Tag: time tracking

Posted on

Simplifying Payroll for New Hires (and How Workforce.com Makes it Easy)

Summary

  • The first paycheck is crucial to employee engagement and can make or break employee onboarding for new hires.
  • Processing the first paycheck begins before a new employee’s first day at work, and much of it involves gathering the necessary information.
  • With the right payroll system, you can cut down time spent on approving timesheets and payroll processing by 95%.

Many things can make or break a new hire’s experience, and one of them is how they receive their first paycheck. Get it right, and you set the tone for a smooth, professional experience. Get it wrong, and you risk confusion, frustration, and a shaky start.

So, what’s the big deal with payroll? Isn’t it just a routine process? In theory, yes. But in practice, it’s anything but simple and can be time-consuming, especially for hourly teams. First runs are where small mistakes can snowball: missing information, misclassified roles, and incorrect tax setup.

Successful payroll starts long before day one. It’s about having the right systems in place, from collecting forms to tracking hours, so that everything flows naturally from onboarding to payday. 

That’s where Workforce.com can help. It connects onboarding, scheduling, timesheets, and payroll in a single system. It keeps everything in sync so you never have to chase information, avoid duplicate data entry, eliminate costly errors, and dodge any surprises come payday. 

It provides a simple workflow that makes payroll easy for payroll teams and stress-free for new hires. 

Let’s take a closer look at how it works:

Get crucial payroll information before the first day

Smooth payroll management starts with onboarding, which begins before your new hire even clocks in. 

While onboarding often focuses on culture, policies, and setting expectations, the administrative side is just as important, especially when it comes to payroll. This is where you gather key details such as tax documents, bank account info, and employee data and set job classifications and pay rates. If you go about this manually, you’re opening the door to delays, data entry mistakes, and miscalculations when processing payroll. Something as small as a missing form can derail a first paycheck.

Workforce.com makes onboarding fully digital. New hires enter their own employee information directly into the system. No double-entry or unnecessary paperwork. Tax forms, direct deposit details, and personal data all sync instantly with payroll.

If details are missing, managers are alerted and ensure that the required information is lodged before payday or even a new hire’s first day.

Pro tip: Start onboarding as soon as the offer’s signed, not the first day on the job. 

Also read: Creating a Better Onboarding Process for Hourly Staff

Download Free Template: Employee Onboarding Checklist

Set up pay rates and classifications in one place

Misclassification is a significant cause of payroll errors. For new hires, it’s essential that employers set this up correctly the first time.

With Workforce.com, everything lives in one place. You can assign pay rates, overtime rules, and employee classifications in a single system. You can also customize payroll data if needed, especially for more complicated work structures, such as employees taking up shifts at different sites or working two different roles with varying pay rates.

Need to make a change down the line? Update the info in one place, and it’s reflected instantly across schedules and payroll.

In addition, business owners get proactive tools that help catch issues before they become problems and minimize the administrative burden. Workforce.com shows how much each shift will cost as schedules are built, so there are no surprises during payroll processing. If an employee is about to be scheduled overtime, the system flags it immediately, giving you a chance to review it. It also alerts you if a rest break hasn’t been scheduled, helping you avoid compliance issues, additional payouts or violations.

Track accurate employee hours

Payroll mistakes often come from incorrect or incomplete timesheets. It can be tricky, especially if the employee joined in the middle of a pay period.

Workforce.com streamlines time tracking. Employees clock in and out through a mobile app (either on their phones or a device set up in the workplace), and their hours are instantly captured and fed into digital timesheets; no manual data entry is required. Both managers and employees can view and verify timesheets at any time, making it easy to catch and correct discrepancies early.

Also read: What is employee self-service? [Guide]

Missed a clock-in? The system alerts managers in real-time, so they can check in with staff and make quick corrections well before payroll is due. You’ll also get notifications for potential overtime or missed breaks, helping you stay compliant and avoid unplanned costs.

You’ll never have to ask, “Did we get their hours in correctly?” because you know you do. You can spot issues mid-cycle, not the eleventh hour, so payroll runs smoothly.

Automate deductions and tax withholdings with payroll software

Accurate payroll and clear pay breakdowns build trust from day one. But without the right system, deductions can be easily miscalculated, especially with an hourly team. 

Workforce.com’s payroll solution provides automation and takes the guesswork out of managing every type of deduction. Mandatory payroll taxes and withholdings, like federal, state, and local taxes, are automatically applied based on W-4 data collected during onboarding. Pre-tax and post-tax deductions are just as easy to configure. Employees receive automatically generated pay stubs with a clear breakdown of their gross pay, deductions, and take-home pay.

Also read: What are different payroll deductions? Taxes, benefits, and more

Download free template: Payroll Deduction Authorization Form

Pre-approve data and preview pay summaries

Payroll becomes stressful when pay information is inaccurate or when it’s verified too late in the process. Workforce.com helps you stay ahead by reviewing and approving data as it comes in. As shifts wrap up, you can instantly verify timesheets, check for missing logs, and receive alerts for anything that needs your attention so that nothing slips through the cracks. 

You’ll also get a clear, intuitive payroll preview that highlights exactly what’s ready to go and what still needs fixing. Because everything—scheduling, timesheets, pay rates, and deductions—lives in one system, resolving discrepancies is fast and straightforward. No switching between platforms. No chasing down spreadsheets.

Get payroll processing right from day one

The first paycheck isn’t just about getting paid. It’s a crucial moment in the new hire experience. It shows whether your business is organized or not. New employees notice and payroll is one of the clearest indicators of whether you’ve got your systems together. 

That’s why an all-in-one platform matters. Shipley Do-Nuts learned this firsthand when they switched to Workforce.com. Before, they were juggling four separate systems: one for onboarding, another for clock-ins, a third for scheduling, and a fourth for running payroll.

“Integrating all of those together has saved us so much time. It takes me about 95% less time than before, Shelly Archer, Human Resources Manager at Shipley Do-Nuts, shares. 

Want to see how Workforce.com works? Learn more about Shipley Do-Nuts’ success with Workforce.com, or book a demo today.


Posted on

8 proven ways to reduce overtime & labor costs (2025)

painting of a bartender with a large clock behind him

Summary

  • Unnecessary overtime and an increase in labor cost can be caused by several factors, one of which is the lack of an efficient HR and payroll system.

  • Overtime is not inherently bad, but if it becomes excessive, it can affect your bottom line and cause employee burnout.

  • The right software can curb labor cost increases without sacrificing operations and employee satisfaction.

Labor costs and overtime take up a significant portion of business expenses. While extended work hours are occasionally necessary, they can quickly become a burden if they occur too often and strain your finances.

But what causes unnecessary overtime and increase in labor costs? Common culprits include failure to anticipate demand, antiquated HR and workforce management systems, and the lack of real-time operational visibility. These issues not only impact your bottom line but can also harm employee engagement and disrupt work-life balance.

So, how do you reduce labor costs and overtime without sacrificing operations and employee well-being? Here are eight practical ways Workforce.com can help you achieve just that.

1. Forecast labor demand.

An effective cost reduction strategy is to anticipate demand. Sure, no one knows what exactly will happen on the next business day or week, but having an estimate based on relevant data points can give you a good idea of staffing needed per shift. 

Workforce.com can forecast labor demand by analyzing indicators such as weather, foot traffic, historical sales, economic trends, events, holidays, booked appointments, and other relevant factors. With these insights, you can better anticipate demand for a given period, reducing the risks of overstaffing.

Starbucks Australia is one of the organizations that experienced lower labor costs when they started using Workforce.com. Because they have many store locations, anticipating demand was challenging since each store is different. However, with Workforce.com, they can create labor-efficient schedules based on demand up to four weeks in advance, ensuring the right amount of staff is always scheduled for the right number of customers.  

2. Quickly fill vacant shifts due to no-shows or last-minute absences.

No-shows or last-minute absences are inevitable in managing a team, but how they affect your operation and labor costs will depend on how effectively you address them.

When an employee notifies you that they can’t work a shift at the last minute, you must quickly cover the vacant shift. Otherwise, you may need to rely on overtime, driving up labor costs unnecessarily.

Workforce.com equips frontline managers to offer a vacant shift to other qualified team members. Case in point: The Winnipeg Jets. Before using Workforce.com, they had difficulty managing no-shows, especially when they experienced 80 replacements in a week, and there was no centralized way of managing these swaps. Using Workforce.com, managers can offer vacant shifts and fill them quickly, all in one platform, without calls, emails, or texts. 

“With Workforce.com, switching shifts is so much easier. I don’t know anyone who’s not using it,” says Kristin LaCroix, TrueNorth’s Director of Technology Services. “Everyone got on board with it pretty quickly.”

3. See labor costs in real-time when creating schedules.

Staying on top of labor costs means understanding your expenses before they’re incurred. Workforce.com offers that visibility. 

When scheduling or creating shifts, Workforce.com displays wage costs in real time, enabling managers to keep staffing levels aligned with labor budget allocations and customer demand.

“We know for each shift, what its cost is without having to crunch any numbers on a spreadsheet,” says Troy Persad, General Manager at Bridge Control Services. When building schedules, every shift tile displays wage costs, which he uses to optimize shifts according to the budget and crew’s needs.

The same goes for The Winnipeg Jets, “Workforce.com is preparing us to become a little bit more strategic in how we schedule,” shares LaCroix. “It helps us move staff to different times if we see inefficiencies, helping us provide a better experience to our guests.”

Workforce.com plays a massive role in helping you schedule in a way that keeps overtime costs low. Scheduling software tracks work hours and unavailability, automatically suggesting the most cost-effective people for coverage while avoiding unnecessary overtime. It lets you see wage costs for every shift, so you’ll always know how much your business spends on labor in real time.

This kind of automation reduces the overtime errors that come with scheduling via spreadsheets. For instance, Workforce.com will alert managers whenever they try to schedule a shift that will cause an employee to dip into overtime. It also keeps track of maximum work hours and prevents managers from scheduling employees for more than is legally allowed, depending on your state.

4. Track employee hours and overtime down to the minute.

Workforce.com’s time and attendance management software helps you track, manage, and calculate overtime and labor expenses. It alerts your frontline managers whenever an employee hits overtime and automatically records overtime hours and time and a half pay on digital timesheets. These timesheets display scheduled vs. actual hours and labor cost variances, making it easy to pinpoint where and when you are spending too much on overtime.

“There was no real way with our old system to compare variance,” says Kayleen Nemanishen, a configuration analyst for Ranch Ehrlo Society. “With Workforce.com, it’s super apparent – if somebody works 30 minutes longer than scheduled, it shows right on their timesheet.”

More importantly, automated employee time tracking helps you avoid tricky situations where employees claim to have worked more overtime than you have on record. By default, the Department of Labor assumes that the employee is right about the number of overtime hours they worked unless the business owner can provide proof otherwise.

With timesheets recorded daily, you avoid time reporting disputes, protect your business from paying out overtime that was never actually worked, and stay compliant with labor laws. This increases accountability and ensures your overtime tracking is airtight, helping you avoid costly DOL fines and employee lawsuits.

5. Set a labor budget.

Set a cap on an amount or the number of hours you can allocate every day to meet demand for every day, week, or month. This is all about finding the right balance between supporting your employees and improving your bottom line. Setting hard limits on hours worked encourages managers and employees to adapt and become more efficient with navigating overtime. 

On Workforce.com, you can set labor budgets and track schedules and shifts against your set allocation. You can set and plan labor budgets by location or department. Budgets can be shown either in hours or wages.

Of course, setting limits doesn’t disqualify you from paying overtime worked beyond them. The law stipulates that any time over 40 hours has to be paid as overtime. So, if someone has exceeded your overtime budget, ensure you have an accurate way of recording, calculating, and alerting managers to all overtime pay owed. 

6. Offer flexibility with sending schedules in advance.

Flexibility is different for hourly workers. For them, it’s about knowing their shifts well in advance so they can plan other areas of their lives, such as childcare, medical appointments, or PTO. But is scheduling shifts far in advance always productive?

The answer is yes—if done correctly, Workforce.com can help you schedule in advance because it can predict demand and create shifts quickly. You can even create reusable shift templates for consistent schedules, streamlining the process week after week.

Publishing schedules in advance reduces no-shows and last-minute absences and helps control labor costs by minimizing disruptions. Additionally, it ensures compliance with predictive scheduling or Fair Workweek laws in cities where these regulations apply, protecting your business from potential fines.

7. Equip your team with the right labor tracking tools.

Unnecessary labor costs often stem from minor errors or administrative oversights, such as missed log-ins or accidentally scheduling employees beyond their allowed hours. These mistakes are easy to overlook, mainly when relying on manual processes or inefficient systems.

Workforce.com streamline time-consuming administrative tasks and reducing the errors associated with manual input. The Amenity Collective saw a drastic drop in time spent on admin work since implementing Workforce.com in their organization—from 20 hours a week to just 3 hours. 

“With Workforce.com, we’ve been able to reduce the time our staffers spend publishing schedules by 85% – that is a huge efficiency gain for our organization and for our employees,” says Adam Chen, CIO of the Amenity Collective. “What that allows our employees to do is spend more time building stronger relationships.”

Workforce.com offers a real-time view of what’s happening in every shift. It shows who clocked in, who’s running late, and who’s about to go into overtime. HR and operational data can be accessed anytime—no need to wait for month-end reports. 

In addition, Workforce.com has a powerful employee self-service system that enables staff to clock in and out easily, view their work schedules, get notified for open shifts, request leaves, and update their information. These tools lighten the administrative workload and reduce errors and inaccuracies. 

8. Cross-train to bolster your workforce.

If only a few of your team members can carry out specific tasks, you’ll end up in a situation where the same few people get overtime. This can lead to employee turnover , as excessive overtime disrupts work-life balance. At the same time, it can dampen employee morale as staff who aren’t offered overtime opportunities may feel unfairly treated, missing out on the extra pay.

The solution? Conduct cross-training programs for different roles. This way, you can fill vacant shifts with a larger pool of qualified employees. Cross-trained employees not only help you avoid scheduling unnecessary overtime but also allow you to divvy overtime in a fairer manner if needed.

Workforce.com’s performance management system makes this process more efficient. It lets you track employee progress and development, identify their strengths, and provide targeted training to expand their skill sets.

Stay on top of labor costs and overtime with Workforce.com

Running a cost-effective operation starts with the right tools. Manual processes increase the risk of unnecessary overtime costs and waste valuable time on tasks that could be completed in minutes with a more efficient system.

Workforce.com has a comprehensive suite of solutions to help you stay on top of your labor budgets, reduce overtime, and simplify payroll processing. Want to see what else Workforce.com can do for your business? Book a call today.

Posted on

Free overtime calculator

Summary:

  • Overtime refers to any and all hours worked beyond the standard 40-hour work week. According to the FLSA, it should be paid at a rate no less than 1.5x the regular hourly pay rate. – More

  • Only non-exempt employees are eligible for overtime pay – More

  • Miscalculating and underpaying overtime can result in DOL fines lawsuits. Avoid this by using time and attendance software and by running routine audits. – More

Ah, yes, overtime. You probably loved it back in high school working your summer lifeguarding job at the local pool. But flash forward to the present, and it has probably lost some of its luster, becoming more of a necessary evil in your day-to-day business operations.

While it is undoubtedly convenient to have employees stay late or work extra days while short-staffed, this convenience comes at the price of higher labor costs and sensitive calculations.

Luckily, we have a solution for you: the trusty overtime calculator. 

What is overtime?

But wait, let’s back up for a second and clearly define the concept of overtime. 

Overtime refers to any and all hours worked beyond the 40-hour standard work week. According to the DOL, employees “must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay.”

In other words, employees must receive 1.5x their regular hourly wage for working overtime, at minimum. Overtime pay rates vary, however – and herein lies the key difference between overtime and another common term: time and half. 

Overtime vs. time and a half

While overtime is a blanket term referring to the time worked beyond 40 hours in a week, “time and a half” is a specific rate at which overtime pay is calculated. Time and a half is the legal minimum for overtime. 

Overtime pay can also be calculated at higher rates, like double or triple time. Many businesses do this once overtime hours reach a certain threshold, or if the overtime shift occurs during a critical period of the day. 

Who is eligible for overtime? 

Typically, hourly workers who make less than $684 a week, or $35,568 a year, are entitled to minimum wage and overtime protections under the Fair Labor Standard Act. Specifically, they have the right to overtime pay at 1.5x their regular hourly rate. However, the FLSA also deems workers who have limited artistic, scientific, executive, or administrative responsibilities as eligible for overtime as well, regardless of their weekly earnings.

Examples of employees who receive overtime include: 

  • Construction workers
  • Plumbers
  • Mechanics
  • Firefighters
  • Police officers

People who primarily do non-manual work and earn more than $684 a week are generally deemed “exempt” from the FLSA right to overtime. While exempt employees typically hold salaried, white-collar jobs, this is not always the case. 

Read More: Exempt vs. Non-Exempt Employees

How to calculate overtime

In its most basic form, calculating overtime pay is really quite simple. Just take the employee’s regular hourly rate and multiply it by the overtime rate. Then, take the resulting number and multiply it by the number of overtime hours worked. 

For a more in-depth example of how this works, check out our detailed guide to how to calculate time and a half.

For many businesses, computing overtime isn’t always this simple. To get overtime pay right, you first need to determine the regular rate – this becomes much more difficult when dealing with variables like shift differentials, commissions, bonuses, and holidays. One miscalculated bonus or forgotten holiday could throw off an entire overtime computation, landing you in hot water with not only your employee but the U.S. Department of Labor. 

Penalties for getting overtime wrong

Whether intentional or not, miscalculating overtime pay can lead to underpaying your workers – which eventually leads to legal action. 

In 2022, a district court judge in Alabama upheld a $13.2 million lawsuit in favor of some steelworkers. Their employer had not been paying overtime correctly due to the use of a suspect rounding policy that rounded clock-ins and clock-outs down by 30 minutes. 

While the employer of course claimed to be unaware of the mistake, blaming it on their previous lawyer, ignorance is not a valid excuse here. You see, it was found that they had acted in bad faith by not keeping accurate and complete work time records. If they had been keeping complete records, it would have shown they had every intention of following FLSA standards. 

How to avoid overtime lawsuits

The last thing you want is a $13.2 million lawsuit on your hands for making simple computation mistakes. Routine timekeeping miscalculations can add up over the years and result in a significant amount of unpaid overtime that you don’t want on your hands. Here are a couple of the best ways to safeguard against this happening:

Keep accurate and complete wage and hour records

Act in good faith and you’ll have nothing to hide. Keep daily records of hours worked and wages owed so you’ll always have a paper trail to fall back on if the DOL ever comes knocking. 

Also, consider running routine overtime audits. If you catch a mistake, address it quickly before it snowballs into a larger issue. And of course, keep records of these audits to demonstrate a proper intention to abide by FLSA standards. 

For more on this, check out our Q&A with Annette Idalski, a Labor and Employment Trial Attorney and Partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

Q&A: Employers sued for wage and hour violations

Use software to calculate overtime for you

Calculating overtime may be a breeze for one employee, but when you are dealing with hundreds, as well as things like bonuses, vacation hours, and shift differentials, things suddenly become much more tricky.

Overtime needs to be calculated accurately and on time, not just for the sake of your employees, but for the survival of your business. Sure, you can use spreadsheets and phone calculators to figure it all out. But the easier choice is to use dedicated time and attendance software to do the tedious admin work for you. Not only does it automatically track hours of work and compute overtime compensation for you, but it also accounts for any and all overtime laws unique to your region.

A time tracking platform like Workforce.com automatically recognizes when staff go into overtime, quickly flagging and recording these hours alongside regular hours on digital timecards. At the end of the pay period, all you have to do is quickly approve and export these timesheets with a few clicks. Yes, it’s true, paying your employees accurately is that easy. 

If you are ready to get started calculating overtime pay, sign up for a free trial today, or, get in touch with our team.

Or, if you’d like to find out more about how to avoid overtime in the first place, check out our free webinar below:

Webinar: How to lower your overtime hours