The honest answer is perhaps equally as lame: “It depends.”
It depends on how many show up to the job (on time, or ever!); how many substitutes you can successfully reach via phone, email or text; how many are already over on their allowable hours; and how many are actually trained and qualified to clean that space! All the variables make scheduling inefficient and frustrating to coordinate.
Don’t let your employee management process become a punchline. Consider implementing timekeeping and scheduling software.
Timekeeping Accuracy Is No Laughing Matter
With a booming business, you have matters to tend to 24/7. Eventually, the little things can start to slip through the cracks and before you know it, your expenses are creeping higher and higher. They may not be noticeable at first, but eventually, you’ll regret not having paid attention to the functions of your business that are now costing you much more than they should!
One common area where this happens is in timekeeping and scheduling.
When you depend on paper-based schedules and timekeeping logs for your employees, you know in the back of your mind that there are a few inaccuracies and inefficiencies happening, including:
- Gaming the clock to gain more hours
- Taking advantage of time rounding rules
- “Proxy attendance”
- Late starts and early finishes
- Time wasted having to correct payroll errors
- Unnecessary overtime pay garnered by slowing work pace
- A dishonored honor system
All of these issues lead to payroll inflation and can add up to a significant loss of money from your bottom line each year.
In fact, according to global recruitment firm Robert Half and Associates, the average employee overreports (i.e. steals) approximately 4.5 hours each week. By the end of the year, this comes out to nearly six full work weeks of unworked overpay per year! The American Society of Employers reports that 20% of every dollar earned by a U.S. company is lost to employee theft, which includes timekeeping fraud.
The Benefits of Implementing Automated Time Keeping
When you consider the amount of time and money you can save by utilizing a janitorial software with timekeeping and scheduling features, you realize that timekeeping is no joke! Having an efficient, dependable system in place to support your efforts and to keep everyone on the same page will simplify and streamline your business in a number of ways.
Protect Your Business Against Inaccurate Claims
Ensure you have a complete picture of what is happening, when it’s happening, and who is making it happen every day. This is necessary information, as it helps protect your company against employment claims. According to the Department of Labor, without accurate and dependable employment records, you could spend upwards of $30,000 in back wages, legal fees and damages per claim brought against you.
Keep an Eye on Real-Time Data
Using an automated timekeeping and scheduling software allows you to accurately track clock-ins, clock-outs, time spent on the clock and required breaks. Easily customize reports in your software to provide dashboard reports that can analyze trends, indicate issues and offer insights into each employee’s time spent on the job.
Increase Your Efficiency
Save Time Doing Paperwork
Reduce administration time spent dealing with exceptions, documenting information from paper timesheets and transferring correct time calculations to accurate payroll. Janitorial management software integrated with smart features like Chronotek help streamline and speed up the HR component of your business, which saves you money!
Smile While You Schedule
By using an automated scheduling system, you can take much of the stress and strain out of the process of ensuring the right employees are in the right places at the right times. Create employee profiles that indicate the accounts they’re authorized to work. Track overtime hours. Oversee the level of training completed. See who is available to be dropped into the schedule. Send automatic alerts to employees when they are scheduled and when their schedule has changed.
Regain Control with Time Keeping Software
If you fear that you’re overcompensating, overstaffing, and thus, overpaying your employees due to a lack of visibility of efficient timekeeping and scheduling, it’s time to consider automating those processes. Achieve accountability and eliminate errors that damage your bottom line, your business’s reputation and your sleep at night!
You don’t want your business practices to become a punchline. Learn more about affordable time keeping and scheduling software from the experts at Janitorial Manager today!