Festive Workforce Management: Leave and Absence Management

In Australia, the combination of Christmas, the School holidays and Summer generally means HR departments across the country are being bombarded with various requests for time off. 

Give your HR Department the gift of Employee Self Service!

How your business deals with these requests can make a big difference to your bottom line - as well as your HR team's mental wellbeing!

A Workforce Management system, with Employee Self Service functionality, empowers your staff to manage their own time and attendance in a controlled, accessible and efficient way.

Employees can view their accrued leave, associated entitlements, and request updates to their personal records without having to bother the time-poor HR department.

A web-based interface could be customised to suit the needs of your complete workforce, handling remote clocking in from desktop PCs, laptops and smart mobile phones. This would enable staff to clock in and out or on and off tasks, appointments and projects, regardless of their physical location.

In the event that department managers are on leave, they can ‘escalate’ their responsibilities regarding approving/declining holiday requests to other supervisors. This ensures that any holiday-related issues are resolved without delay.

Absence Management functionality allows managers or supervisors to enforce minimum notice for absence, and enforce minimum or maximum length for absence – which can be particularly relevant for this time of year – as you need to ensure you have sufficient staff on hand to manage production or customer demands.  

To facilitate improved Absence Management, Mitrefinch have introduced “Leave Slots” into their Time and Attendance System (Mitrefinch TMS).

Leave Slots give managers and supervisors the ability to limit how many employees can be off on a given day or time period - averting potential staffing shortfalls and ensuring you have sufficient staff on hand during times of increased demand – like the  January Sales period for those in the retail industry.

Employee Self Service allows staff to view available Leave Slots online – they will be unable to request leave once all available Leave Slots have been allocated – hence HR won’t need to deal with multiple requests for leave availability etc... 

To find out more about Absence Management, Leave Slots and Employee Self Service visit Mitrefinch online or call 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888) and put improved Employee Time Management on your Christmas Wishlist today!

One in five Aussies work at least 50 hours a week - is your Organisation tracking Unpaid Overtime?

One in five Australian employees are working at least 50 hours per week according to the International Labour Organisation. While figures released by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the UK, show unpaid overtime worked last year equated to 1,968 million hours, with 5.3 million workers putting in an average of 7.2 additional hours per week.  

Now that's a lot of hours worth of work going unpaid!

Commenting on the findings, Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, said that this data sheds light on the "valuable but too often unrewarded" extra hours that workers put in.

"But while many of the extra unpaid hours worked could easily be reduced by changing work practices...a small number of employers are exploiting staff by regularly forcing them to do excessive amounts of extra work for no extra pay”.

"This attitude is not only bad for workers' health, it's bad for the economy too as it reduces productivity and holds back job creation."

What's more, if employees are having to frequently work excessive hours, workplace health and safety standards may slip, increasing the organisations exposure to workers' compensation or other claims due to fatigue or stress related injuries.

Employers should be doing more to recognise the unpaid overtime put in by their staff – but first they need to have a system in place to effectively measure and report on overtime.

As a provider of Time Management Systems, we are often asked about the value of having an automated Time and Attendance System when an organisation only employs salaried staff. 

By having all staff clock in and out of work, managers and supervisors can easily identify just how much unpaid overtime employees are putting in and if there is a particular pattern forming - e.g. are staff required to work longer hours around the end of the month or busy trading periods. 

Armed with this information you may be able to justify hiring additional staff or bringing in contract labour during periods of increased activity, or at the very least acknowledge the efforts of your team - perhaps introducing a Time in Lieu scheme or incentives for those that put in the hard yards? In the long run, this ultimately benefits you as a motivated and happy workforce generally means increased productivity!

Flexible or remote working policies could also help. By working from home, employees can cut out their daily commute, giving them more time in the day to work and allowing them to clock off on time. Employee Self Service tools would allow staff working remotely to log their work hours or allocate their time to specific jobs/projects via Online Timesheets or PC based clocking tools.

Avoid a HR Nightmare over the Easter and Anzac Day Holiday Period

Before the majority of us clock off on Thursday afternoon to enjoy the extra long holiday weekend spare a thought for your frazzled colleagues in HR and Payroll!

Chocolate and Hot Cross buns aside, the Easter holiday period can raise a number of different workforce management issues for HR and Payroll departments across the country – particularly for those who manage employees across different states.

Avoid a HR Nightmare over the Easter and Anzac Day Holiday Period

Common issues they must contend with include; a spike in the number of annual leave applications, increased absenteeism and lost productivity in the days leading up to and after the long weekend, a bombardment of enquiries regarding the day or days that have been declared a public holiday, as well as trying to manage all the associated entitlements and awards.

To help minimise some of the confusion around penalties and public holidays the NSW Business Chamber has put together the following information:

Public Holidays

In summary, the National Employment Standards (NES) entitle employees to take declared public holidays and to be paid their base rate for the ordinary hours they would have worked on the day. The NES also entitle employees to reasonably refuse to work on a public holiday.

Easter Public holidays for each State and Territory are as follows:

NSW 
Friday, 6 April 2012 (Good Friday)
Saturday, 7 April 2012 (Easter Saturday)
Sunday, 8 April 2012 (Easter Sunday)
Monday, 9 April 2012 (Easter Monday)

QLD, VIC, SA, NT and ACT
Friday, 6 April 2012 (Good Friday)
Saturday, 7 April 2012 (Easter Saturday)
Monday, 9 April 2012 (Easter Monday)

WA and TAS
Friday, 6 April 2012 (Good Friday)
Monday, 9 April 2012 (Easter Monday)

ANZAC day is a national public holiday and is observed on Wednesday 25 April 2012.

Penalty Rates

The applicable penalty rate for an employee undertaking work on a public holiday will be derived from the relevant industrial instrument. Where an employee is covered by a modern award, the transitional penalty rate should be applied, where applicable. Some modern awards also have additional provisions about public holidays.

Local Arrangements

A common provision in modern awards allows the employer and majority of employees to agree to substitute another day for a public holiday. This means that the substitute day is the public holiday for both the NES and the award’s penalties, but there may be special provisions in the award for specific public holidays.

How might a Time and Attendance System help?

Ensuring that you are compliant with penalty rates and modern awards can represent a major headache for many organisations, particularly those that operate nationally.

Here’s just some of the ways a Time and Attendance System can take the stress out of payroll processing, HR management, and entitlement calculations in the run up to the Easter break:

Award Interpretation: Easily calculate base and overtime pay, weekend and public holiday penalties, as well as leave loading and shift penalties, ensuring consistent application of your business rules and compliance with workplace legislation.

A direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors.

Empower Employees: Employee Self Service functionality enables employees to check their own leave entitlements and request leave (subject to supervisor approval) without having to converse with HR directly.

Employee Scheduling: Ensure you have sufficient staff on board to cover the holiday period by limiting how many employees can be off on a given day or time period. Once the limit has been reached no further employees can request leave. This feature is particularly useful in times of high demand for holidays, as well as heightened production or activity i.e. January Sales for Retail

In addition, you can assign resources based on predefined budgets, keeping operating costs as low as possible.

Comprehensive Reporting: Real-time reports allow you to analyse any particular attendance trends or unplanned absences, as well as the commercial impact of schedules, overtime and absence. Armed with this invaluable information, management can plan appropriate action before your bottom line is affected.

So with an automated Time and Attendance System looking after all the complicated stuff, all that’s left for you to do now is enjoy some of that Easter Chocolate!

If you’d like to find out more about how a Time and Attendance System can assist with Award Interpretation and Absence Management contact Mitrefinch Employee Management today on 1300 884 831 (Australia) or 09 363 9557 (NZ).

No Leave, No Life - Stockpiled leave is unhealthy for your business

Did you know that Australian workers have amassed 129 million days of annual leave worth up to $40bn in wages? What effect could this be having on your bottom line?

 

An article on HC Online this week warns that, excessive amounts of stockpiled leave can be a huge liability sitting on the balance sheet for employers – with Andrew McEvoy, Tourism Australia’s Managing Director, advising that it’s well worth planning for and addressing the challenges associated with accumulated annual leave.

This is particularily important when you consider that, employees who don’t take annual leave can often demonstrate higher levels of depression or anxiety-related stress compared to those who do take their holidays*.  

McEvoy advises that, “there are easy-to-implement methods employers can use to encourage a leave-taking culture, with clear benefits to be gained such as building and engaging with a productive employee community.”

The “No Leave, No Life” campaign championed by Tourism Australia, allows enables organisations to tackle the issue of stockpiled annual leave. The campaign website features an employer resources toolkit with a series of modules and practical case studies to assist with implementing a successful annual leave program. 

Some of the key focus areas include:

• Identifying challenges facing management such as pressure to meet targets, lack of reporting, competing priorities 
• Recognising the barriers to leave-taking and prioritising leave-taking policy in the workplace 
• Integrating leave-planning into current processes to ensure adequate coverage 
• Engaging employees – CEO, management and HR commitment is critical to success 
• How to set objectives and review regularly 
• Considerations to keep in mind when encouraging leave – compromise with employees on leave-taking within the context of your plan to ensure acceptable outcomes for employees and management 
• Developing a holiday-planning checklist to help staff better manage their departure from and return to work 
• Points to help managers look at how to measure the success of their annual leave policy

For more information on “No Leave, No Life” and access to employer resources visit: http://noleavenolife.com/employer/

Do you know how much leave your employees have stockpiled?

An automated time and attendance management system can help you effectively manage leave and holiday planning processes by:

• Keeping a central repository of all employee leave records, tracking all leave types such as Vacation/Personal leave 
• Calculating leave eligibility based on an employee’s hours worked and hire date 
• Generating real time absence management and vacation planning reports
• Creating work schedules that take in account employees on leave, thus ensuring you have sufficient cover to meet customer or project demands and deadlines

In addition, Employee Self Service functionality empowers your staff to check their own leave records and entitlements, and request/book leave online without having to converse with their supervisor or HR.

Want to find out more?

If you would like find out more about effective Leave Management and Holiday Planning contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 831 or email sales@mitrefinch.com.au

* Dr Peter Cotton, Medibank Health Solutions Director

Minimising the Festive Frenzy with a Time Management System (Part 3)

In this, the third and final instalment of our mini Christmas-themed series, we take a look at how an automated Time and Attendance System can alleviate panic and stress in your HR department.  

 

With the Christmas and Summer holiday season well and truly upon us, HR departments across the country are being bombarded with various requests for time off.

How your business deals with these requests can make a big difference to your bottom line - as well as your HR team's wellbeing!

An automated Time and Attendance System, with Employee Self Service functionality, empowers your staff to manage their own time and attendance in a controlled, accessible and efficient way.

Employees can also view their accrued leave, entitlements, and request updates to their personal records without having to bother the HR department.

A web-based interface could be customised to suit the needs of your complete workforce, handling remote clocking in from desktop PCs, laptops and the latest smart phones. This would allow staff to clock in/out and on/off tasks, appointments and projects, regardless of their physical location.

Leave Slots are an innovative holiday planning feature now available in the latest release of Mitrefinch’s Time Management System.

This new functionality enables managers and supervisors to limit how many employees can be off on a given day or time period - averting potential staffing shortfalls and ensuring you have sufficient staff on hand during times of increased demand – think December 26^th for those in the hospitality and retail sector!

Employees can view available Leave Slots online and they will be unable to request leave once the limit has been reached – hence HR won’t need to deal with multiple requests from staff on what days are available etc...  

In a nut (cracker) shell, Employee Self Service is ultimately designed to make your business more profitable and your HR team more efficient.

To find out how, please visit www.mitrefinch.com.au or call +61 2 8762 7888 and put improved Employee Management on your Christmas Wishlist today!

Spring Clean your HR and Employee Management Processes

With Summer on the way for us Southern Hemisphere folk – have you thought about giving your current HR and Employee Management processes a good Spring clean? 

Sit back and ask yourself: 

• Is it difficult to get meaningful information from your current systems? 
• Does the system lack integration with your other business applications? Need to enter the same data more than once across multiple systems e.g. Payroll, HR, ERP? 
• Are you still relying on spreadsheets to process payroll and create management reports? 
• Are you manually calculating award entitlements, different pay rates and overtime costs across multiple sites/departments? 
• Are you constantly bombarded with requests for leave or updates to employee records? 
• Could you easily implement Work from Home or Flexi-Time initiatives with your current setup? 

The Solution? 

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above problems maybe it's time you started looking for an automated Employee Management system that will meet and exceed your expectations. 

Companies generally invest in a Employee Management system to automate the capture and management of all employees’ clocking in and out times and attendance information. This data capture ensures that organisation are complying with all federal and state workplace legislation, such as employee entitlements and modern awards, without having to manage mountains of administrative paperwork. 

A customised scheduling function also allows you to separate work groups that are on different pay scales. While a direct interface to your external payroll application further reduces payroll administration and the potential for costly payroll errors. 

Integrated Employee Self-Service capabilities allow staff to view holiday entitlements, apply for leave, and request updates to their personal records online 24/7 without having to engage an already busy HR department. The ability to clock in/out or on/off jobs via the Internet or Smart Phone would also allow you to keep track of employees working from home our out on the road. 

With all employee data, files and correspondence centrally stored, the filing and retrieval of vital information is quick and easily managed. This information can in turn be used to run reports on past and present data, such as training and development requirements. 

These are just some of the benefits of using an automated time and attendance system, for more information on how we can help improve your current processes visit us online today or call 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888 for those outside Australia)

How a Time and Attendance System could help you implement a Salary Sacrifice Scheme

A city council in the UK has revealed that they've made savings of up to $230,000 by implementing a salary sacrifice scheme which allows employees to buy extra annual leave.

The ‘Holidayplus’ plan at Nottingham City Council gives employees an option to sacrifice part of their monthly salary in order to increase their holiday entitlement, and they also have the option to spread the extra holiday cost over 12 months.

Staff can choose to purchase additional annual leave whilst making savings of up to 41% on tax and national insurance. This also benefits the council with savings on its national insurance employer contributions, which has resulted in a reduction of the overall annual salary bill.

Angela Probert, Nottingham City Council’s director of HR and transformation commented: “With the UK public sector facing substantial financial cuts, we need to try to reduce costs where possible, creating as little detrimental impact on our employees and customers as possible.”

“Holidayplus is the perfect example of an innovative solution which not only supports our efforts to reduce outgoings, but importantly, offers a positive benefit to our colleagues,” she continued.

“It has been well received by colleagues and we hope to make more savings in this way in the future.”

For more information see: http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/43333

So how might an automated Time and Attendance system help you introduce a similar program at your organisation?

Implementing an automated Time and Attendance System with Self Service funtionality is a good first step to introducing a salary sacrificing scheme.

An automated Time and Attendance System can easily manage the increase in the number of leave entitlements and would enable you to avoid any inaccurate payments made as a consequence of errors associated with manually tracking leave.

With Employee Self-Service functionality, a Time and Attendance system allows employees to request personal leave without having to speak to their manager directly, employees can also view their accrued leave, entitlements, and request updates to their personal records without having to bother the HR department, saving time spent on administrative duties.

In addition, during busy periods i.e. the run up to Christmas, a supervisor can set up Leave Slots. This option restricts the number of people that can take Annual Leave on the same day. For example, if an employee tries to book leave on a day when 3 other people have already requested leave, they would get a rejection message and would have to change or abandon their request.

In the event that department managers are on leave, they can ‘escalate’ their responsibilities regarding approving/declining holiday requests to other supervisors so that any holiday-related issues could be sorted without any delays.

If you would like more information on Time and Attendance and Employee Self Service functionality contact us on +61 2 8762 7888 or visit Mitrefinch online today.

Start the new financial year well-prepared for the HR challenges that lie ahead

Struggling to control labour costs, reduce absenteeism, and manage multiple sites and a mobile workforce? All while trying to comply with the latest legislative requirements?

Sounds like you need a sophisticated Employee Management Solution to help make your life a little easier.

Yet for many organisations, investing in separate Time and Attendance Systems, Rostering Packages and HR Management Software would be out of the question.

But what if you could get all of these systems for the price of one?

Mitrefinch’s Employee Management Solution (Mitrefinch TMS) combines a robust Time and Attendance System with HR Management and Employee Scheduling functionality in one complete package.

Mitrefinch’s Time and Attendance capabilities allow you to manage your staff with greater efficiency. By accurately tracking and analysing your employees’ time, you will benefit from reduced staff costs, increased productivity, better job costing, and more effective planning of future projects - all while taking full advantage of today’s flexible working practices.

Mitrefinch’s HR functionality ensures all your employee data, files and correspondence are centrally stored, making the filing and retrieving of vital information quick and easy to manage, and reducing the risk of error. The stored information can be used to run reports on past and present data, such as training and development requirements.

While Employee Self Service features provide employees with the ability to view their available Annual Leave entitlements and send Leave Requests direct to HR. This greatly reduces time spend on data-input, filling out forms, and dealing with employee questions. Employee reviews and recruitment processes can also be monitored and recorded within the system.

So why waste your time and money on numerous systems when you only need one?

To see how much money Mitrefinch TMS can save your business, try our ROI Calculator online or call 1300 884 831 (Australia)/09 363 9557 (NZ) to book a FREE Consultation or Demonstration.

'Smart' technology set to mobilise the workplace

New research has found that employees will enjoy a more mobile work environment within three to five years as "smart" technology becomes commonplace at work.

The Optus study of 320 medium to large organisations found an increasing demand from workers to use personal smart phones, tablets and mobile applications at work.

However, it also revealed that IT and HR departments are not working together to make the transition possible.

The research indicated there was a disconnect between the policies being developed by HR departments and those being implemented by IT around personal mobile devices.

"If HR and IT departments don't collaborate better, the move to more flexible working environments could be hampered and impact Australian business growth," advised Optus Business Managing Director Rob Parcell.

"IT departments need to educate their organisations on the tools available to support flexible working, while HR departments need to consult their IT teams on tools to support flexible working."

IT survey respondents expect the number of employees working from different remote locations to increase from 27 per cent to 42 per cent, while 84 per cent of employees would be issued with tablets over the next three to five years.

Read the full new article from The Age here

Is your organisation ready to take advantage of mobile working?

Web-based time and attendance software is an increasingly-used and affordable method of workforce management, allowing organisations to take full advantage of today’s flexible working practices such as teleworking and flexi-time, keeping costs low and increasing employee productivity.

A web-based time and attendance system allows your employees manage their own time and attendance in a controlled, accessible and efficient way regardless of their location. Staff can remotely clock in and out of tasks, appointments and projects via desktop PCs, laptops, notebooks and the latest communications devices and smart phones. They can also view their holiday entitlements, apply for leave, and request updates to their personal records without constantly interfering with the valuable time of HR staff.

A web-based time and attendance system also facilitates real-time project tracking, providing accurate analysis of employee activity anytime, anywhere – this greatly increases efficiency and ensures that labour-related costs are genuine. While, powerful reporting functionality enables managers and supervisors to identify the commercial impact of staffing decisions and unplanned absence.

For more information on how a web-based time and attendance system could help you embrace mobile/remote working contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 831 or feel free to chat with us online www.mitrefinch.com.au