Tag: Ceequel

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.

How to make Human Resources Jobs Easier

Your Human Resource department is the centre of your organisation. It relays messages to every department and is key in making sure all company and employee data is tracked and up to date. Without a fully functioning HR department your business would run into turmoil.

Your HR department is the nervous system of your business. It routes messages from every other department, and ensures that everyone gets necessary information in order to keep things working smoothly. Whether it’s making sure that new employees have all their data in the system, or ensuring that transfers, promotions, etc. are all tracked, human resources is the department in charge.

So why make HR’s job any more difficult than it already is?

A Single, Unified Network to Make Human Resources Happy

Computer networks are the major tools businesses use to keep track of all their information. These networks store customer information, employee information, create time tables, keep track of order numbers, and handle all of the heavy lifting your company needs. If you’re using multiple networks, though, you’re driving your HR people crazy.

Imagine this scenario: you have two departments. Your employees report to the first department, and tell the Department-One people how many hours they’ve worked, the Department-One people write it down, walk across the hall, and hand their notes to the Department-Two people, the Department-Two people then take those notes, and input the hours worked into their own machines.

Why would you use such a convoluted system? Why not cut out the first department entirely, reducing the number of steps you’re taking and ensuring that fewer mistakes being made? The same questions would apply to using an outdated software suite, or attempting to use multiple suites that can’t talk to each other.

One Software, One Company

Elf Productivity Ltd. set out to create a unique software suite that would allow your business to do everything, without having to switch back and forth: it’s a time clock, a database, a communication network, and all the different sections can be password protected as you see fit.

If you want to see increased productivity, fewer headaches, and faster results in your business, then contact us today to see how our unique software solutions can help you.

Employee Self Service saves Time, Money, and Frustration

Your businesses Human Resources department often wastes a significant amount of time each month updating individual employee information. Not only is this time better spent elsewhere, it is also costing your business money. By implementing an employee self service system you can transfer the task of updating employee data over to your employees.

We’ve all heard the old saw about how the Human Resources Department moves as fast as an arthritic tortoise in a school zone. You got a new apartment last month, you got married, you opened a different bank account, and even though you submitted the forms as required, it still took more than a month for HR to get around to correcting your details. Maybe you missed a pay cheque, had an important work correspondence sent to the wrong address, or you just had the wrong name on your taxes, but while details change, the story stays the same; if there was a faster way to alter your personal information, neither you nor your company would be inconvenienced.

Fortunately there is a way you can sidestep HR entirely, it’s called Employee Self Service.

How Does Employee Self Service Work?

The concept is pretty simple: under a more traditional system you would fill out a form detailing your personal information changes, along with any necessary proofs, and you’d give those forms to the HR department. HR’s personnel would put those forms on a big stack, and eventually work its way to making your updates. This might take days if you’re lucky, weeks on average, or more than a month if there’s a big backup of work.

Employee Self Service, on the other hand, allows you to skip the middle man. You simply log into your business’ network, go to your profile, and change the information to reflect what it is now, you save the change, and then go back to doing your job.

It’s That Simple?

It is, actually. While there are still a lot of tasks that require HR personnel, technology has put the power to control personal information into the hands of employees. The changes can be done in mere moments, ensuring that all information is current and up-to-date without getting bogged down in an inbox somewhere.

For more information on Employee Self Service, and how it can change the way you do business, simply contact us today!

Why Access Control is more Important (and difficult) than ever before

Access control within a business used to be a relatively simple process with all important documents being locked away in filling cabinets. The implementation of modern day technology however has now complicated the process with businesses storing important information from an employee’s personal details to credit card information on a computer network. Without the use of an electronic access control system all of this information is at risk of falling into the wrong hands.

In the past, access control in a business was relatively simple: if you had files that contained sensitive information, you put them in a filing cabinet in your office, and locked the drawer; when you went home for the day you locked your office, and you could rest assured that the information was safe behind barriers that only you had the key for.

As we all know though, the days of paper files (or at least exclusively paper files) are long behind us. Modern businesses run on computer networks that hold everything from credit card data and employee profiles, to bank account and social security numbers. While all of this information is necessary for conducting business, it is a little scary to think about what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands.

Electronic Access Control

That’s where Elf Productivity Ltd. comes into the picture. We know the worries businesses have to deal with, and it’s why we developed a unique software suite that ensures private information remains private.

Our software acts as an all-in-one solution to your business’s needs. It has a time clock for keeping track of which employees are working when, it offers employee self-service so that your HR department isn’t the only one capable of changing employee information, and most importantly it offers access control. You are in charge when it comes to who can see what information, and our software allows you to keep private files or documents out of the general network. So if some files are necessary for management but not your lower-level workers, we let you protect those. We also make sure that no outside forces get into your system, and make off with the data you’re trying so hard to keep safe.

For more information on how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help you keep your business locked up tight simply contact us today!

A Simple, Central Database for your Human Resources

Your businesses Human resource department is responsible for the completion of a number of processes that if ever not completed would send your business into a state of chaos. That is why many organisations are now choosing to implement one central database in order to avoid making their Human Resource department’s job more difficult.

The Human Resources Department is, in a very real sense, the nervous system of a company. It routes messages between departments, ensures that individual employees have their needs met, and keeps track of everything a business is doing. It’s a record keeper, a memory bank, and the backbone all at once. With that said, there’s no reason to make the HR Department’s job more difficult than it already is, that’s why many companies are adopting a central database setup, like the one created by Elf Productivity Ltd.

The Human Resources of The Future!

In the past all your Human Resources Department had to work with was papers and filing cabinets, everything had to be done by hand, and keeping track of even a small company’s information could be a nightmare. Even after computers took over for forms filled out in triplicate it still took HR professionals with skill and dedication to keep track of a company’s data. What HR has needed is a bigger lever: a tool that will do more of the work so that the human elements have to do less heavy lifting. That’s where today’s central database software comes in.

The idea is quite simple, actually: instead of having a business run a separate program for the time clock, a separate program for employee files, and a separate program for communications, Elf Productivity Ltd. simply put all of these different aspects together into a single software suite. The result is that finding information is simple, and making changes is almost easier done than said. If an employee needs his or her information updated, it can be done in seconds; if time and pay stubs need to be verified, that can also be done in a fraction of the time it used to take. Instead of making HR bounce from one network to another, or to search through endless databases or file cabinets, this software suite puts them square in the central hub of the business. The result? More work gets done, less time gets wasted, and everything moves more efficiently.

If you’d like more information about our software suite, and how it can help invigorate your HR department, simply contact us today!

Is Employee Self Service going to become the Industry Standard?

Businesses are always looking for ways in which they can cut business costs without damaging their overall end product. If the same processes can be achieved through using a quicker and cheaper solution, then switching over is basically a no brainer for any organisation. Our employee self service platform has been designed to boycott your Human Resource department when it comes to updating individual employee data.

Businesses are always looking for faster, more efficient ways to operate. The goal is to cut costs without losing any quality in the end product. If you can do something faster, or for less money, but that doesn’t affect the end product then it’s something worth looking into. That’s why employee self service is poised to become a new standard in business practices.

What is Employee Self Service?

The easy explanation is that employee self service is when a business allows employees to update their own information without going through the red tape of the Human Resources Department. Let’s say, for example, you just moved to a new apartment and you need to update your information. In the past you’d go to the HR department, fill out the necessary forms, show them your new ID, and then sometime in the next week to the next month (depending on how backed up HR was with paperwork) your information will be updated.

Now, let’s say you had an employee self service policy at work. If you had personal information you needed to change all you would do is log into your employee account, click the edit button, and then change your information. Once it’s been changed you click save, and continue on with your work day. Whether it’s a name change, an address alteration, or something else entirely there’s no reason to wait for days and weeks when you can do it yourself in mere moments.

The only question at this point is whether or not the savings in time and effort that employee self service represents will become standard operating procedure for businesses.

For those businesses that would like to pursue employee self service contact us today to see how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help you make your business more efficient.

Time and Attendance: Elf Productivity Ltd offers the Time Clock of the Future!

Both businesses and employees recognise the benefits of having an accurate clocking system in place. Without one, employees are at risk of being incorrectly paid and employers can fall victim to time theft. Our time and attendance solution keeps track of every minute your workers spend on the clock each day.

For the hourly employee there is nothing more important than the time clock, because without it he or she doesn’t get paid. From the company’s perspective there’s nothing more important than an accurate time clock, so that there’s no time theft going on and employees can be paid for the work they performed. Technology has come a long way since the days of punch cards though, and today employers have access to a much more powerful solution for keeping track of every minute workers spend on the clock.

Time and Attendance Solutions With Elf Productivity Ltd.

Elf Productivity Ltd. knows full well how difficult it can be to keep track of all the details when you’re running a business. That’s why it sat down to design a software suite that operates like a Swiss army knife. On the one hand it provides access control so that a business can make sure important information is kept locked away where only those with the right clearance can find it. It also provides human resources access, allowing average workers the ability to modify their information so that HR doesn’t have to waste time processing simple name and address changes. This software suite is also a portable time clock. No matter what work station someone is at, whether it’s in the building or on the other side of the world, all they need to do is log in and get to work. It’s simple, easy, and there’s no leisurely walk from the time clock out onto the shop floor. Just sign in, put in your time, and sign out.

For more information about how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help your business be more efficient, simply contact us today!

Tips for Improving Human Resource Departments

The Human Resource department is the most vital part of any organisation. Making improvements to your HR department has the potential to improve every other part of your business. There are a number of ways in which you can improve your HR processes below is a list of a few.

The HR department has a challenging job; it is also a vital part of an organisation. Improving the HR department enhances the entire business, there are a number of things that will help improve your Human Resource department, here are a few tips to consider:

Engage

It is crucial to communicate and engage with all employees: being proactive and making an effort to speak with people is beneficial. HR workers should go out of their way to interact with employees in every department, consider creating a daily ritual of walking the building or floor looking for people to converse with.

Listen

Employees need to feel as if they are being heard, increase listening skills to achieve this. HR operatives must know when to talk and when to be quiet, educate the HR department on proper listening skills.

Avoid Micro-Managing

Employees need to feel that they are trusted, if you micro-manage them, they feel incompetent. You can observe them and give feedback without micro-managing everything, give employees some freedom and independence to perform their work on their own, this builds confidence and produces happier employees.

Team Work

Team work encourages employees to work together, building camaraderie and relationships among employees is powerful. Employees should feel as if they are a part of something larger than themselves, when they develop connections to each other, a healthier work environment is produced.

Budget

Ensure that your budget includes plenty of funds for development and training. Your employees’ education does not end when they begin working for your organisation, in order to keep up with technology and innovation, the staff should consistently go through development and training, this keeps your workforce up-to-date and ready for the future.

These are just a few tips you can implement to improve your human resources department. It is a complex job, and it is essential for any organisation. When the HR department performs at its best, the entire company performs at its best. Contact us for more information.

Shop Floor Data Capture is the Canary in the Coal Mine for modern Businesses

As a production company, making sure you stay on top of your produce and waste numbers is an essential process if you wish to remain in business. Any drop within your production numbers could become critical as less stock means less money. That is why it is crucial for any company who produces a product to implement a shop floor data capture system.

In the days before OSHA safety standards, coal miners would bring canaries down into the mines with them, the little yellow birds would tweet happily in their cages, raising the spirits of the miners as they toiled away beneath the mountains. The birds, being so tiny, would also die if exposed to dangerous, invisible gases, which gave miners a warning to get out before they met a similar fate.

Shop floor data capture is kind of like that, if it was for manufacturers.

Shop Floor Data Capture: A Better Canary?

Let’s say that you run a printing company, and you have your machines set to produce 500 magazines an hour in order to meet your client’s needs (it’s just an example, you could easily use this with any product on the market). What you don’t know is that your presses are only putting out 450 an hour because of an easy-to-fix problem that’s hard to detect. You don’t realise your production is falling behind until you’re almost at the deadline and your numbers aren’t adding up. Shop floor data capture is a way to prevent this sudden, last-minute realisation

How Does It Work?

Shop floor data capture is fairly simple: you attach sensors to your production machinery, and those sensors capture the raw numbers in real-time. Those numbers are then provided directly to you, and if there’s a deviation from what you need to have, you find out in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. The system is smooth, and it uses wireless communication to make certain you know what’s going on at the shop floor level so you can side-step any nasty surprises.

Put another way, no metaphorical methane is going to sneak up on you and your workers while you’re toiling in the mine. For more information on shop floor data capture, and how it can help your business, simply contact us today!