Could you Reduce your Company’s Absences?

Finding ways in which to save money is crucial for any business. Yet many organisations are unaware of just how much employee absences are costing them. A recent study completed by XpertHR looked at absence rates and costs within UK businesses and uncovered which regions had the highest and lowest rates.

High absence rates cost money, don’t believe me? Check out this infographic we have created around a recent survey done by XpertHR on absence rates within the UK and the impact they have on business costs. If you would like to know more about how you can reduce your company’s absence rates, whilst saving yourself time and money, Contact us today!

Abcence Infographic

Linking Human Resource Management with Ceequel Time and Attendance

Managing your businesses human resource department is often a timely job. This is due to the extensive number of things HR have to complete on a day by day basis as well as also making sure they abide by certain processes. Implementing an easy to use time and attendance system into your business can help simplify the way in HR processes are completed.

HR

Managing your human resource department can often be a time-hungry job for many organisations.  Often because many HR departments have a high number of tasks to be completed at one time and each task has to follow processes – often with legal implications.

Introducing an easy to use time and attendance system (incorporating HR) can help simplify the way in which some of these tasks are undertaken and provides one centralised solution that can be accessible to all departments within your business.

Our time and attendance system acts as one central database, and contains all data and records information to effectively and efficiently manage your employee’s.  As Ceequel® (Elf’s Time and Attendance/ HR Software Suite) co exists on one core database, managing the life of an employee whilst employed by your company, becomes a much simplified responsibility.  Information is shared real-time to all modules and having one single database removes the need for double keying and thee possibility of your business having duplicate data within the system.

Employee clocking times are automatically stored within the database and absence codes can be configured to help the system recognise the reasoning behind any missed clocking’s. This information is visible to all departments including HR and payroll – ensuring that wage information is correct at the time of processing.

Your line managers have the ability to view all planned absences including training days – for all their direct reports – providing them the ability to manage staffing levels and ensure that productivity of their department remains within business parameters.

With the use of shift patterns, rosters and rotations – your system can be configured to recognise working days and rest days – whilst accurately calculating absences.  The system can then report on these absences to support your policies – such as Bradford Factor.

Exceptions can also be customised to suit your business rules and can cope with even the most complex of shift patterns.  Our time and attendance system even provides you with the ability to report nightshift hours on the same day and allows you to setup true flexitime.

The Mail merge facility within the Human Resource module of Elf’s Ceequel® Software Suite – allows you to filter your employees by any data you hold within the system – this may include; true age, cost centre, length of service, holiday entitlement, or any other field stored.  Once employees have been identified by the system a letter or document can be automatically merged with each employee’s details and then printed and/or stored against an individual’s record.

Letter templates including, offer letters, contracts of employments, pension auto-enrolment etc can also be stored for future use.

For more information about how we could help you simplify your HR department’s day to day business processes, contact us today!

 

Time and Attendance with Employee Self Service

Businesses are always looking for new modern day technologies that will help them with their every day processes. Here at Elf Productivity we have developed a reliable technological solution that’s not only cost effective but can help increase the productivity of your workforce. We offer a wide variety of software suites that integrate into one main easy to use system.

Employee Self Service

Companies are always searching for ways to make their investment in technology work better for them. They want to use technology to increase their production levels, ultimately saving on both time and costs. Ideally increasing sales and revenue which is the goal of every company.  But they are also looking to use technology in such a way that would benefit their employees as well.

At Elf Productivity Limited, we provide the technological solutions that companies seek. Our time management and attendance systems offer choices that are reliable and cost effective. Not only do we provide advanced and dynamic time and attendance systems to our clients, we also provide consultancy and guidance through our extensive industry knowledge.

Our Employee Self Service Module

One of the solutions (using leading web technology) is the Employee Self Service module with Time and Attendance. This browser based solution allows employees to have access to their own work records. It supports employees in gaining more confidence, knowledge and acts as a way of motivating them to become more productive in their role. The fact that they can access their records whenever they want makes them feel more in control and empowered. From an IT department perspective – there is very little IT footprint.

Employees can have access to their data through a number of ways. They can use their own computer or tablet to view their data, or they can see it through a touch screen terminal or central kiosk. Companies also have the option of linking it to their existing LAN, WAN, and/or Intranet.  Being browser based enables employees to gain access to their Self-Service portal from the comfort of their own homes.

Some of the benefits your employees can expect from this efficient employee self-service solution, include –

  • Employees have visibility of their teams schedule prior to booking an absence, such as Holiday, Time off in Lieu (TOIL), Doctors etc.  This can be seen through the Holidays/Absence screen which shows the details of previous, current, and the next holiday years.
  • It is now even easier for employees to monitor the total number of hours they have worked – including overtime. Visibility on a week by week basis, makes it easier for them to see when absences have occurred.  It enables people to compute their salaries, view their total hours, lost hours and overtime etc.
  • Employers can devolve the upkeep of employee personal details – to the employee.  This may include contact details, bank details, next of kin and emergency contact.  The employer sets the level of editing permissions within Time and Attendance and can be administered down to employee level.
  • Providing an employee with visibility of their basic hours, flexi-time bank, overtime, paid and unpaid absences maintains the transparency between employee and employer. Employees can freely interact with management through the overview screen and provide detailed explanations and/or reasons for lateness or absences.
  • Multi-media access to Employee Self-Service supports your environment, including – Username/Password, Biometric and Proximity card/fob.

Elf Productivity Limited has (over the years) combined extensive industry knowledge and expertise in creating one of the most sophisticated and dynamic time management software suites available.  Because of this – Elf Productivity Limited is now seen as one of the industry leaders not just in the UK but world-wide.  For more information on our Employee Self Service or other Software Modules, please feel free to contact us or visit our website.

Time & Attendance-Data Collection made easy by ELF Productivity

Elf Productivity Ltd understands the needs of every business and we thrive on helping you achieve your ideal set up. We listen to your business needs and use our industry expertise to help you choose the correct terminal for your working environment. We offer a wide variety of terminals that interact seamlessly with our time and attendance suite.

Time & Attendance System

Every working environment is different some more than others meaning the collection of your employees time and attendance data can be a difficult task to handle for many organisations.

Here at Elf Productivity we understand the needs of every business and provide our customers with a clocking terminal that suits their environment and requirements.  Each terminal has the capability to communicate in real time meaning your employees clocked status (in or out) is updated within Ceequel time and attendance in only a few seconds.  The way in which your employee’s clock in and out can be fulfilled by various methods and is often decided by the way in which your organisation works.

Terminals are capable of communicating with each other in many ways meaning all employee data is up-to-date and available to access from any location. The most common way in which terminals communicate is via TCP/IP it is possible however to set them up so that they can work via Wi-Fi , GPRS,VPN and also 3G n 4G networks.

Terminal types and industry

Elf productivity specialises in several different types of terminals. Each terminal can be customised to your working environment and set up with your chosen method of clocking.  Making sure your organisation has the correct terminal for your industry is of the up most importance to us. This is why we listen to your company needs and use our past experiences to suggest not only the most suitable terminals but also the most cost effective for your organisation.

Low cost terminals

Low cost terminals are ideal for companies within the office, clerical or admin profession who have simple clocking requirements. Elf’s iclock can be configured to display messages upon clocking or even be configured to display time and attendance data upon selecting a function key such as, number of remaining holidays, hours worked, overtime or flexi balance.

Mid-range terminals

Typically deployed in warehousing and distribution, these units are can also be utilised with hand held barcode readers for a low cost shop floor data capture solution. These hand held readers will help simplify the scanning of job sheets saving your shop floor managers time and money.

 

Touch screen industrial terminals

Touch screen data terminals utilise both Windows or Linux technology and are available with either a barcode, proximity or finger print reader. These terminals will allow your employees to access their personal records such as a graphical holiday screen, clock card times and also allows them to see who the first aider is within their department.

The main benefit of having a touch screen terminal is that it integrates well with shop floor data capture. Ceequel can be integrated with the vast majority of ERP systems allowing for live jobs and activities to be automatically uploaded in real-time, as well as select relevant operations and include information on quantity produced, scrapped and any downtime reasons. These terminals can also be used to view safety protocols ensuring all employees are up to date with current procedures and have accepted all changes to critical documents.

The front end screens on a touch screen terminal can be designed around your company’s individual requirements. This ensures that all data collected within your organisation can be streamlined in the relevant way.

Touch screen tablets

Elf’s software suite can be accessed of any device meaning it is possible for companies to set up industry standard tablets. This makes it possible for line managers to allocate jobs/activates and locations to their employees from out of the office and provides a way for employees to view their daily tasks without having to make numerous trips to the clock.

Biometric Terminals

The day and age of card based time and attendance is officially over and many companies have now chosen to implement biometric terminals in order to keep up with technology.  At ELF we provide a choice of Biometric options including fingerprint, vein, face or hand recognition.

Access control hardware

Here at elf productivity we sell a large range of access control hardware. All access control systems are IP based meaning all data and media can be quickly passed through to the Ceequel time & attendance suite. Access control systems can be accessible via proximity card, fob or fingerprint

If you’re looking to implement a simplistic time and attendance system that can increase the knowledge of your employees and ultimately save money – contact us today!

Manufacturing Shop Floor Data Capture (SFDC) with Time & Attendance

Keeping track of your employees productive and unproductive hours is a crucial task for any business who wishes to be successful. Having access to this type of information provides your business with the ability to view all unproductive hours and implement processes which will help improve individual employee productivity levels.

Shop Floor Data Capture

Organisations are always looking for ways to measure and develop the productivity of their employees. It is vitally important if they want to ensure their continued growth and success. To make sure of this, organisations need to have full control over their employees’ working hours – both productive and unproductive. The best way to do this is through the use of time attendance systems.

 

The use of these systems allows companies to record when their workers start their work and when they stop. They are also able to identify the kind of work as well as the level of productivity. Elf Productivity Limited is a provider of high quality time management and attendance systems that are both reliable and cost effective. We deliver top quality support with our time management software and valuable industry experience.

Shop Floor Data Capture (SFDC)

Our Ceequel® Time and attendance software can help increase companies knowledge of their shop floor.  Companies obtain granular data which ultimately saves on cost through fast and efficient data capture. Since data is captured on the shop floor itself and in real time, accuracy is guaranteed. It leads to a reconciliation of productive and non-productive time. Companies using shop floor data capture are expected to receive the following results.

  • Our state of the art touch screen terminals allow employees to select live jobs often by skill set. It helps increase productivity because all they need to do is simply use the terminal for selecting a job specific to the employee. With the system’s capability to track projects and see the actual time that it takes to complete the job, it is easy to compare actuals to standards or the target/budget time that’s meant for that specific project.
  • It is simpler and easier to select specific activities within a job. The activity tracking module allows for real time information on jobs as it progresses through the manufacturing process. The gradual and step by step progress of any project is visible by both management and employees.
  • It will capture quantities produced, waste and any reworks. This allows companies to measure the actual productivity and efficiency of their employees. Measures can then be taken on how efficiencies can be maximized.
  • Ability to restrict employees by their skill type. This means that the software will help organisations in making sure that only employees who have relevant skill sets are allowed on certain jobs. This makes the work more efficient and ensures that results will almost always be satisfactory.
  • There are certain jobs that need to be prioritised over others. With the use of our shop floor data software, companies are enabled to selectively place the jobs that need to be completed (in order of importance) in their proper order.

Combining the systems that we offer – with our unparalleled industry knowledge and expertise – allows us to provide organisations with a bridge between productive and non-productive time. Productivity is maximised while other non-productive activities including employees become clearer and more defined.

With the quality and capabilities of Ceequel® and our deep commitment to quality customer service, it is easy to see why we have managed to become one of the leading time management companies not just in the UK but in the whole of Europe. Please contact us or take a tour of our website to see how we can assist your organisation.

Time & Attendance – making Calculations Easy

Keeping track of your employees time and attendance is an important part of any organisation. Recording this data helps to streamline your business processes and relieves the unneeded stress on both your payroll and HR department. With the use of a time and attendance system both of the above processes can be achieved in a simplistic way.

HR

Time management is a crucial process in all organisations.  Without it there’s a very good chance your business wouldn’t be where it is today.  Time management systems monitor your employee’s time & attendance on a day-to-day basis.  This data often includes calculated hours worked and should even provide breakdown information of jobs, operations or activities – productive and non-productive.  The data reordered is accurate streamlining your payroll department’s processes by removing the manual calculations surrounding hours worked (incl. overtime), absences paid or even bonuses.

With the assistance of Elf Productivity’s – absence management module, Ceequel Time and Attendance can now do a lot more than just track the hour’s an employee works.  Ceequel now monitors minutes, hours, half or full day absences by individual employees and picks up on whether the absence was authorised or unauthorised.  Absences are also available to be viewed by department, cost centre and location.  This makes it easier than ever to stay on top of what’s happening within your organisation at any-one-time.

Ceequel Time and Attendance also delivers advanced calculations; such as the ability to identify employees who have a long period of absence – as opposed to those who have sporadic periods of absence often over a long period of time.  Elf Productivity’s Ceequel system provides this level of in-depth analysis through the use of configurable absence codes and will even cater for shift-rest-days.

Data such as hours or gross wages can easily be passed from Ceequel time & attendance through to your payroll department.

All data within Elf Productivity’s Ceequel Software Suite shares a single database, eradicating double keying of data.  Data is real-time and all modules have access to the same data instantly.

Businesses truly looking for process improvements, transparency of information and enhanced people management should only look at a single solution that integrates Time & Attendance system with Human Resources.

A single combined system contains accurate information on each employee’s life with the business.  This will include start dates, finish dates, duration of working day, hours worked.  This means that if an employee doesn’t clock in to the system on a day they are due to work the correct absence code will be generated for all departments to see. In addition to this your human resource department has the ability to input more information such as reason for absence, attach a sick note or a return to work form.

Even-more-so a visionary company looking to drive their organisation and maximise efficiencies will further enhance their single (Time & Attendance and HR) system by introducing Employee Self Service.

Elf productivity’s hardware is industry standard and is also designed with the future in mind. Data capture communications are generally TCP/IP and are in true real-time. For remote clocking terminals communications can be established via mobile phone data sim cards or alternatively why not implement both Android and iPhone iClock applications. Not only can you clock using the apps but at the same time as capturing your clocking time – the system also captures the longitude and latitude of the device.

There are various technology types available to collect the data including, barcode, proximity fob, proximity card, fingerprint, hand or face biometric.

If you’re looking for one integrated system that will not only manage all of your business needs but also simplify your processes – contact us today!

Tracking Employee Time & Attendance will benefit your Business

Keeping track of your workforce’s time and attendance data no longer needs to be a daunting task for your organisation. Elf Productivity’s Ceequel software suite allows your business to record and manage all of your individual employee data in one place on an easy to use platform. Our time and attendance system is entirely browser based saving your business time and money.

T&A Clock

Keeping track of individual employee working times, holiday allowances and rate of pay can be a daunting task for human resource and payroll departments. Elf’s time and attendance software relieves this stress by devolving the management of employee groups – to the relevant line manager.  Line managers have access to a browser based system, allowing them to maintain and amend their employees holiday time and sick leave together with their teams, individual clocking’s.  Having this information at your Managers’ fingertips creates a multitude of benefits – including (but not limited to) the following:-

1. Improve visibility:

As a business, should you require you’re employees to clock in and out of attendance and identify those who are working too many or too few hours.  Elf’s Ceequel® Time & Attendance Software Suite provides your managers the ability to do just this in real-time, even breaking down this absence by employee’s who are late, manipulating your working guidelines or constantly breaching the EU Working week regulations.  Thus ensuring that employees pay data is correct and that the company can correctly report and identify any breaches in policy.

Through Ceequel’s Employee Self Service – Employees can view the same data (lateness, clocking’s & premiums) via any device with internet connectivity and a browser* – removing unnecessary communications with Human Resources.

2. Eliminates the ability to fraud time:

Companies once measured their employee’s time and attendance using paper based capture mechanisms, (requiring the employee to write down their individual working time and attendance).  This was often abused as it allowed people who were perhaps late, or who finished early, to submit incorrect information on their time-sheet. Elf’s Ceequel® T&A system records in real time, eliminating the opportunity for employees to amend this information.

3. Payroll simplified:

Payroll is now even easier than ever with Elf’s Ceequel® T&A solution. With all of your employee’s time and attendance data stored in one place, premiums calculated effortlessly and efficiently (with no manual intervention) – your payroll department can, process pay runs in a fraction of the time.

4. Reduces the number of disputes:

When it comes to enforcing your business policies, such as lateness, holiday entitlement and absences through sick – companies who do not have a fully integrated Time & Attendance and Human Resource Management Software – often have difficulties providing the supporting evidence to correctly manage their employees.

With the use of Elf Productivity’s Time & Attendance and Human Resource Management Software companies can have clearer visibility when employees need to be closely managed.  Capturing this data at an early stage – saves UK businesses a substantial amount of money – invested in employee retention/replacement.

If you’re looking to improve productivity, simplify your processes, increase the knowledge of your organisation and ultimately save money – contact us today!

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

CeequelClock Fire Register

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!

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!

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.