Employee time management: reducing labor while increasing information.

What expense makes up the largest percentage of your budget and requires the most labor? And what expense is the most poorly tracked and allocated, the most highly regulated by outside agencies, and the least automated for day-to-day accounting?

There is one single answer: salaries and wages.

Despite this knowledge, few recreation and parks departments have given much thought to harnessing the power of the computer to reduce clerical effort, improve accuracy, restrict employee time abuses, and simultaneously improve management information -- all at tremendous savings in real expense dollars. Employee time management computer application systems are available today which pay for themselves -- often in less than a year. And after the initial investment is recouped, savings are long term.

What Is It and How Does It Save Money?

Employee time management systems coordinate all facets of labor time scheduling; time clock entry; daily, weekly, and pay-petiod reporting; and minute-to-minute control. Work schedules may be pre-determined for up to more than one year in advance by day, week, month, or year. Advance scheduling simultaneously provides labor cost forecasts and warns of potential labor resource shortages.

Wide Array of Information

Employees or their supervisors may record their check-in, check-out, or risk change entry at any workstation using the keyboard or via automated entry devices such as handkey or scanned employee I.D. cards. Roving and remote employees who do not have access to conventional time entry devices may use touch-tone telephones via integrated voice response (IVR) computer components. Job day entry clock-in and clock-out are controlled by the system for early or late and scheduled and nonscheduled access. Time entry devices can be as simple and cheap or as complex and expensive as security and control warrant to prevent misuse of labor dollars.

Employees may be connected to the system via time-clock, workstations, pagers, or even telephone IVR out call notification, in which the computer calls one or more employees and advises them of schedule changes or other information. Employees also may view and print their schedules at any workstation, from their home personal computer via modem, or by computer voice via the IVR system.

The time that was previously spent by supervisors or their assistants to notify staff individually or by conventional memo and mail is eliminated, saving time and money.

Work location employee attendance and shift change information may be displayed dynamically on computer screens and used in real time for determining and managing the number and job type of the employees onsite. Employee tasks, job, and location changes may be pre-scheduled or updated throughout the day as they occur, including interface and update to other integrated computer applications such as Maintenance Management and Work Order Scheduling. When each employee or supervisor performs time entry, he or she essentially performs all the clerical functions necessary to update all related computer applications -- without the cost of additional staff.

Instantaneous, real-time labor costs are available by employee, facility, department, or agencywide. In conjunction with work order scheduling or participant density tracking systems, part-time employee costs can be cut by sending these people home as soon as computer reported requirements permit. Exception monitoring programs watch for management-defined employee violations such as tardiness, absenteeism, early check-in, late check-out, approaching overtime or curfew, and expired certification or licenses. Supervisors may be paged with system generated warning messages to alert them about exceptions. And by preventing early paid check-in, late paid check-out and exceeding overtime limits, departments can reap significant savings every day.

Management Control and Payroll Simplification

Daily, weekly, and periodic reporting provide supervisory and management control and simplify payroll period reporting and record keeping -- replacing time sheets, time clock cards, and manual records. Integrated, automatic updating is available for payroll and other management systems. The exception reporting inherent to each of these update cycles saves clerical and supervisory staff several minutes per day per employee, adding up to more than enough savings to pay for the computer application.

Key employee time management system features include: * Enter time at any workstation or even by phone. * Use any kind of Time Entry Control Devices. * Pre-define employee schedules for planning and control. * On-line employee schedule access control prevents abuse. * Real-time employee attendance tightens cost control. Electronic reporting replaces manual record keeping. * System integrates with payroll, personnel, and other management systems.

What Are the Details?

The employee time management system is defined by the authorized system user through identification of the employees who will be tracked via the system. Any or all employees may be tracked using base information from payroll and personnel systems or entered via stand-alone employee databases. This information includes employee code, name, social security number, personal identification number, salary or hourly code, standard hours, pay rate (s), work location (s), work classification, phone number, and more.

Employee work schedule may be determined optionally through maintenance of projected start, break, lunch, and end times for days, weeks, months, or even a year in advance. Vacations and holidays may be scheduled. Times may be restricted to prevent clocking in during restricted periods, such as overtime or curfews.

Employees access the time management system from any workstation by use of either their employee password, employee I.D. number, or social security number, with optional use of personal identification number for verification. The supervisory user may optionally permit this entry to be performed at specific selected or any workstation, using keyboard input at any menu or at a dedicated application entry screen or by using electronic identification devices such as handkeys or swipe readers with coded I.D. cards. Employees who work in the field, on the road, or at remote locations may be permitted to access the computer via portable or home computers with modems. Computer systems which include touch-tone telephone IVR systems may be set up to accept phone check-in, including computer dial-back for verification of location.

The system controls time entry by verification against the payroll personnel database and optionally against the employee work schedule. Schedules are recommended for added control over non-exempt hourly, part-time, and seasonal employees who can benefit most from time entry abuses and inadvertent or intentional overtime excesses. Inputs include when employees enter to being work, leave and return from breaks and lunch (optional), and when they leave for the day (optionally automatic). Verification using the scheduling system may include restriction of access until scheduled start, restrictions on break and lunch times and frequencies, and restrictions on leave, curfew, and overtime.

Active management functions include real-time reporting of employees onsite, tardy, and absent.

In addition, totals by work classification permit management of employees onsite for specific types. Notification of supervisors may be set up to alert them about employees who should be leaving at specific times due to end of shift or curfew. A variety of additional real-time and summary display functions are available and exception reporting may include electronic mail and instantaneous pager notification.

System Provides Report All Day

The time management system provides reports throughout the day and at the end of each day, week, pay-period, month, quarter, and year. These reports include employee time management system lists, employee time management maintenance, employee schedule, facsimile employee time card, tracking of employees who are tardy or absent, total time/total cost worked, overtime report, employee chronological log, manager chronological log, and supervisor defined exception reports. These reports may be printed for the listed variety of time periods, in detail or summary, and sorted by department and other characteristics.

At the end of a pay period, the department summary time record by employee is electronically signed off by each department head and optionally updated directly into the payroll system time entry program, thereby eliminating clerical entry duties.

The employee time management system reduces scheduling, time clock activities, tabulating, and payroll entry clerical work to their lowest possible levels. The system saves hours of boring, repetitive work and eliminates chances of error. And its flexibility enables it to interface with maintenance management, work order scheduling, and other management systems.

Isn't it time to consider automating your employee time management, stemming your clerical and supervisory labor burden, and controlling employee time abuses?