Pitfalls in the Hiring Process

Hiring is the most important function for any business, and if it is not done correctly your firm could end up wasting thousands of dollars and valuable time. People who punch a time clock make the company work, so it is worth your time as a manager to avoid the most common errors that plague the personnel process.

Time clocks are great for measuring hours worked, but when it comes to hiring, it is quite difficult to measure human qualities that match a specific job opening. Quality is not as clear-cut as quantity. These days, nearly every company uses its website to screen job seekers. Be careful not to overdo the use of the internet, as you might just end up with too many candidates. If you are not set up to interview dozens of people for a given position, then go easy on the recruitment efforts, especially online. Too many personnel managers overestimate the ability of the internet to bring in job seekers. So be careful what you wish for, as the old saying goes.

Many studies have pointed to the fact that well over 70 percent of all managerial hires are found through personal contacts. That’s why it is wise to spend a few days each month keeping up your face-to-face contacts, attending trade shows, and speaking with others in your field of endeavor. Never rely solely on impersonal job forum listings unless you are trying to gather together a large number of candidates for a mass screening.

Never, the experts tell us, rely on your gut to make a final decision about a candidate. This can lead to a really disastrous situation, where a hire drains significant resources during a training period, which ultimately goes to waste. Hiring based upon charisma, personality, or looks is an accident waiting to happen. Better to use quantifiable parameters to measure skills, interests, and background experience.

In addition, before you bring in that new person, who will eventually be punching the company time clock, have a specialist do some of the interviewing. That way, a person who truly knows what the job requires will get a chance to sit down with the applicant and get a feel for his or her abilities. Time clocks are a great way to measure hours, but sometimes it takes a professional, even a specialist, to ferret out the best job candidates for a particularly demanding position. Avoid the pitfalls of the hiring process, and you will have a healthy company.

The Power of Praise

When it comes to motivating employees, praise is a great way to do just that. Positive reinforcement works much better than negatively pointing out mistakes and it’s been shown that employees respond better to earning perks rather than having items taken away – much as children and your pets do. To have a team that truly performs, rather than one that simply comes in and punches the time clock, you need to foster a positive working environment.

Research has shown that organizations will see an increase in employee productivity and even in sales if employees are offered praise and a sense of personal fulfillment. Employee recognition programs are also great motivators when it comes to increasing productivity and job satisfaction. When you’re putting an employee recognition program in place, look for buy in from them and make the program have a specific start and end time. Consider posting results on a board in a central location so that employees can track their progress.

Praise and recognition should be offered for truly achievable and measurable results in order to be meaningful. Simply handing out “gold stars” to employees can be de-motivating if the results they are expected to achieve are easy to achieve. Make the results earned worth the recognition received. Your employee recognition programs could be as simple as naming names in the employee company wide newsletter to small gift certificates or a good parking space or even a floating day off.

Having a specific goal for employees to reach – whether through an interoffice competition or by reaching specific sales numbers or goals or even having a team with the least amount of employee sick days punched in on the time clock - are items to consider. Choose the goals that make the most sense with your department or organization that will be worthwhile to the employee that receives it.

Walking through the office handing out “atta boys” may be the way you handle employee recognition but if you’re not seeing the results you’re hoping for, you might need to change your employee recognition methods. Why not ask your employees for suggestions on what they see as valuable ways of being recognized. Their idea of praise and rewards might be different from yours and would help make the recognition program be something they would strive to achieve. If your organization doesn’t work to single out employees, consider hosting a recognition lunch for a department that achieves results over and above a department in another part of the company.

How a Time Clock Can Improve Payroll Accuracy

If your company uses a time clock system to record hours worked, you probably already know how prone the system is to error. Because the time clock does just one thing, the data collected from the system is liable to be entered incorrectly, mislabeled, entered twice, listed for the wrong employee, or any number of other mistakes. You get the idea. For their own purposes, time clocks do a great job, but they are very limited in their function. As a result, the mentioned mistakes, along with countless others, are waiting to befall to the manager who does not use time clock software.

Time clock software immediately eliminates the typical errors that crop up with all measurement systems. For one thing, software will automatically include paid time off, which a time clock will not do. By using an automated system that includes time clock software, you can easily apply the paid time off hours to any worker’s paycheck. Not only will your employees be happy to get accurate checks, you will be free to perform other managerial tasks that often are postponed due to “payroll time.”

Rounding errors are the bugaboo of payroll, and have been for over a hundred years. In the old days, this category of mistake was the most common paycheck error, and accounted for many managerial hours spent trying to correct the problem. Whether you are skilled or not with mathematics, rounding takes time, and time clocks cannot do it. Software does the chore automatically and accurately.

One of the other common errors in the world of time clock payroll accounting has to do with duplicate entries. If you manually enter data of any kind, you know all too well how this occurs. The reason is human fatigue and inattention. The numerical version of a typographical error, duplicate entry causes a cascade of errors in payroll reports. Because payroll software instantly eliminates this error, you can say goodbye to the nightmares of finding and correcting mysterious duplicate entry errors.

The time clock is a wonderful invention, and has allowed small and large businesses to measure something that used to be utterly time consuming and frustrating. By centralizing the chore of recording and stamping total hours on an individual card for every employee, the time clock truly revolutionized the industrial revolution. Today’s time clock software is just as important as that long-ago invention, providing yet another leap ahead in the world of business technology.

Why Integrate Time Clocks With Payroll

When you’re in the midst of calculating your employee payroll do you ever step back and take the time to determine just how much it is costing you to have your human resources department calculate the payroll? If you’re looking for a way to save money on payroll and enhance not only your efficiency but accuracy of the payroll calculations you should look to integrate time clocks with your payroll department. Time clocks make payroll calculations quick and easy for all involved and make the payroll process more systematic. Consider an automated payroll system with time clocks to take the guesswork and errors out of payroll duties.

Integrating your time tracking software into your payroll processing system frees up valuable employee time on payroll duties. When you decide to use an integrated time clock and payroll system you also allow your employees the peace of mind of knowing that there will not be errors in the paychecks. Automated time clocks also offer employees access to their time sheets so they can not only look and see the number of hours they’ve worked but they can also track their accumulated days off and vacation time used.

Another time and money saver with an integrated time clock is the idea that you will not only save the time and money on having to buy and maintain the time clock but you will also save money on purchasing the physical time cards themselves. Keep in mind that a company has to store all time records for up to seven years and you can see that if you have a lot of employees, the storage of time cards could be an issue as well.

Here are other reasons for using an integrated time clock system is that you no longer need to manually input time cards and time worked – this is also problematic for companies that have off site employees and work from home staff. No longer will you have to worry about inaccuracies in your employees “clocking in or clocking out” for other employees. With integrated time clocks your employees have a unique log in and this prevents inaccuracies in employees punching someone elses time card.

When it comes time to performing the payroll task it is almost as simple as punching a few numbers and pulling all of the employee information into the integrated time clock system and running the payroll for the time period specified.

Steps To Hiring Quality Employees

Hiring employees is a skill and an art. As an employer you need to ask some basic questions and here are some to consider: What skills do you bring to the table? Do you feel your training meshes with what we’re looking for? Are you committed to a long term working relationship? What are your salary and benefit expectations? Carefully screen employees and to assure you don’t have to keep hiring as it is a pricey proposition for any company. There is no magic cure for hiring but as a business owner you probably have good instincts and you should let that carry you through the hiring process.

You need to hire employee that have the best skills but you need to be able to afford their payroll. The art of hiring is more than having bodies to punch a time clock. Keeping payroll as little of a variable as possible is a goal of business owners – you need to make payroll regardless of the ebb and flow of receivables. It’s a difficult balancing act.

Company owners need to focus on long term hiring goals. Don’t hire out of panic because you have a sudden influx of work. It’s a more efficient business model to hire employees that will stay long term – unless you have a purely seasonal business model. Ask potential employees their long term goals for employment and what skills they bring to the position. 

Track customer trends and business income and expenses and look at the work flow of your current staff. Turn to them for input on whether they’d like to take on additional roles at the company and whether they may have hidden talents you’d never considered tapping into. You may find you have employees with skills you’d not utilized and their skills could help get you through without needing to hire.

The idea of hiring employees and having an additional person punching the time clock is something that strikes fear into the hearts of many a business owner. It is something that you need to look at seriously and also find a new employee who has the personality to fit in with your company culture. While you can’t learn everything about an employee in the brief span of an interview, you can certainly get a feeling for how they may fit. If you have a very rigid business structure or a very laid back one, see how the potential employee interacts with you and if you feel they will be a good fit with the rest of your staff.

Reasons to use Web-Based Time Clock Technology

The newest workplace technology taking hold are web based time clocks because they offer a great alternative to traditional time clocks that require manual addition of hours and days worked. Many companies are using web based time clocks instead of paper time sheets as well. It’s been shown that web based time clocks have become one of the favored technologies for tracking attendance and time worked as well as employee productivity, and can be used for on-site or off-site employees.

To access the web based time clock, all your employees need is access to a computer, a user name, and a pass code to enter their information into the system. The technology is great for those employees who work remotely and make it easier for the employer to track those employees and their hours. Giving employees access to the time clock from any location relieves stress and commuting time because they don’t have to worry about not getting paid for the hours they’ve worked. The web based time clock calculates hours and helps eliminate human error that occurs when adding up hours worked. This can translate to money savings on the company’s bottom line.

Maximizing productivity and reducing operating costs is something any employer can embrace. There will certainly be an upfront cost for the web based time clock but you’ll find it will pay for itself in money and time savings. When you consider that web based time clocks calculate sick, vacation, comp time and other days off, you will free up hours in your human resources department.

Employees embrace the technology because it allows them to see their hours as they progress through the week. It also tracks vacation and sick time so they don’t have to check with the HR department to see if they have time left for vacations or sick time. Web based time clocks reduce workplace stress and this leads to higher productivity.

Your web based time clock can be configured to show employee requests for time off, vacations, or planned sick leave and you can track it in the system. The employer can also show the calendar so employees know what spots are open for time off. You should consider a web based time clock for your workplace when you’re putting together your wish list for new items in the budget year. Your employees will thank you and so will your bottom line.

Types Of Time Clocks and Time and Attendance Software

In today’s complicated business environment, every owner is looking for a way to track employee hours and other payroll data in a fast and efficient way. Some firms use a time clock system, while others prefer a computerized logging application. Regardless, the system should be intuitive for all users, and should be easy to operate. The key thing to remember is that time clock software is supposed to reduce your processing time for the relevant data. If it does not do that, then the system is not effective. Make sure any system you purchase is able to handle hours worked, as well as accrued vacation time, days off, sick days, holidays, and bonus hours. There are dozens of reputable firms that sell various kinds of time clock software at all price levels. Carefully assess your own situation before committing to a specific brand of time clock software.

One reason for having time clock software is to prevent time theft by employees. Comprehensive, mechanized time and attendance software systems can eliminate almost all cases of time theft. Recent studies have pointed out that in the U.S. alone, each worker wastes five minutes of company time per day, on average. At first sight, that does not seem like a terribly significant number. However, for large firms, the time loss comes out to millions of dollars in expense per year.

A quality time clock software program is the best way to face the current national crisis of time theft. Even though much time theft is intentional, a proper system can prevent it. One way the automated systems deter theft is by cracking down on bogus overtime figures. Nearly every time clock software product can go a long way toward eradicating employee time theft. If for no other reason, every business should have some type of automated time clock method up and running. Otherwise, a firm risks losing several millions of dollars per year in earned revenue.

The time clock software rounds data in such a way as to preclude theft. It also sets specific limits on the amount of overtime that can be posted to any account. On top of that, the systems prevent buddy-punching, which is a major source of employee theft.

Finally, every worthwhile time clock program should have a simple interface, so that your company can easily exchange data with your payroll provider. By implementing an effective time clock software protocol, your company will be well on its way to accurate information management.