HR technology – Page 4

November 14, 2020June 29, 2023

VF Corp. invests in empathy and resources for working parents

Challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic have affected most people in the workforce in one way or another.

Working parents have not only coped with their own retooled job responsibilities as many of them adjust to working from home, but in many cases they have also added daycare worker and classroom instructor to their resumes.

New research from Microsoft Corp. revealed that 54 percent of parents reported that it’s been difficult balancing household and professional demands while working from home. And according to a recent WalletHub study, 54 percent of parents with young children at home don’t think they are being more productive at home than they are in the office.

VF Corp., a Denver-based publicly traded global company of 50,000 employees, realized the plight facing many of their workers as summer was ending and as parents faced the specter of another school year of distance learning for their children. Leadership of the apparel and footwear company, whose brands include The North Face, Vans and Dickies, quickly prioritized providing educational resources to alleviate the extra pressure and stress that working parents whose children would be learning remotely may be experiencing. The pandemic created significant uncertainty and posed new challenges for everyone, said Anita Graham, executive vice president, chief human resources officer and public affairs at VF Corp.

“Through conversations with associates and responses to our employee surveys, we knew that many of our associates were struggling with balancing work and the responsibilities of caring for their families,” she said.

Technology partnerships ease remote learning

One program, Laptops for Learning, provided more than 500 reconditioned laptops at no cost to eligible U.S.-based employees at VF Corp.’s distribution centers, retail stores and customer service centers, providing children with the technology necessary to participate in distance learning. The organization also implemented Rethink, a resource for parents with special needs children, Graham said. Another initiative, Guidance Now, provides employees with access to tutoring support and free access to SitterCity to help identify baby-sitting resources that could serve as a substitute for traditional child care.

Case study: PFS dials up a rapid work from home solution for its call center staff

“We believe that a good education is a critical and significant stressor for parents, and we wanted to help alleviate the added stress,” she said. “Virtual learning has posed challenges that working parents haven’t previously encountered. How do associates keep their children engaged in virtual school while also doing their own work? How do they afford reliable technology needed for virtual learning? The laptop program emerged from this need.”

A boost for those needing elder care

VF Corp. also amped up its communications so that employees were aware of resources such as telehealth and the benefits available through a partnership with Bright Horizons, which provides backup child care as well as elder-care support.

“The coronavirus pandemic has been particularly impactful on older communities,” Graham said. “Adult children have had to take on more responsibilities for their elder parents, from running errands to providing full-time care. Our partnership with Bright Horizons has provided help to those employees who are providing elder care.”

Through the partnership, employees can take an online needs assessment, find information on selecting elder care resources, and utilize a search tool for finding and evaluating care providers, Graham said.

Moving to flex schedules and remote work

The pandemic has tested organizations’ agility to adjust to new ways of living and working. VF Corp. recognized early in the pandemic that it would need to introduce new programs and resources to keep morale up and employees engaged. Placing emotional and physical well-being at the forefront, they partnered with employee assistance program provider ComPsych to offer emotional well-being webinars to equip employees with the tools to keep themselves mentally healthy.

They also implemented new schedules and training programs to help employees put themselves first. Understanding that working from home poses child- and elder-care challenges, VFCorp. encouraged employees to rethink the traditional workday and create a flexible schedule that works best for them and their families.

Case study: COVID-19 causes Radial Inc.’s 25,000 seasonal hires to practice safe shipping

“The flexible scheduling program is an initiative we introduced at the start of the pandemic as a result of the stressors we were hearing from employees,” Graham said. “An employee can work with their manager to develop a schedule that allows them to take afternoons off to take care of children before resuming work in the evening.”

Considering that within the United States 70 percent of VF Corp. employees are hourly, 17 percent are salaried and 13 percent are contingent workers, Graham said they are sympathetic to accommodate employee needs while maintaining organizational operations.

“We have a wealth of initiatives and programs available to all our employees, no matter their role, location or level,” she said. “However, we do recognize that there are different needs across the enterprise, so we have developed unique programs for employees in retail stores and distribution centers.”

Remote work into the future

Rather than declare an “at least until” date, VF Corp. intends to remain flexible as a permanent approach and launched a future of work workstream called “Workplace Next” to define their vision for how they work in the future. The outcomes will be shared with employees in early 2021, Graham said.

Placing the needs of employees at the forefront of their actions is crucial to VF Corp. successfully navigating the pandemic, she said. It’s important to listen and it’s OK to over-communicate, she added.

“By listening to our people and taking action, we have been able to successfully keep morale high and our employees engaged and ultimately meet our consumers’ needs, and we’ll continue to listen to them to understand how we can help support them moving forward as our world continues to change.”

Whether you have 10 or 10,000 staff, building schedules is easier and faster with Workforce.com’s scheduling platform. Optimize and automate your complex scheduling patterns and provide peace of mind and know that you are in compliance.

October 29, 2020June 29, 2023

The rundown on wage law compliance: What organizations should know

Paying people properly is crucial to workforce management. But it goes beyond releasing pay on time. It’s about compensating workers according to the work they do and adhering to all the wage laws that apply — and there are many that organizations need to navigate.

Andrew Stirling, head of product compliance at Workforce.com, sheds light on what companies need to know about complying with wage laws, the real cost of failure to comply and the different ways organizations can meet requirements under varying rules and regulations.

Setting a compliance strategy

“To have a compliance strategy, you need to start by knowing what the rules are. That might sound trite, but you need a system for keeping current as the rules change,” Stirling said.

Businesses are generally good at evolving their practices in the face of law and regulation changes. While there’s a level of adjustment when new laws are implemented, companies tend to adapt efficiently, he explained.

Identifying the type of employment relationship a business has with its workers is crucial to getting the rules right. This has become more important as the types of work relationships have multiplied.

“With the gig economy growing, more and more workers are being engaged to work in nontraditional ways. Generally, a worker in your business will be either an employee or an independent contractor. Businesses need to be careful to assign workers to the right category, because getting this wrong means that they may not meet all the wage laws that apply,” said Stirling.

Once the rules are known, it’s time for the business to assess and implement solutions to comply with those rules. The solutions can be more than just the obvious.

For example, employee scheduling can play a key role in wage compliance. When creating schedules, managers need to be aware of when overtime will apply and how much the business must pay for those hours when it does. This becomes challenging for managers with a group of employees under different working arrangements. Without good solutions, things can fall through the cracks, resulting in underpayment or higher labor costs.

The real cost of noncompliance

Noncompliance can result in crippling financial repercussions, but it also can cause reputational damage.

“The financial costs of noncompliance are obvious,” Stirling said. “For example, if employees have been underpaid, the business might have to make large amounts of back payments in one hit. You need to have the cash on hand for that.” There are other financial costs, like penalties and legal costs to contest a court case.

But there’s also the real potential for reputational damage. That’s often a more significant motivation for employers to comply.

“An underpayment scandal can bring companies to their knees. Customers can decide to take their business elsewhere. People are less likely to visit a restaurant or shop that has been reported for underpaying their people,” he said.

Aside from a less favorable customer perspective, companies with underpayment issues can risk losing in the labor market, he said. When looking for a job, people tend to sort out who the good and bad players are, and wage compliance can be a huge factor.

Ensuring compliance at all levels

While wage compliance may mostly be seen as a job for payroll teams, HR and managers also play a crucial role. Payroll teams would primarily be responsible for the final pay outcome.

“From a payroll perspective, I would be focused on two things. One is making sure that I understand the complex wage rules that apply. The second thing is making sure that I have the correct data. Am I getting the information that I need to properly calculate pay? Are we capturing time and attendance accurately? Yes, knowing the rules are important, but the inputs need to be correct, too,” Stirling said.

HR has a leading role here. They need to have a good understanding of the business and the particular wage rules that apply. It’s also their responsibility to ensure that the right systems are in place for wage compliance.

“In my experience, HR will often document the duties of a position and then help to assign those duties to a particular minimum wage,” Stirling explained.

Managers, meanwhile, have a role in ensuring that all inputs are correct. They monitor that employees are recording time correctly and that there are no discrepancies.

“If rules in a particular jurisdiction require employees to be paid more for doing particular types of work, managers are the ones who will know,” he said. The extra payments might include allowances, commissions, bonuses and tips to the extent that they are relevant in a jurisdiction.

Managers generally play less of a role in ensuring the amount on a paycheck is correct. Still, they follow processes and systems that ensure all the information passed on to payroll is accurate.

Compliance challenges per industry

Different industries face varying compliance challenges. A lot of this difference comes from meeting customer demand or expectations.

If customer demand comes in after standard business hours and on weekends, that’s when employees need to be at work. Working outside standard business hours often will entitle an employee to overtime or other financial obligations.

“If you’re in retail or hospitality, you’d miss out on opportunities if you just open from 9 to 5. Efficient workforce management can meet these demands with cost-effective shifts without compromising service and wage law compliance,” he said.

Similar issues arise in industries that make use of machines and equipment that are most efficiently run 24/7. Mining, oil and gas, and manufacturing companies often run this way. Stirling said that this scenario also puts businesses in a space where they pay different penalties that come with varying shifts and work hours.

On the other hand, there are many industries where working standard office hours is still the norm. “Calculating pay for people who get to work at 9 in the morning and leave at 5 in the afternoon is usually relatively easy,” he said.

Ways to stay at pace with labor law changes

There are many moving parts involved with wage law compliance, and staying on pace is crucial.

“Going to the source is always best. That’s a good start,” Stirling said. He advised signing up for government websites that explain what the law is. Businesses can often sign up for alerts to be updated should any of the laws change.

There are also subscription services to stay abreast of the labor law, including publications and journals. Another option is to join employer associations that can help keep track of changes as well.

Overcoming wage compliance challenges

Having the right people, implementing the right systems, and investing in the right technology — Stirling believes that these things can help businesses comply with wage laws.

Computers are binary and will give an output based on the input. Automated compliance is more efficient and effective than human-driven compliance. Companies must implement the right systems to make sure that both people and technology can function effectively.

“I’m a big believer in technology as a solution to a lot of these problems,” he said. “That’s where the future is. As technology becomes more powerful, the types of work that people are doing will change. They’ll spend less time crunching numbers, for example, to make sure pays are right and spend more time checking that the inputs into the technology are right.”

October 21, 2020June 29, 2023

Progressive Insurance gives interns an entry-level lesson in the new reality of office work

interns, internship, Progressive Insurance, remote work, remote workforce

A well-run internship program often enables college students to gain skills they wouldn’t otherwise attain in a university classroom.

Typically interns draw a new perspective on work while in a structured corporate environment, learning the processes, strategies and plans that lead to organizational and personal success. If properly executed, an internship can provide experience, inspiration and potentially an entry-level job as they embark on their budding career.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of an internship is building relationships with mentors and executives while observing an organization first-hand from the inside. But since the pandemic took hold, many internship programs have been suspended or even eliminated.

Rather than abolish its internship program, Progressive Insurance Co. gave its interns a dose of corporate reality in a pandemic-stricken global workplace. Rather than intern inside its corporate offices, the insurance giant quickly created a program of remote out-of-office-terns.

Going to a virtual platform

Mayfield, Ohio-based Progressive employs some 40,000 people and like many organizations immediately pivoted to a largely remote workforce in mid-March. Gabe De Leon, Progressive’s program manager for collegiate and MBA recruiting, said that their approximately 100 hourly interns were among those suddenly cast into a remote-work environment.

Also read: Enrich your employee onboarding experience and say goodbye to paperwork

“We needed to spend extra time ensuring our interns felt like they were a part of the Progressive family given these circumstances,” De Leon said.

Time was actually an advantage since the new round of summer interns hadn’t yet come onboard. Executives made the remote work call with interns in mind, De Leon said. “Our interns were thrilled to know that we were going to honor our commitment to their internships,” he said, “albeit, 100 percent virtual.”

Progressive’s summer internships run from May through August to mirror university schedules with roles in data and analytics, IT and accounting business groups, De Leon said. Progressive interns are there to do more than just get someone’s coffee or stuff envelopes, he added.

“Our interns are assigned unique and necessary problem-solving projects that allow them to work closely with company leaders and foster their professional development.”

Learning to use remote technology

Emily Holroyd, who studies actuarial science at Ohio State University, recalled the uncertainty as she transitioned to being a remote student at Ohio State University and simultaneously finding out her summer 2020 internship in Progressive’s claims department would be fully virtual as well.

“Going into the summer it was very clear that my internship was going to be virtual, but I do remember being a little nervous about what this was going to look like,” recalled Holroyd, a data analyst intern. “I was hearing stories left and right from my peers about losing their internships or even just having weeklong programs as a substitute. I knew how important to my career this experience was going to be, so I was relieved to hear that Progressive was going to allow us to partake in the full 12-week program virtually.”

Case study: COVID-19 causes Radial’s 25,000 seasonal hires to practice safe shipping

De Leon said that interns typically get the opportunity to work alongside industry professionals, receive career advice and mentorship, and attend educational, networking and social events. They also incorporated virtual events including a roundtable with Progressive President and CEO Tricia Griffith.

Interns received a working experience as if they were on site, De Leon said. Besides one-to-one mentorships and networking with peers as if they were in an office, they learned the new realities of working during a pandemic.

“Our interns learned new virtual technology to accomplish their job responsibilities,” he said. “Learning how to navigate a large remote conference call is also a valuable skill.”

Remaining in a remote environment

The vast majority of Progressive employees will remain remote until 2021, De Leon said. Still, the internship program’s future is bright. The fact that they bring in qualified candidates through their recruiting process even in the middle of a pandemic is reassuring, he said, adding that they have made some adjustments and created a robust virtual college strategy for the fall recruiting season.

And some interns, like Holroyd, who never set foot inside Progressive’s offices, are offered full-time positions as their internship ends. Holroyd is set to begin a full-time position in the analyst development program beginning in June 2021.

“I quickly learned that I was only going to get out as much as I was willing to put in, and this motivated me to try and talk with as many other analysts as possible,” Holroyd said. “I think the fact that I was able to submerge myself into the Progressive culture, even remotely, speaks volumes about the people that work for this company. This year has thrown a lot of curveballs with school and work, but I hope to look back on 2020 warmly as I remember my internship at Progressive.”

What will Holroyd’s “I remember when …” recollections be decades from now about her pandemic-influenced internship?

“My story will definitely be, ‘I remember when I spent an entire summer working for a Fortune 100 company from the basement of my parents’ house.’ ”

Whether you have a staff of 10 or 10,000, Workforce.com offers the leading scheduling app to optimize staffing levels, forecast wages and manage shifts with ease.

October 14, 2020June 29, 2023

COVID-19 causes Radial Inc.’s 25,000 seasonal hires to practice safe shipping

seasonal hires, distribution center, COVID-19, fulfillment center

It’s a common headline this time of year: Retailers and distribution centers staff up as holiday shoppers begin their quest for the perfect gift.

While the news is a huge relief, particularly during a time of record unemployment, 2020 brings new challenges for companies that sell and ship sought-after holiday gifts like Fingerlings, ugly sweaters and smart gardens (yes, it’s a thing) across the country. Recruiting and training tens of thousands of new employees is one thing; doing so in the midst of a pandemic is compounded with an extreme new level of health and safety risks.

Radial Inc., which provides multinational e-commerce services to retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Keurig and GameStop, announced in September it is adding 25,000 seasonal employees to its fulfillment and call centers this holiday season. The Pennsylvania-based company emphasized the safety measures it is implementing in its 20 distribution centers and eight call centers, five of which are in North America.

“The executive team has been proactive about addressing COVID-19 safety concerns since the very beginning of the pandemic,” said Eric Wohl, Radial’s chief human resources officer and senior vice president. “We’ve revamped processes and procedures and researched and tested numerous types of emerging technologies to enforce social distancing and maximize safety.”

Since the annual holiday shopping crush comes as a surprise to exactly no one in the retail industry, Radial is skilled at scaling its workforces four to five times the normal size every peak season to handle the increased demand in e-commerce.

“We expected that there would be even more e-commerce demand this holiday season as the impact of COVID-19 has made shoppers more comfortable buying online,” Wohl said. “We developed hiring projections and safety protocols to account for that going back to the second quarter.”

Wohl said that all seasonal employees being hired for the holidays are hourly workers. Of the current Radial employees, the hourly population represents around 75 percent of its workforce. Including the seasonal staff already onboard, hourly workers account for over 85 percent of all workers at Radial. In peak season, that percentage is even higher, he added.

Implementing mobile tech on a large scale

Technology is aiding Radial’s safety measures for current employees and new hires. Radial has thermal temperature devices and Instant-Trace Contact Badges, Wohl said. The badges utilize Ultra-Wideband technology for proximity measurement to help enforce social distancing requirements by alerting the wearer if someone else is within six feet.

“As we scale for peak season, these technologies are incredibly valuable to ensure safety procedures are carried out in traditionally high-traffic areas, such as training groups,” he said.

Also read: Labor analytics add power to workforce management tools

Enhanced robotics in distribution centers utilizes autonomous mobile technology to assist employees who are packing and shipping orders as they comply with socially distanced headcount capacities and reduce interaction with one another, Wohl said.

Visual camera projection systems at certain sites are also helping onboard new hires with mobile training stations that optimize training layouts and processes to ensure safety. Wearable microphones and speakers also help workers more easily hear their managers across the warehouse while remaining socially distant, he said.

Creating virtual call centers

Call center employees have transitioned to a largely remote workforce, Wohl said.

“Radial is offering more work from home positions than ever before and moved to proactively transition the majority of our team to home in March and April,” he said. “We are looking to have 50 to 70 percent of our customer care workforce work remotely this holiday season, which is over 2,500 employees nationwide.”

Radial also has implemented changes to the interview and training process for call center employees, including virtual formats to reduce the need and number of seasonal workers in previously onsite-only training classes.

Training for COVID-19 and the holiday rush

Still, training 25,000 new hires not only in how to do their new jobs but also in how to act in a COVID-19 work environment can be a challenge. Wohl said that starting with the interview process, they have worked closely with staffing companies to provide low-contact, socially distant interviews at agency offices, drive-through job fairs and other interview formats.

“We have also invested in socially distant interviews and virtual training so customer care and fulfillment workers are set up for success on the job,” he said. “Each site has the resources to ensure socially distanced training of new-hire groups through several voice and visual training projection solutions for trainers, along with Instant-Trace badges.”

Distribution and call centers have their own dedicated training teams for seasonal and full-time employees, he said, retooling their entire process and technology platforms to manage COVID-19 impacts.

Case study: PFS dials up a rapid work from home solution for its call center staff

Radial’s human resources department, which consists of 47 employees as well as 13 employees on the HR Partner team, also has played a pivotal support role ensuring that training teams and new hires have what they need to be successful, Wohl said.

“We conduct regular assessments of training and onboarding effectiveness for continuous improvement and partner with our training teams to share best practices and collaborate on program development,” he said.

Support for all employees

Everyone has a role to play in slowing the spread by following basic precautions and looking out for one another, Wohl said. Radial has assigned a social-distance champion at distribution centers who regularly monitors the facility to help remedy problems through coaching or procedural changes.

“We’re also continuing to find ways to adapt perks to boost morale and in ways that fit in with today’s new circumstances including flexible work schedules and enhanced support for employees dealing with the impacts of COVID personally or within their family,” he said. Boosting morale also is important, he said. Trivia contests, raffles, quarterly awards and dress-up days have helped, he said.

“We try and maintain a family-like environment in all our sites and teams,” he said. “We listen to our employees. We ask for regular feedback on how we are doing to support their needs during COVID and adjust our plans when we can.”

Retailers still must hire seasonal workers to help ramp up for the holiday season. Data shows that despite the impact of COVID-19, shoppers won’t significantly change their holiday spending compared to 2019. With this high level of activity in mind, employee health and safety must be the top priority for every retailer right now, Wohl said.

“If they can’t keep their employees safe, they can’t deliver on their promises to customers,” he said. “Fulfillment and customer care centers are where the behind-the-scenes holiday magic happens. Dedicated employees are behind every package, phone call or text.

“For retailers to meet their holiday goals and make sure packages arrive on time, safety needs to be the mantra at every single store, warehouse, customer care center and delivery center.”

Whether you have 10 or 10,000 employees on staff, make building schedules an easier and faster process with Workforce.com’s scheduling app. You can optimize staffing levels, forecast wages and manage shifts with ease.

September 29, 2020February 23, 2021

How Domino’s Israel saved 25,000 hours and increased employee productivity 11%

Domino's Israel, workforce management technology

Domino’s has always been a company that embraces and utilizes technology to make daily operations smoother. Case in point: They implemented an online delivery service in Israel as early as 2009.

Domino’s saw the opportunity in digital platforms and were strategic enough to adopt early. As they continue to leverage technology in the business, they also embrace digital information to manage their people. And they have reaped the benefits ever since.

So it’s no surprise that after rolling out the Workforce.com platform, Domino’s Israel has reported to save 25,000 hours across 42 locations, increased sales per labor hour by 11 percent, and dropped wage costs from 33.5 percent to only 29.5 percent of their revenue.

Challenges that come with business expansion

“Expanding fast means that you need to create a good and solid structure of operation and training,” said Arie Elbaz, chief operating officer and co-owner of Domino’s Israel franchise.

Elbaz, along with the rest of Domino’s Israel management team, recognized that as they open more stores, they need to have enough employees to consistently deliver quality service to their customers. Being strategic with how they create employee schedules is essential to that. It means that they need to cover all their bases in an efficient way that saves on costs and time.

“Before I was introduced to Workforce.com, every store manager did scheduling according to what he feels or believes; according to his instincts,” Elbaz said, adding that it’s not the most efficient way to schedule. They also needed a more efficient way to forecast staff availability and the amount of hours required per store per week per month.

Another challenge is adapting to higher labor costs.

“Here in Israel, we had five increases with minimum wage, and we needed to find a solution that would allow us to be more efficient on one hand, but of course, we won’t compromise on service and the number of employees that we need,” Elbaz said.

Technology and transparency

After transitioning to Workforce.com, Domino’s store managers gained better insight with the scheduling software and discovered how many staff they actually need in each shift.

“This was the first time that every member of my staff can see the same schedule. The delivery guys see what I see, what my supervisors see, and what my store manager sees. Everyone works on the same platform,” said Yonatan Taz, one of Domino’s operations managers.

Store managers also get better insights on peak and slow hours, allowing them to schedule smarter. “Before, we had a problem that I thought maybe the peak would start at 6 o’clock. But the platform showed me that it starts at 5:30,” said Idan Eini, a Domino’s store manager.

Transforming shift management for success

Domino’s Israel started implementing Workforce more than a year ago, running a pilot between December 2019 and February 2020. A full rollout of the system was completed in three weeks following the pilot. “For me, it was a revolution,” Elbaz said. He also shared three advantages of having Workforce.com

Workforce.com provides one platform for shift management. Because everyone uses the same system, it’s easier to see who’s working when and where. There’s less need to remind everyone, and managers can anticipate where the gap is going to be.
Workforce.com shows recommended hours. The platform enables managers to see recommended hours alongside with scheduled hours and actual hours. “As a result, we can better analyze our labor cost and create more efficiency,” Elbaz said.
Workforce.com gives analysis and actionable insights. The system can make sense of labor data and provide insight into aspects like savings, service metrics, etc. The team now has full control over this information.

Going further

Now that Domino’s has an efficient staff management system in place, Elbaz and his team will continue improving their online platforms and seek better ways to provide the best service to their customers as they expand.

Domino’s enables its people with technology and smart solutions to simplify once complex and repetitive processes. This allows them to focus on the more important parts of the job, build their skills, and realize the value they bring. Building up your workforce this way is one of the smartest business decisions.

Just like Domino’s, are you ready to take your workforce further? Book a demo and see how Workforce.com can help you.

September 23, 2020June 29, 2023

Time and attendance management implementation is about more than just punching a clock

scheduling; time and attendance; forecasting

Your time and attendance system does a vital job for the organization, keeping track of hours and saving managers time to do work that can’t be automated. But with so many software options to choose from, picking the right time and attendance management system for your organization can be complicated.

An HR technology expert spoke about what organizations should consider as they shop for a new time and attendance system.

Set guiding principles around time and attendance

Organizations must decide on these guiding principles before they seek out potential time and attendance management solutions, said Will Manuel, partner in Mercer’s Digital Practice. Questions to consider include:

Do we want to use one system for everything?
Do we want to use a system that can integrate with other HR or payroll software?
Do we want to allow mobile or something that can only be accessed onsite?

Further, an organization must understand what makes it unique, Manuel said. Its geography, industry, employee composition and unique business needs will determine what kind of time and attendance system and features will be the best fit. Time and attendance is a functional area of workforce management that varies much more depending on these factors than other areas of human capital management like performance management, he added.

The employee composition aspect is important because full-time salaried employees generally have different leave and vacation policies than hourly employees, he added. A time and attendance system must be able to account for the types of employees an organization has and the types of leave they have access to.

Also read: Leave management should be as simple as submit, approve and hit the beach

Manuel also suggested that organizations should decide where the time will be calculated. Will it be in the time and attendance system or will it be simply recorded in that system and then calculated through the integrated payroll software?

“For the hourly population, it becomes a lot more complicated, because you’re calculating it by hourly rates, which may factor things like overtime. The complexity of the calculator sometimes goes beyond the basic time and attendance system,” he said.

Integrate when possible

Organizations generally want to adopt a time and attendance management system that can integrate with payroll systems, Manuel said. This allows the company to access much more robust data and analytics. Also, “you can make much more informed decisions around productivity measures and cost of labor when they are integrated into more of a single system,” he said.

Also read: A technology integration is an intervention to dissolve common payroll errors

“That doesn’t doesn’t mean data cannot be fed from a standalone time and attendance system into an HCM system, which would be able to provide that more robust set of data, analytics and reporting. It just should not be assumed that can happen,” he added. “You have to understand what is the time system and its capabilities, and what is the HR or payroll system and its capabilities.”

As a guiding principle, one system that meets an organization’s requirements is better than using two systems, he said. But what it ultimately comes down to is the company’s unique use cases and if a single system can handle everything that is needed to support the business. Sometimes, multiple standalone systems will fit these needs better.

Growing trends in time and attendance

Labor forecasting is the major trend to keep an eye on in time and attendance management, Manual said. It helps guide managers by providing actionable insights on how to improve their scheduling.

There are also solutions that have come out to minimize flukes like payroll leakage and buddy punching, he added. “But it’s really the reporting and analytics that is what’s helping to differentiate the best in breed,” he said.

Look to your future needs, not just your present ones

One mistake organizations make when picking out a new software system is only considering their present needs, Manuel said. “They also need to look at where they think their workforce composition is going to be and what they may need three or five years down the road from now.”

The norm for time and attendance systems may change in the next few years, he added. Looking forward allows organizations to “see the picture beyond time and attendance and more the employee experience and what the [system] needs to support the business.”

The simple question to ask is, “Will my workforce composition be the same as today in three to five years?” If the answer is that it will look different, organizations should consider the ramifications of choosing the time and attendance system they chose.

The risks of picking a system that can’t adapt to your unique needs

Again, organizations should understand what makes them unique, and the right time and attendance system will be able to address these needs. It helps ensure there are no surprises, Manuel said.

“I’ve unfortunately seen it too often where something is selected, but it can’t configure to the handful of complex rules. And therefore [the organization] has to change the business to fit the time system as opposed to the time system supporting the business,” he added.

He gave the example of XYZ unions, for which there are a number of complex calculations based on factors like how long an employee has worked, what union they belong to and what their hourly rate is. Also, they may be working different shifts and have varying rates.

“Calculations can be pretty complex for certain groups, and you need to make sure that if you’ve got complex calculations, the system can handle it,” he said. “Don’t just assume that the system can handle it because somebody said it could. Assume that the system can handle it because somebody showed you it could handle it. Rely on ‘show me,’ not ‘tell me.’ ”

September 7, 2020June 29, 2023

How to cultivate innovation in the workforce

Innovation is key to an organization’s success, but what is it really? Workforce.com recently caught up with Victor Assad, managing partner of InnovationOne, LLC and author of “Hack Recruiting: The Best of Empirical Research, Method and Process and Digitization,” to discuss how companies can foster innovation and see actual results from doing so.

DEFINING INNOVATION IN THE WORKFORCE

Workforce: We always hear that innovation is key to success in an organization. But what does it really mean?

Victor Assad: It means that an organization is churning out innovations that drive financial value in products, services, or new business models for its customers in a manner where it leads its peers. Typically, for companies to do that, they have to know what their customers need, and secondly, they need to have great cultures of innovation that are very transparent and very agile.

WF: How can companies start innovating and see actual returns or impact from these activities?

Assad: Organizations need to first think through where they need to innovate. What is their desired end state, and how quickly do they need to get there? Is it new products? Is it new services? Is it a new business model? Is it digitizing their processes to move more quickly? Or a combination thereof?

To get that vision, they need to reach an agreement among the executive staff and articulate it to their workforce and external partners. It’s important to articulate it so often and so fervently that executives feel nauseated by talking about it. And when you’re nauseated talking about it, then they have made a good first step.

The next thing is to share data on new technologies, social-economic trends, and marketing trends with the workforce and external partners, who can also be customers. Invite employees and partners to get involved. Executives have to make sure that their middle management is on board with this and that they will be leaders who will entertain questioning and allow people to collaborate, go off on their own, come up with something and experiment. They need to have a well-known process to move ideas forward. Everyone has to know that process, and it has to be credible. Meaning, everybody that makes a suggestion is going to get a response. It might be yes, It might be no and here’s why.

Finally, organizations have to overcome what I like to call, the graveyard of innovation. And that is to get your organization’s attention to commercialize your innovation. Different functions like marketing, sales, manufacturing, service centers, and quality assurance are all focused on making the numbers for this quarter. You have to work very hard to get their attention to produce this new innovative product and develop a market for it.. That’s very different from what all those functions do for a mature, profitable product.

WF: Innovation takes time and resources. What return or value can organizations gain with innovation activities?

Assad: At Innovation One, we have an index that measures innovation. And organizations that score on the top quartile have 22 percent higher financial measures like profit.

In addition, they attract the best talent. They lead in the market. And when they keep these cultures going, they have all sorts of significant financial returns and other good things that happen to them.

TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

WF: Are there certain types of technology that can help with innovation?

Assad: Every company these days needs to be a digital company. Helpful technologies include big data analysis, (true) artificial intelligence, digital project management software, and chatbots to accelerate communications. Coronavirus, the digital era, our politics have exposed every organization’s weak points. And the first ones to figure out the new normal are going to be the winners as we re-emerge.

Remote work and the pandemic uncovered that there’s a false narrative about innovation — which is you have to work together, face to face, to be innovative and collaborative. While there are advantages to that, you can also do it digitally. There are tools for whiteboarding, internal crowdsourcing, and project management. I’ve been to virtual meetings where you have 60 people, and you can all go into digital breakrooms and come back as if you’ve had a day at a conference.

According to a study from McKinsey, companies that lead in adapting these digitization tools, not just in R&D, but in sales, marketing, supply chain and across the HR platform — the early movers get the best returns.

WF: How can organizations find the right type of technology to invest in?

Assad: Artificial intelligence and digital technology are tools, not a strategy. What’s important for the chief people officer and the executive team is to determine what’s important for talent strategy in the workforce. Do you want to get rid of all the paperwork and have more digital streams of information? Terrific. Prioritize that.

The advice that I would give is to only buy digital tools that are 80 percent out of the box. Don’t buy something that they say would be under development and given to you in three months by the time they will launch it for you. Buy 80 percent out of the box and go in there knowing the criteria for your needs, whether it be to improve your recruiting, talent management, driving out bias, or improving diversity and inclusion.

Companies need to be very good at using an approach to involve the workers to put in place new technology. Digitization efforts may fail, and technology may not be used broadly when there’s a lack of worker involvement and collaborative culture.

INNOVATION IN HIRING TO RETENTION

WF: Is there a connection with HR or workforce management tools and how innovative an organization is?

Assad: Yes, there is. HR has the same tools that have been available to different functions like sales and marketing and R&D. It’s time HR use those same tools to build an employee brand for new employees and current employees. These tools are data analysis, artificial intelligence and chatbots.

Technology now can help in finding, tracking, and screening the best talent without bias.

So what’s the leading cause of bias in the hiring process? The human being. So human beings have an incredible amount of unconscious bias that is there to protect us. It may be something we experienced. It may be something that we have been taught as children or culturally taught.

But research shows that we make decisions in five minutes about somebody, and we spend the rest of the interview trying to verify that decision we made. And you need to break that. A great way to break that is through a structured interview where you’re going to see if somebody has the competencies you need on the job. You need to be trained to interview this way.

Another way is to use artificial intelligence before the interview. There are tools that go on the internet, and they take the competencies that you need and find those who exhibited those competencies by where they worked or what they put on their online resume. This is very different technology than a LinkedIn or an Indeed search.

The artificial intelligence technology ranks results from top to bottom candidates. It gives you the ranking, but you don’t see a job candidate picture. You don’t see a name until you’ve picked a group of candidates based on the competency and experience matching. And then, you can unblind it, learn more about the job candidates, and reach out to them.

It’s not going to protect unconscious bias in the interview. Hopefully, structured interviews will. It’s also actually fantastic for matching people who are already in your applicant tracking system but haven’t applied for a job opening. It can find that talent in an instant where a recruiter would be hunting for many hours inside their applicant tracking system.

Another area where technology can help is by quickly providing information to staff. Most HR (and IT) organizations get the same 20 questions regardless of the company. A chatbot can answer these common questions, like when does open enrollment begin? How do I get into a VPN when I have lost my code? Where do I get information about onboarding? Chatbots or intelligent digital assistants curate these data and enable employees to find answers quickly in Teams or Slack, allowing HR staff to focus on other matters.

These technologies can foster innovation from the get-go by helping find the right talent. While others equip them to have easy access to information, allowing them more time to focus on activities for innovation.

FOSTERING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION

WF: Culture is an essential element in innovation. Why is it necessary, and how can companies foster that?

Assad: Without innovation companies will fall behind the competition in our fast changing, digital world. Protecting the status quo is a sure bet for failure. The empirical evidence shows that companies seldom become innovative from one great idea or technology. It takes a culture of innovation. Innovation requires an evolution of ideas that are continually developed by their workforces and external partners, aligned to common goals. Executives foster this by continually articulating their strategies for innovation, deploying innovation goals, sharing competitive information, promoting real time learning, inviting employees to suggest ideas and collaborate, and providing an easy and well known process to advance ideas, prototype, collect data, and make decisions rapidly.

A lot of organizations these days have only a compliance culture. Do what I tell you to do and don’t ask questions. Companies employ this to assure goal attainment, quality and reliability because nobody wants a pacemaker that won’t work. No one wants to fly on a jet where the engine is going to conk out. We need to have good reliability.

Companies can have both predictable quarterly results and innovation. It is a matter of focus. HR has a big role in this culture change by realigning the goal setting and performance management systems to motivate and reward innovation and quarterly goal achievement. When executives prioritize excellence for this quarter’s goals and their best innovation projects, great business outcomes are achieved.

August 26, 2020August 27, 2020

Incentive plan gives EMTs a new reason to ride with Ambulnz

A career as an emergency medical technician can be a demanding grind.

While there are clear rewards in such a compassionate, public-facing job, an EMT typically works long shifts, juggles hectic schedules and gets mediocre pay. Median compensation for EMTs and paramedics was $17.02 in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A 2018 survey from the American Ambulance Association found that poor pay leads to high turnover among those working in the emergency medical services industry, which sees an annual turnover rate of 25 percent among full-time EMTs.

Facing turnover and retention concerns like much of the rest of the EMS industry, executives at Ambulnz sought solutions to retain its EMTs. The New York-based non-emergency, on-demand ambulance service sought to improve medical transportation through innovative technology, a higher level of care and better compensation for EMTs.

Retaining employees through incentives

In order to get the most qualified first responders, Ambulnz designed a novel benefit for its 1,200 hourly employees. The Equity Incentive Plan was created to encourage, recognize and reward exceptional performance for its employees, said Ambulnz President Anthony Capone.

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“We have been speaking about creating the Equity Incentive Plan for a couple of years and fully put it into effect for 2019,” Capone said. “It’s a path to entrepreneurship and the ability to build meaningful careers in the ambulance service.”

Capone pointed out that Ambulnz, which operates in eight states including New York, New Jersey, California, Texas and Illinois as well as the United Kingdom, distinguishes itself from the typical on-demand company such as Uber and Lyft through its business model.

“On-demand ride share companies have a business-to-consumer model, provide point-to-point transportation as an alternative to a taxi service and use independent contractors to provide their service,” Capone said.

“Ambulnz has a business-to-business model, provides medical transportation and we own our fleet of ambulance vehicles and employ full-time EMTs and paramedics.”

Ambulnz offers different levels of services ranging from a wheelchair-bound patient transport to a critical care transport, he said. When a patient needs to be moved to a new facility for treatment out of a hospital, outpatient treatment clinic, doctor, dialysis or chemo center, a pickup can be scheduled through the Ambulnz app, Capone added.

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The vast majority of Ambulnz’s 1,300 employees are W-2, and only full-time employees are eligible for the incentive plan, he said. It differs from a startup’s typical equity compensation plan, he added.

“Usually startup companies provide equity compensation to new hires to entice them to bet on a relatively unknown company,” he said. “We are an established, growing company with over 1,000 employees. While it is not uncommon for tech startups to offer equity compensation for employees, Ambulnz is the only company in the medical transportation industry that offers this benefit to frontline employees.”

The incentive program was created to reward employees for their exceptional performance, he said. With that in mind, they decided to provide 2,000 equity units for each 500 trips eligible employees take in the previous year.

“This is based on volume, but performance is taken into account when employees become eligible for the program,” Capone said.

Besides the incentive plan, Ambulnz offers a base salary, medical benefits, bonuses and an optional “model program” for EMTs that offers them the ability to earn more than the national average for their profession, Capone said.

“EMTs who enroll are paid in part based on the number of calls they respond to,” he said. “In addition, EMTs are encouraged to stop by different outpatient centers, such as nursing homes, to introduce themselves, explain Ambulnz, and drop off a business card.”

Capone said the incentive program helps employees feel like they are part of the Ambulnz team and inspires them to do their best. They officially launched the program by issuing awards for employees 2019 trips, so there aren’t metrics to share yet, he said.

“The announcement has certainly energized our workforce, and numerous employees are inquiring about their 2020 trip counts to see how they’re tracking for this year,” Capone said. “Since its rollout, the plan has been a successful way to attract, retain and motivate our employees.”

There’s no need to wait until it’s too late to adjust the flow of work. You can see wage costs in real time and adjust staffing levels and assignments to maximize profitability with Workforce.com’s Live Wage Tracker.

August 24, 2020February 2, 2021

Companies may pay the price for poorly managed payroll practices

Culture may eat strategy for lunch, but a fair, well-oiled compensation plan can gobble up culture for breakfast, dinner and maybe even a midnight snack.

While culture indeed is crucial to engagement and retention, compensation still remains near or at the top of most employee satisfaction surveys. Poorly run compensation and payroll practices makes engaging employees an impossibility if they are not being paid fairly and on time.

Get a handle on your payroll practices

Employees deserve their paychecks on time. They also deserve to be accurately compensated for the time they put in. Both of these points may seem to be forgone conclusions when it comes to an organization making its payroll.

But according to a survey earlier this year, 32 percent of small business owners have made a payroll mistake at least once. What is more troubling, the same survey also noted that it took 56 percent of business owners longer than 24 hours to fix a payroll mistake.

That’s a problem for any employee. For those living paycheck to paycheck, a payroll snafu can be devastating.

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Considering that employee engagement figures typically hover somewhere around 33 percent in good economic times and in bad, there is no faster way to turn a loyal staff member into a disengaged one than a blunder with payroll.

Automate payroll processes to eliminate delays and errors

Automating payroll may initially seem imposing. Organizations are locked into legacy practices, and payroll typically is one such function.

Some 39 percent of small business owners spend one to three hours on payroll per week. That’s hundreds of hours spent poring over timesheets, tapping digits on a calculator, assessing overtime and finally scratching out checks, which if the sun, moon and stars properly align there won’t be any mistakes.

Save a tree, cut back on paper-based payroll

Many organizations rely on a paper-based system, too. A 2017 survey revealed that 65 percent of people surveyed said that HR information is still managed using paper documents, paper-based processes and stored in filing cabinets.

Implementing a payroll solution not only improves the company’s bottom line but it minimizes hours of repetitive tasks and effort spent on high-volume, low-value work. The result is a better functioning payroll system that affords time to focus on correcting errors, improving processes and delivering payroll efficiently and on time. Automation is assisting payroll teams perform their jobs in several ways.

Managing compliance risks

It’s a challenge to stay abreast of tax laws, rules and regulations, especially for organizations working across multiple states. Payroll mistakes are costly and learning all the nuances to stay in compliance is a huge time drain. It’s crucial to stay on top of what it takes to remain compliant to reduce legal liability. Workforce.com’s payroll integration platform is designed to keep pace with labor law changes and ensure that pay rates are always updated.

Gathering the metrics

Collecting timesheets from multiple departments and in varying formats is the height of payroll inefficiency. An automated payroll solution turns data collection inefficiencies into a faster and simpler task.

Move data quickly

An automated, integrated platform also allows for the smooth transfer of information between systems. There’s no need to wait on various departments or managers to file and then crunch their data.

Added expenses due to poor data entry errors and payroll oversights are avoidable. By upgrading an outdated payroll function with an automated platform eliminates inefficiencies, promotes compliance and allows employers to stay on top of wage costs.

With employment contracts, timesheets, benefits and labor laws, there are a lot of factors involved in payroll that can result in miscalculations. Workforce.com’s payroll integration solution connects with more than 50 payroll systems to ease compliance and enhance efficiency.

August 23, 2020November 7, 2022

Growing Workforce Success with Palumbo Foods

Workforce.com sat down to talk growth with local champignons, the owners and staff of Palumbo Foods in Avondale, Pennsylvania.

Founder Tony Palumbo, having grown up in the mushroom industry, invested in his own company in 2008. A decade later, Palumbo is joined by several members of his family in overseeing more than 40 staff members. They sell over 350,000 pounds of mushrooms each week. Together, they supply mushrooms and seasonal produce to customers not just in Pennsylvania, but also in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, and Texas.

Vice President Shawn Palumbo is Tony’s son and talks about running this successful food business and their partnership with workforce.com

Talented people behind a family business

“We have a lot of talented people on the staff who really go above and beyond,” Palumbo said. “And that goes from our office team to our dock employees who are building orders day and night to our over the road truck drivers. We have a lot of dedicated people and that’s really what makes it work.”

Besides providing fresh, locally grown produce, the Palumbo Foods team also emphasizes customer service. Indeed, the family business has thrived through the tight-knit relationship of the staff, not just with each other, but also with their customers. Shawn Palumbo said, “A bunch of loyal customers believed in what Tony was looking to do and stuck with us to help us get started. Years later, most of those customers still work with us.” Today, from locally grown mushrooms, they’ve branched out into seasonal produce like garlic, ginger, peppers, onions, cucumbers and microgreens.

Data-led improvements that matter

Time is of the essence, especially in the food business. That’s where Shawn Palumbo’s team encountered their biggest challenge. They thought they could make headway by keeping most of their staff in the first shift. “We always only operated with a first shift team, but we realized we were overloading them. There just was too much work for anyone to get done,” he said. Enter the Workforce.com platform, a workforce management software with tracking and reporting capabilities.

“The biggest key is visibility. Workforce.com gave us visibility to see where our hours were being spent and where we could place them,” he said.

From just having a first shift and seeing what needed to be done during the day, using the Workforce.com platform allowed Palumbo Foods to see that they actually needed a third shift. “Looking at the numbers and seeing the physical data on paper and on the computer allowed us to make a decision that we wouldn’t have been able to make without the platform so to speak,” he said. The team in charge of carrying out improvements relied on the Workforce.com platform to make the decision to add a third shift.

The results were astounding.

“They’re coming in at night getting a third of the work done, so the team during the morning shift does not have as much pressure to get everything completed,” Shawn Palumbo said. The simple change decreased production errors and increased employee morale. “They’re less stressed and they’re more efficient. The quality has gone up to our customers as well. We’ve seen our returns decreased,” he said. The addition of the third shift even allowed their trucks to leave earlier, which assists in completing their deliveries within service rule hours.

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Team visibility despite the miles

“When I was younger, I worked at places and you grabbed the card, you put it in the machine, you put it back. What visibility does that give anybody?” Shawn Palumbo said, recalling the punch clocks that most businesses used decades ago, and which some still use today. For him, Workforce.com’s Time Clock App increased visibility and engagement with their teams who are working 2,000 miles away. “As management is in Pennsylvania, we have cameras at our Texas facility, but no one is sitting here watching the cameras all day. With Workforce.com, we can see what time they’re punching in, and coming and going,” he said.

For Palumbo Foods, the increased visibility has allowed them to operate better. It linked them to a critical part of their operation without actually being there. “We could remotely monitor and verify the hours being worked and make the appropriate decisions based on that data,” he said,” It has also increased trust among team members. Before switching to Workforce.com, employee attendance caused some friction. “The staff is now operating 24/7 so staff can come and go, and sometimes it was not being noticed. It was causing issues between team members as some were showing up later and leaving earlier than others,” he said. Now, they can look at the timesheets and resolve these conflicts easily.

Growing with workforce technology

In 2017, Palumbo Foods opened a facility in San Antonio, Texas, with seven employees. They also service Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida. The business is still slated for more growth and success, and Workforce.com is with them as they continue to optimize and improve their operations. “Knowing that, at any time, we can look at these reports, from anywhere has been a big, big help for us,” Shawn Palumbo said.

Pennsylvania continues to lead the mushroom production industry in the United States. Contributing to this boom is Palumbo Foods, a company that continues to flourish through its talented staff and loyal customers. “It kind of really grew this into something that no one ever expected it could be,” he said.

And with their investment in workforce technology that lets them track employees and operations accurately, they’re all set to keep providing quality produce to more customers in the years to come.