Agent ELF – Page 19 – Time and Attendance

Remote workers – New EU ruling – the Effects

According to the new EU Ruling, an out of office employee’s working time will now include the hours that person spends travelling to and from their first and last appointments each day. This new development means businesses will now need to implement a system which can accurately track their employees working hours. This will ensure that they are correctly paid and will also help the company to avoid breaking the EU Working Directive.

The European court of justice ruled last week that the time spent travelling to and from appointments, at the start and end of the working day should now be counted as working time. This new ruling applies to workers who have no fixed place of work, for example care workers or sales consultants who travel from home or work in order to attend appointments on behalf of a company.

How does this affect your business?

It is imperative that employees and companies – affected by this ruling – keep accurate information on the time spent travelling each day – to and from their first and last appointments. This will ensure that employees are correctly paid and that legislations such as EU Working Directive is not broken. Businesses, with out-of-office workers, will now need to implement a mechanism which keeps track of the times being worked and the impact of these hours on pay.

Ceequel® clock app

Here at Elf Productivity we understand that this can be a complicated and time consuming task for any organisation. Our time and attendance software is designed to not only simplify the process but revolutionise the way you work. The software can be accessed from any device with data connection meaning your employees can have remote access through a smartphone or tablet. All they need is the Ceequel® clock app available on both Apple and Android devices. The app enables your employees to clock in and out when they leave and arrive home. At the point of clocking, the app not only captures the date and time but also both the longitude and latitude of the device – and records this information real-time within Ceequel® Time & Attendance.

Companies can also request employees to clock-in/out of each appointment or customer site throughout the day accurately collating time spent at each location.

Implementing this system will provide you with a cost effective and simplistic way to keep track of your employee’s hour’s correctly calculating pay and all without putting unnecessary stress on your human resources and payroll teams.

For more information on how Elf Productivity can enhance your business processes, contact us today!

Why Shop Floor Data Capture Is A Necessity For Your Business

Keeping a record of your shop floor production numbers should be a crucial task for all manufacturing organisations. Organisations who don’t have a shop floor data capture system in place risk losing money. This is because these businesses are unable to monitor and identify the weakest points within their production process.

Time is money in the world of business, and that is particularly true when it comes to production on the shop floor. If you have a machine that isn’t producing the numbers you need, then every tick of the clock is taking money out of your pocket. That’s why businesses who are keeping an eye on efficiency make sure that they have a shop floor data capture programme in place.

What is Shop Floor Data Capture?

If you were running a website, you would have some sort of analytics program in place that fed you updates on your numbers: you would know which pages were getting the most views, how long visitors were staying on average, and you’d be able to get instant updates on how your traffic looked. Shop floor data capture performs a similar function, but it captures the numbers on production.

Shop floor data capture is a network of sensors which watch your production values, and which notify you of changes immediately. If, for example, you have a machine that should bottle 60 gallons of milk a minute, but that number drops to 50 per minute, those numbers will immediately be shot to your smartphone or work terminal. Once you know there’s a slow-down, you can track it to see if it’s holding steady, or if it’s getting worse. You can also compare the actual numbers to what you have to produce in order to determine whether the machine needs to be fixed immediately, or if you can wait until the production day is over.

Without shop floor data capture, these warnings often come far too late. With no electronic sensors keeping an eye on the shop floor, you might not know there’s an issue until you’re 200 bottles of milk short, or until there’s a backup in the machinery that leads to a serious problem that can be more expensive to fix. Shop floor data capture is an early warning system, numbers tracker, and data mine all in one, which is why these systems are becoming more popular every day.

For more information on what shop floor data capture can do for your business, simply contact us today!

The Latest Advancement in Keeping Time and Attendance

For many years Employers have been trying to find a way in which they can accurately record and track their employees time and attendance data. Old fashion methods such as mechanical punch cards were often time consuming and resulted in the loss of money for many organisations. Modern day technology has revitalised the way in which companies can now track and record their employees time and attendance data.

Ever since hourly wage was invented, employers have been looking for a reliable, tamper-free way to keep track of what hours each employee worked. Originally, there were simple write-in time cards, and in time those were replaced by mechanical punch cards. These cards made it impossible to simply alter your time, but they also take valuable minutes off of workers’ productivity as one shift lines up to clock out, and the other lines up to clock in. The bigger the crowd, the more minutes are wasted on time clock rigmarole. While technology has advanced, and many businesses have adopted ID cards with swipe-in features, those cards are little more than a computerised version of the punch clock.

Elf Productivity Ltd. has decided to offer businesses a different option, one that’s simple, effective, and which eliminates the shift change bottleneck that older methods create.

Time and Attendance Software

The way our time and attendance software works is that employees log in to your business’ network, and sign in from their own devices. This means that any connection capable device, from a workstation to a smartphone, will allow an employee to clock in. There’s no wasted time standing around a clock, and even better, there’s no need to buy a peripheral device for employees to “clock in” with at all. Not only that, but this software makes it possible for employees to work from home or in the field without losing track of how many hours they’ve been on the clock.

It’s simple, straightforward, and best of all, it’s only one of dozens of features that will help streamline your business’ network. If you’d like to know more about the features we offer, simply contact us today!

Is it Time for your Business to seek additional help for its Human Resource Operations?

In this day and age many businesses outsource at least a few of their business processes, the most common being their human resource functions. This is often because businesses feel that the outsourced company can provide them with a higher level of expertise.

When you are evaluating which business functions should be outsourced, you should ask yourself if you can get the same results when you hire someone internally to do the job. If you do not think you can get the same level of expertise, you may want to consider outsourcing. Today, you will find that many businesses outsource at least a few of their human resources functions. Even the companies who have a department filled with quality HR professionals are likely to outsource at least one of their human resources functions.

Every company will give you different reasons on how they knew when to seek help with their human resource operations. However, you will find that many of their answers will have common explanations.

Lower Costs

Businesses are always looking for ways to cut down on expenses. One of the largest expenses that a business can have is the salaries of the staff, but as expensive as this may be, if there are no employees, then the business cannot operate. Businesses want to find solutions that are affordable, but still allow their business to continue flowing smoothly; one of the best solutions is to outsource human resources.

Minimising Mistakes

UK Labour Law enforces many regulations, these regulations have an impact on millions of employers and employees every single day. When you combine those regulations with other laws and regulations, it can definitely cause plenty of headaches for professionals to ensure the company is following all the rules. By outsourcing your HR functions, you will have help in understanding the laws and regulations that must be followed.

It does not matter if your business is looking for a complete solution or if you just need a solution that will supplement the processes you already have, outsourcing your human resources functions will be sure to lower your expenses, minimise the mistakes, and improve your business’ overall production.

If you want to take better care of your business and your employees, contact us for additional information.

Access Control should be your Number One Priority

Access Control is a vital part of any organisation. If a business doesn’t have an access control system in place then potentially your property and sensitive information is at risk. Securing your sensitive data decreases this risk and also protects your employees and visitors.

Access control is one of the biggest buzz words in business right now, and for good reason. Why, you ask? Well, you wouldn’t give the brand new cashier the combination to the CEO’s personal safe, would you? Of course not, because the cashier doesn’t need that kind of access to do his or her job. The reality, though, is that when your business runs on an unsecured network where there aren’t enough safety measures taken there is nothing to stop employees on the shop floor from getting access to information they don’t need, and probably shouldn’t have. Performance reviews, personal information, company meeting minutes, client information, and so on, are all at risk.

The fewer people who have access to sensitive data, the smaller the chances are that someone may mess it up. And if something does happen, there’s a very small pool to draw from regarding who is responsible for it.

Access Control For The Modern Business

Just because you’re not a computer wizard, that doesn’t mean you can’t put reasonable, simple controls on your business’ network. Elf Productivity Ltd. has designed a simple software suite that lets anyone maintain their controls, keeping sensitive information in a place where only those who need it can get to it. In addition to access control features, though, this software also comes with a built-in time clock, employee self-service features, and it’s user-friendly. It’s meant to work with any business at any level, so regardless of whether you’re a sprawling multi-national corporation, or just a local store hoping to expand, this software will help you achieve your goals.

If you’d like more information on how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help your business achieve more, then simply contact us to find out about all the options we offer you.

Employee Self-Service puts the Power back in your Employees’ hands

For many years now the updating of employee data has been a task for your human recourse department. Modern day software such as employee self-service now makes it possible for your employees to manage and update their own personal data. It’s simplistic to use and works by providing each individual employee with their own web based profile that they can sign into.

The more people you employ, the harder it is to keep track of everyone; even a mid-sized enterprise of a hundred people or so is going to experience constant change as people get married, divorced, change banks, move to new addresses, and make a thousand other little adjustments from one year to the next. In the past, keeping up on all these changes was the Human Resources department’s job. Thanks to advances in software, though, you can implement employee self-service.

What is Employee Self-Service?

Employee self-service is when you put the responsibility of tracking employee information back in the hands of your employees. Rather than filling out forms, handing those forms to Human Resources, and then having them input the changes, why not cut out the middle man and let your employees fix their own details?

It sounds like a revolutionary idea, but in a world where Facebook is old hat, and social media has altered the way software works forever, it’s actually quite simple. Every employee has his or her own company profile, and when that information is changed it goes right into the system. There’s no need to fill out any paperwork, and no need to waste time by stacking a task onto someone else’s shoulders (especially a task that can be completed in minutes).

Employee self-service does more than save time and money, though. It lets employees take control of their own information, and it gives them the ability to do tasks for themselves. This simplifies your infrastructure, and it means that more people can spend more energy on the job at hand instead of on making sure you have their updated direct deposit, married name, new address, or any other details.

For more information on how we can help your business, simply contact us today!

Shop Floor Data Capture gives you Instant Access to Data you need

Making sure your company constantly hits its production targets is crucial if you want to remain in business. That’s why the implementation of a shop floor data capture system is imperative. Having accurate information to hand on production numbers during every part of the process allows you to identify where and when you’ve fallen short.

Numbers make the world go round, and they can be a matter of life or death for your business. If you need to fill orders, but find out too late that you haven’t completed enough of the product, then you’re in serious trouble. That’s why it’s important to get regular updates on your numbers by using shop floor data capture to keep tabs.

What is Shop Floor Data Capture?

The simple answer is that shop floor data capture is when you use sensors and computers to keep track of your production numbers. Say you were making lengths of pipe, under normal circumstances your machinery can produce 100 lengths in an hour, but due to a worn-out gasket that needs to be replaced you only produce 95 an hour. That isn’t a problem in the short-run, but over days and weeks that means you’re producing a lot fewer pieces of pipe than you thought. Shop floor data capture would notify you of the slower production, and you’d be able to fix the problem in time to keep your orders filled.

Shop floor data capture gives you instant updates on your numbers, making sure that if there’s a discrepancy between what you think you’re producing, and what you’re actually producing, then you can catch it quickly enough to fix the problem. Shop floor data capture keeps you up to date, and it ensures that you know exactly where you are in minutes rather than in hours or days.

For more information on how shop floor data capture can help your business succeed, simply contact us today!

Accurate Time and Attendance: Never Experience A Problem Again

Recording your individual employees accurate working hours on a day to day basis is often a difficult task. The information recorded has to be precise in order to avoid paying your employees the wrong amount. A simplistic way to record this data is through the implementation of a time and attendance system.

Paying workers for their time on the clock is a tradition that’s gone on for generations. While the system is fine in theory, there have always been problems presented by the time clock. Perhaps the biggest is creating a simple system that everyone can use, and which doesn’t take five minutes for the previous shift to clock out, and another five minutes for the next shift to clock in.

In order to make sure every worker gets paid for their time accurately, Elf Productivity Ltd. created a better system.

The Future of Time and Attendance

What Elf Productivity Ltd. did was create a digital time clock that every employee can access with ease from any device that’s signed into your company’s network. There’s no need to stand in a back hallway in a single file line, because everyone can sign in using their employee identification numbers and passwords. Everyone can do it at 9 on the dot if that’s when the shift starts, and work can get started immediately.

Even better, if there are mistakes in the amount of time someone worked (say that they forgot to clock out, or had computer issues and couldn’t clock in), then those mistakes can be fixed with a few strokes of a keyboard. There’s no need to get a new paper time card and re-punch it, or to make a mark with a pen showing the time you really clocked in or out. As far as your business is concerned actual, physical time cards should be as relevant to your day-to-day operations as stone tablets thanks to Elf Productivity Ltd.

For more information on how our fully integrated software suite can help make your business more efficient, simply contact us today!

The Access Control of the Future

Choosing the right method to keep your information secure can be a difficult task for any organisation and with so many to choose from the task can often seem like an impossible one. Not securing your data however is out of the question as unsecured data can be accessed by anyone, thus increasing the risk of sensitive information landing in the wrong hands.

Access control is one of the oldest business practices known to mankind. The earliest developments involved guards and bars, but as technology advanced we invented everything from lock boxes to secret panels. In today’s digital world, we have access to more methods of access control than ever before, but the sheer variety of options can sometimes seem like a burden. After all, how do you choose the right lock to keep your business safe?

Flexible Digital Access Control

This is a question that Elf Productivity Ltd. has pondered over quite a bit, and the answer it created is both simple, and elegant. That answer is a software suite that integrates every function a business needs to get through the day, but which is simple enough that even those who don’t consider themselves tech savvy can use with little instruction.

So what does it do? Well, a little of everything. This particular software suite has an integrated time clock, for example, and it also provides different levels of accessibility depending on an individual’s clearance. A standard employee can sign into his or her account, clock in, and access all of the programs needed to do the day’s work. Employees can even access their personal information, changing it as needed in the event that they have a name change, move, or make any other alterations. At the same time, though, the system makes sure that only people with clearance can access employee write-ups, look at work history, or gain access to financial data.

In short, the software provides a flexible system that will handle anything your business can throw at it, while at the same time making sure you can lock any digital doors you need to. For more information on this software suite, and how it can help your business, simply contact us today!

3 Tips for a Successful Time and Attendance Policy

Creating a successful time and attendance policy is crucial for any organisation. Without having one in place employees are able to do as they please. As a business it is important to know if any of your employees are breaching your company policies. A simplistic way of doing this is by implementing a system which will record each of your employees time and attendance data.

Reliability and timeliness is one of the most important qualities that can make up any employee. Employers need to know that the employees who are running their business plan to show up on time and are ready to work when they arrive. For this reason, setting up a Time and Attendance policy is crucial. Here are three tips that will help any business create the best policy possible.

Expectations

The best thing that you can do when you are setting up guidelines for your employees is to communicate with them. For example, if you need to be certain that your staff will be in the office for a particular period of time each day, communicate this information with them. To determine this, look at the culture of your field of business. Seeing how other businesses in your field operate can help you determine what is acceptable.

Discipline: Stick With It

When you are creating your company handbook, the discipline policy will need to be included. This will ensure that employees are aware of the rules. You will also need to explain what the disciplinary procedures are if these rules are violated. Also, discipline should be consistent when the policy is broken.

Set an Example

Employees are more likely to follow a policy when they see the leaders in the company following the same policy. This means that leaders should always follow the same rules that they have in place for their employees in regards to time and attendance.

Setting up a system for your time and attendance policy is also an important process. Ensure that employees are able to clock in and out with ease by selecting a reliable system. Contact us to learn more about the benefits that we offer for your time and attendance needs.