakers in various states have already begun drafting efforts to combat the requirements, the private sector is also raising concerns regarding supply chain issues in the cargo industry and labor shortages within healthcare. Regardless of where employers stand on the matter, the fact remains that thousands of dollars are on the line for non-compliance. As such, proper measures need to be taken to maintain a safe and organized workforce. 

Employers should reassess how they are currently tracking employee vaccinations and negative tests. Is there a system in place maintaining up-to-date records for each employee? Are managers automatically notified when a non-compliant employee is scheduled for a shift? Is there a compliance paper trail easily accessible to OSHA auditors when they come knocking? These are all important questions to consider when reviewing how well one’s workforce management system handles the new vaccine mandates.

Employers must also have a plan in place for how to tackle vaccination PTO and sick leave. Implementing specialty time off like this into scheduling processes and effectively tracking it for payroll can sometimes prove tricky without the right solutions in place. 

Interested in finding out more about how your business can prepare for the Jan. 4 deadline? We are here to help. Book a call with us today, or leave your email below and we’ll get back to you. 

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How Whole Kids Academy better manages student-teacher ratios

Two parents and selfless dedication to their children’s education – that’s all it took to turn a simple dream into a community-wide reality. 

After eight years, Maryland-based Whole Kids Academy is still true to its roots. The Spanish immersion preschool now employs 40 teachers and serves 125 families, while still maintaining its primary vision is that children learn best while having fun; this is accomplished through creative activities, healthy diets, and most importantly, engaging teachers. 

“Our teachers are really the heart of our school,” says Hannah McNally, the academy’s director. “We can’t be successful if we don’t have really great counselors and teachers and educators there, like on the front lines, connecting with the kids, connecting with the families.”

At the end of the day, these interpersonal connections between stakeholders are the most important part of child education. Within the past year, Whole Kids Academy partnered with Workforce.com to improve its ability to cultivate these relationships by implementing more efficient scheduling and attendance systems. 

CHALLENGE

Using key performance indicators like teacher-student ratios, McNally is better able to measure Whole Kids’ relationship-building success. Proper employee scheduling plays a critical role in this process. 

“We have these ratios that are provided to us from the state and we need to make sure we’re in ratio at all times and our schedule really helps with that,” says McNally.

Whole Kids Academy needed a more transparent and unified workforce management system to effectively keep a finger on the pulse of these ratios. For a while, the school was using a word processor and Google calendar for scheduling and leave requests. “I’m really good at keeping a lot of things in my head, but that’s not sustainable,” McNally reflects. This disorganization led to a constant struggle in managing student-teacher ratios. 

As a consequence of this disorganization, accountability fell by the wayside. Teachers had the ability to clock in up to a mile away with the old attendance system. This is a common attendance challenge for organizations everywhere, and the time spent on managing these attendance problems was detracting from McNally’s efforts to build feedback loops with teachers. 

 “My greatest challenge is being able to see all of the different people and help them and meet them and support them … it’s hard when you feel like you’re unable to help someone.” 

With their old system, carving out time to conduct teacher one-on-ones or classroom observations often proved difficult. McNally knew she needed to take action to overhaul Whole Kids Academy’s scheduling and attendance capabilities.

SOLUTION

The success of child education depends on attendance accountability, proper monitoring of the student-teacher ratio, and relationship building. Whole Kids Academy found a key partner in Workforce.com to grow in these areas. The software maximizes both accountability and communication, while also maintaining enough of a human touch to foster community. Formerly tedious administrative tasks burdening Whole Kids Academy are now completely automated; the resulting time savings allow faculty to better nurture relationships with both students and teachers. 

RESULTS

Efficient workforce management is at the core of how Whole Kids Academy operates now. Here are some of the specific areas in which they have seen tangible improvement since partnering with Workforce.com:

Tracking student-teacher ratios

Perhaps most importantly, McNally can now easily view and control student-teacher ratios in every classroom. “I think that [Workforce.com] is crucial for child education systems just to allow for everyone to clearly see the schedule, see the ratios,” states McNally. “The schedule is nice and color-coded and can show you how many teachers are in a classroom at one time. So I think that it definitely supports [student-teacher ratio] needs.”

Easy and intelligent clock-ins

“I love the selfie feature … I think that they’re really fun, but it also increases accountability,” states McNally regarding photo clock-ins. With clock-in tools like photo verification and geo-fencing, McNally can quickly see proof of teachers starting days in the classroom.

Transparent scheduling

McNally creates schedules in mere minutes now, publishing directly to a single cloud-based platform for every teacher to see. “I think that an app like Workforce.com really helps increase organization productivity and accountability,” she says in regard to the intuitive nature of posting and referring to live schedules. 

Efficient timesheet approval

Teachers are regularly asked to briefly review their timesheets to make sure they are being paid correctly. “They’ll log on and see their time cards, they’ll either approve or they’ll say, actually, no, I missed a punch out on this day,” summarizes McNally. Upon approval, she can seamlessly export all timesheets into their payroll system, which Workforce.com has full integration with. 

Managing time-off accruals and requests

Whole Kids Academy has very specific leave categories to manage for all its teachers. From holidays to sick leave, Workforce.com helps McNally manage all time off hours and requests. “Everything is accrued by the amount of tenure that you have. We needed a system that would easily adapt to all of that. And I think that that’s been a great success of switching to [Workforce.com].”

The ability for all faculty to see when and where teachers are working and if they are assigned to the correct amount of students greatly improves not only ratio tracking, but more importantly, the underlying relationships between students, teachers, and management. 

The connection that comes from these healthy interpersonal relationships, both in the workplace and in the community, is something McNally sees as central to the Academy’s roots. “We really value community … I think that connectedness is really what makes our team successful.”

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The Lake Elsinore Storm team up with Workforce.com to increase operations visibility

 

Minor League Baseball has been the city of Lake Elsinore’s pastime for a long time now – since 1994 to be exact. Perhaps nobody understands this better than the local team’s very own director of operations, Jason Natale.

“I’ve been coming here since I was about five years old. I sat on top of the dugout, had my birthday parties here … Storm Baseball was a big passion for me.”

Jason’s childhood passion continues to this day, as he is now the operations manager for the Lake Elsinore Storm, an affiliate of the MLB’s San Diego Padres. While the team’s goal is to win on the field, Jason’s primary goal behind the scenes is to ensure all 6,000 fans enjoy a clean and organized service experience at every game. 

CHALLENGE

Knowing what it’s like to be a fan himself, Jason takes pride in maximizing operational efficiency to increase fan engagement and satisfaction. “I’m a perfectionist,” he says. “I want everything to be pristine for the guests before they show up.” Achieving these results often proved difficult, however, as Jason conducted the majority of his work manually across multiple platforms; this limited the visibility he had into his workforce.

Simple administrative tasks like checking the attendance and locations of crews, managing overtime costs, and viewing sales per labor hour were taking too much time and energy. Most importantly, they slowed his reaction time to frontline issues impacting a wide range of the stadium’s operations entities. 

Since the Storm do not have the same revenue volume as teams in the major league, they rely heavily on providing a high quality service experience for their fans. Multiple entities operate under the Storm umbrella, from stadium cleaning to concessions, to curate this positive service experience. Jason needed increased clarity into the pain points affecting each of these entities in order to continue building customer satisfaction. 

SOLUTION

The perfectionist in Jason pairs perfectly with Workforce.com. The intuitive cloud-based system gives him the visibility he needs to optimize productivity and react quickly to frontline issues across his workforce. It handles all the time and attendance data for Jason’s employees, while also integrating with the stadium’s POS system, allowing him to compare labor hours and sales metrics. 

With Workforce.com, Jason uses his time more efficiently to prepare and operate the stadium for games. The software eliminates any frustration and stress that normally comes with inefficient administrative processes, making his job easier, and in the end, fan satisfaction higher. 

RESULTS

Jason now experiences success in operations throughout the stadium after Workforce.com joined the team. Here are some of the many ways the new workforce management system has increased operational excellence for both Jason as well as the team as a whole:

Optimizing sales per labor hour

With Workforce.com Jason can easily track cashiers turns, or sales per labor hour – a major KPI for the team. He can look at how much in sales a worker does in a shift and compare that to their labor costs. From these metrics, he can determine how to lead, schedule, and train employees better, increasing employee value.

Greater workforce visibility

Jason makes better decisions in the moment now with the help of leading indicators. With a live wage tracker, both the mobile app and kiosk app capture clock-ins, giving Jason live insights into whether he should call someone in, or send someone home, based on forecasted demand. Key alerts also greatly assist Jason, notifying him when he needs to address an abandoned shift.

“I can track my employees from my mobile phone. If someone didn’t show up, I can just look at my phone, and it’ll notify me, saying this person isn’t here. And I can reach out to HR and go from there.”

Minimizing overtime hours

Jason uses attendance features and push notifications in the app to control overtime hours among his employees. 

“With the pandemic, we are limited in staff, so a lot of our staff do get overtime,” Jason states. “So I am definitely getting notified when a person is beyond their hours and how to make sure they get home at the right time.”

Tracking attendance with GPS

With multiple service teams covering a large stadium, GPS clock-ins via the mobile app are critical for Jason’s visibility into daily operations. 

“I can track my people, I know when they’re coming, I know when they’re on site. It’s reassuring that it is all GPS located, so they’re not clocking in from down the street somewhere,” says Jason. 

Improved customer experience

Perhaps most importantly, the Storm are experiencing a major boost in sales following their partnership with Workforce.com, indicating an overall improvement in customer experience. In 2019, the average fan spent $24 per game across parking, ticketing, retail, and food; now the average has doubled to $48.

For Jason, a love for the sport of baseball has developed into a passion for optimizing service operations and increasing customer satisfaction. Baseball is about more than what’s happening on the field; it’s about the service experience as a whole, from cleaning seats to preparing hotdogs. In Workforce.com, Jason found a reliable teammate to optimize the operations driving this all-American experience.

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How the CFO of Lake Elsinore Storm gained more control over labor costs

 

In Lake Elsinore, California, America’s pastime is very much alive and well. 

The Storm, a minor league affiliate of the San Diego Padres, host roughly 6,000 people at their stadium for every game. While the on-field performances are undoubtedly impressive, there is even more happening off the field that translates to success on game day. No matter the team record or the outcome of each game, the fan experience always goes undefeated. 

The person who understands this best is the team’s chief financial officer, Christine Kavic. 

“The big difference between Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball is that we rely 100% on our fans. If our fans are not coming to our stadium and having a good time … we can’t keep our doors open,” remarks Kavic. 

Kavic oversees all financial, administrative and HR matters across multiple businesses for the Lake Elsinore Storm, including overwhelmingly fan-favorite entities like concessions and the in-stadium restaurant. 

“I am the last step before payroll is processed … I take pride in avoiding errors when dealing with people’s money .. [errors] end up potentially being costly for an organization, so it’s really important to make sure that we’re doing everything that we need to do to finalize those time cards and process payroll.”

Needless to say, Kavic has a lot on her plate. 

CHALLENGE

Prior to Workforce.com, the sheer amount of financial and administrative responsibility proved difficult for Kavic to manage at times. Moreover, pandemic restrictions were lifting, bringing fans back to games in droves. 

Going into 2021, Kavic knew the team had to make a change. 

“One of the biggest challenges was the visibility and real-time cost in comparison to our sales within food and beverage. That’s a huge component,” reflects Kavic. “The ability to gauge at any given moment where we’re at for sales versus labor cost was extremely important when I was searching for what we could use.”

In addition, Kavic struggled with staffing and cash flow visibility. “We’re five separate entities. At least four of those entities are operating at one time … So it’s really important that I have the ability to view our staffing in one place and the ability to look at sales that are coming in … there’s a lot of different places that I’m looking at to make sure our per cap on a daily basis is where it needs to be.”

Since labor costs were difficult to predict due to varying pay differentials and overtime, it was hard for teams to stick to their budgets and create accurate cash flow projections. Because of these issues, Kavic could not accurately adjust her workforce in necessary ways to minimize wasteful spending and maximize positive fan experience.

SOLUTION

Kavic partnered with Workforce.com so she could staff based on demand, track labor costs and sales, easily export timesheets to payroll, and most importantly, have everything take place in real-time on a single platform.

“The moment that I began to view demos, I could instantly tell that the relationship was going to be one that I was looking for,” says Kavic regarding her seamless implementation experience. 

The scheduling and time and attendance capabilities of Workforce.com provide Kavic the transparency she needs to control all her labor costs and keep her teams on budget. Integrating with both the Storm’s payroll and POS systems, Workforce.com gives extremely detailed insight into valuable cash flow and staffing metrics across all businesses operating within the stadium. 

RESULTS

With Workforce.com, Kavic can now manage her labor costs and cash flows efficiently, ensuring more time is invested into cultivating the best experience for fans on game day. Here are some of the specific ways in which Kavic benefits from the software:

Teams stick to their budgets

“The ability to create many different teams, the ability to break down the departments as much as possible, is extremely important,” states Kavic concerning the six distinct team locations she has set up within the new system. With them in place, the multi-entity structure of the Storm becomes much simpler to handle. Kavic can make sure team managers stay on budget now with the ability to break down labor costs by team, by week, and even by individual. This clarity allows her to pinpoint overspending issues wherever present.  

Cashflow projections are more accurate than ever

With POS system integration, projecting cashflows is simple and accurate. Now with one click, Kavic can view digestible reports and metrics that provide insight into key financial details. 

“We’re able to go as deep as looking at how much revenue our four top servers are bringing in and how much the labor costs are specific to those four top servers. So [Workforce.com] really gives us the ability to dive deep into individual revenue and labor costs.”

Error-free payroll

Workforce.com calculates the cost of shifts according to respective locations and minimum wage and overtime rules. There is no manual data entry and no human errors, meaning no more expensive errors while verifying payroll. 

“One of the reasons that Workforce.com definitely stood out to me was the ease of payroll export … I wanted to press a button and it was miraculous,” says a beaming Kavic. 

Staying compliant with wage and hour laws

Workforce.com ensures labor compliance by automatically scheduling breaks and calculating overtime rates that meet regional legal requirements. With these features, Kavic can quickly address potential labor violations and avoid costly penalties. 

Scheduling based on expected demand

With POS integration, all sales numbers are reflected in Workforce.com, allowing Kavic to easily staff based on historic demand. This cost-effective scheduling optimizes the Storm’s workforce, ensuring the correct number of employees are working at the right time, day, and place.

With all of these staffing tools and capabilities at her fingertips, Kavic believes the Storm now functions better than ever. “Without Workforce.com, we could not do what we do best, and that’s entertain the community. I can’t imagine why another CFO wouldn’t utilize Workforce.com … it feels like I’ve got another employee.” 

Success is about more than simply on-field performance for a minor league baseball team. Kavic and the Storm understand this; they enjoy strong support from a thoroughly entertained community as a result.