5 Reasons to Streamline your Time & Attendance Processes

Streamlining your businesses time and attendance processes could benefit your organisation in a number of ways. Implementing a time and attendance systems allows you to not only automate your processes but also provides you with analytical data on all of your employees absence records.

5 reasons to streamline your time & attendance proccesses

Effective – Absence Management

Almost all organisations struggle with the cost of employee absences this is often because they don’t have an effective absence management solution in place. Having access to a system that provides you with the ability to track and view every absence your employee has ever taken would save your business time and money.

Absence Management

Employee absences cost businesses a significant amount of money each year. Having a system in place that is able to effectively manage these absences could not only save your organisation time and resources but also streamline the absence management process.

There are four main types of absences that every business experiences and these include short term absence, long term absence, authorised and unauthorised absences. Keeping track of the different kind of absences each of your employees take is essential, as it allows you identify absence patterns creeping in at the earliest stage. Tracking your employees also allows you to identify any genuine long term ailment, ensuring your company provides the necessary support and care.

Absence management goes beyond just tracking your employees.  As it will also ensure your organisation has procedures in place to deal with employees who take advantage of your company’s occupational sick pay or are frequently off when holiday requests have been denied.

With ELF Productivity’s Time and Attendance system, absence management can be provided at the touch of a button.  Breakdowns including long term absence, high number of occasions, reasons for absence, and cost to the business due to absence are all viable. Other advantages include immediate notification of return to work requirements as ELF time and attendance operates in true real time.

Graphical reporting and dash board overviews are also standard within the Ceequel portfolio suite.

In addition and where required the Bradford factor calculation can be automated and reports automatically distributed at pre-defined dates and times.

Tracking your employee absences could not only save your organisation money but can reduce the number of time your HR department spends chasing people up, for more information contact us today!

 

Elf Annualised Hours Automation

Annual or annualised hour systems have significantly grown in popularity over the years, with many businesses now implementing them as a way to improve employee productivity and reduce the number of people being paid overtime.

Annualised hours

Using annual or annualised hour systems within a businesses – is not a new concept.  The use of them within organisations dates back to the early 1980’s. However over the past few years there has been a significant increase in the number of manufacturing companies now providing these as part of their employee’s benefits package.

An annualised hour system is where an employee is provided with a contract that states the exact number of hours they are required to work in a twelve month period. These hours are then often worked as “chosen” regular hours or via a plannable shift pattern.

A separate “pot” of hours is then budgeted for which is for emergency use and which attracts an overtime payment.  The remaining time is often left unallocated and is available to be used on an as-needs-basis.

Many manufacturing companies are now introducing an annual hour system as an efficient way to achieve continuous production from all employees throughout the year.  Annualised hours can also significantly reduce the amount of overtime hours being paid.   Hours can be decided on an individual employee basis – at the beginning of the year and overtime hours will only ever take affect when the number of hours worked exceeds the set number.

Having an annualised system also gives your managers greater control of their employees working patterns, providing them with potential ways in which they can maximise productivity and minimise overtime within their workforce.

It enables a business to effectively and efficiently iron out any peaks and troughs in manufacturing demand, and benefits Employees by providing them with a consistent wage – usually 1/12th salary.

Using ELF Productivity’s Time & Attendance module, the administration of an annualised hour solution is streamlined and provides reporting at any point during the year, ensuring employees are rostered evenly, thus mitigating overtime while ensuring production levels are maintained.

For more information on how annualised hours could benefit your business contact us today!

 

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.

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!

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!