Business support

Mar

2015

How many hours do you pay when the clocks go forward or backward?

That’s an interesting point given that British Summertime officially starts this Sunday at 2am with the clock jumping forward by one hour.

So if you pay night staff by the hour will you be paying one hour less for anyone working the night shift starting this Saturday? And correspondingly of course do you pay an extra hour when the clocks go back in October and British Summertime comes to an end?

Some organisations appear to rely on the supposition that an employee working on the night shift when Summertime begins will also be working on the night shift when Summertime ends and therefore a natural order and balance to these things exists. But that is rather wishful thinking to my mind. Across those two days within any year an employee could be on a different shift, be off sick, have left or be on holiday. And if they’re on holiday and you pay that by the hour then what calculation do you use then to ensure the correct remuneration?

Surprisingly I find some organisations blissfully unaware of the point I am making; and when I bring it to their attention there seems to be an immediate fallback position of the ‘natural balance’ rule I mentioned earlier!

Aware of this conundrum or not, it really doesn’t matter if you are an easyLog customer using our staff scheduling software as you can resolve the issue either way. A simple tick box parameter allows you to specify if you wish to pay to the exact hours worked or to the normal scheduled shift. And that will take care of any holiday hours calculations and payments as well.

If you are a current customer that would like some help with implementing this feature please call our Support Desk on 0845 225 3011. If you don’t currently use our scheduling software but this article has got you interested in exploring what other clever and efficient things it could do for your organisation then call us on 01892 834406 and speak with one of our team.

Mar

2015

Employee attendance management coming to a cloud near you

Soon managers will be able to monitor attendance, authorise hours and calculate pay for their mobile or office-based staff on the move and without any need for a PC whatsoever.

Our development team is currently building a web browser and Android version of our popular e-Log attendance management software with Html5, CSS3 and PhoneGap development tools. This will allow our clocking management solutions to be operated on the cloud, anywhere and anytime – and with any kind of device.

Watch this blog for news of trial downloads in the near future.

Currently easyLog offers a range of staff clocking options using NFC-enabled Android tablets and phones.

Feb

2015

easyLog’s staff scheduling software factors in the Bradford Factor

The Bradford Factor is a simple formula to help manage short term sick absences and determine when these have become excessive. Named after the University of Bradford Management School, where much of the original absenteeism research was conducted, the calculation was initially associated more with the public sector and very large corporations.

The Bradford Factor (B) formula is:

number of occasions sick (S) x number of occasions sick (S) x total number of days absent (D)

Using this formula an employee taking several single days of absence will generate a larger points score than a member of staff who has one extended period of illness within the same timescale. Although the calculation should always be viewed on a case-by-case basis, the implication is that the higher the points score the more prone the worker may be to casual absence.

In today’s changed economic climate, frequent short-term sick absences have become a significant cause for concern across all sizes of business – and use of the Bradford Factor has spread accordingly.

In response to this easyLog has implemented a Bradford Factor report into its market-leading e-Log+S staff scheduling software. The report can be run for any range of staff across any period of time and be introduced into a regular personnel review meeting or run on an ad hoc basis when concerns may arise about a specific employee’s attendance record.

The Bradford Factor is just one element in a range of employee reporting tools included as standard within the e-Log+ staff scheduling software – functionality designed to present managers with the information they need to run their workforce most efficiently. You can find out more about using the Bradford Factor and easyLog’s staff scheduling software to monitor patterns of employee absenteeism by watching our latest video – Absenteeism management from your staff rota.

Jan

2015

easyLog: Bringing further cost controls to your staff schedule

easyLog has introduced some significant functionality into its market-leading staff scheduling software module. Clients now have the option to enter daily predicted sales targets and then see an automatic projection of their anticipated profitability from the total number of hours on the rota and the employment wage costs for each day.

Although this feature would be welcomed by any type of business, it is especially helpful to easyLog’s growing number of clients in the retail and service sectors where daily wage costs are the biggest overhead and therefore the largest influence on bottom line profitability. The facility is incredibly easy to use. You simply enters your projected net sales and the software then displays the staff schedule hours total, the daily wage spend (based on the hours worked per person at their individual hourly rate held in the system) and daily wage spend as a percentage of projected sales. This latter statistic is often used to determine the manager’s budget for staff on any given day and is therefore especially useful.

An early and enthusiastic adopter

One early and enthusiastic adopter and user of this functionality is Jake Harris, owner of the busy Mokoko Coffee (formerly Jacob’s Coffee House) close to the main tourist attractions in Bath. “We operate on a daily budget, so we look at each day and work out when it’s going to get busy, when it’ll get quiet, when the peaks and lulls are likely to be, and how much money we are going to take,” Jake explains. “We needed the scheduling tool to be able to tell us what we would expect to spend on wages so we could make the necessary adjustments, such as shaving half an hour here, trimming an hour a day there.” Read our Mokoko Coffee case study here.

If you would like more information on easyLog’s range of staff scheduling solutions or wish to view the software, please contact easyLog on 01892 834406.

Dec

2014

care-Log+, the Care Act – and your business

We have had several approaches from our care provider clients regarding the impact of the Care Act 2014 and what effect it will have on the functionality of our care-Log+ software application. In short the question our clients are asking is: Will care-Log+ cope with any new changes?

This has obviously led us to review the Care Act so that we can understand what it means for our care-Log+ clients. Overall, the Care Act represents a very large and significant change. It consolidates more than a dozen pieces of social care legislation into a single law and represents the most significant reform of adult social care in over 60 years. Most of the provisions in the Act will come into effect in April 2015, with some of the funding reform changes taking effect in April 2016.

Local authority focus

Most of the changes are targeted at the local authority as the commissioner of social care – although this, in turn, may have an impact on your business. For example, the introduction of “market shaping” – whereby the local authority has a duty to help shape the local care and support market so that it offers a range of choices and sustainability for the future – may be significant to your operation. So having a positive and pro-active relationship with your local authority will ensure that you receive advance warning of the type of care facilities that the commissioners wish to see in your area.

Clearly other elements of the Care Act may also be relevant to your business – such as the “prevention and well-being provisions” – and lead to a further push towards domiciliary-based care. However, the Act emphasises throughout that it views the provision of care as person-centred and outcomes focused and therefore mirrors the key design principles and functionality already contained in care-Log+.

care-Log+ functionality and the Act

Some of the changes to be introduced by the Care Act are covered by functionality already found in care-Log+. A new “safeguarding assessment” section was brought into the last release of 2014. Although this functionality already existed, you can now view this type of assessment in a separate function if required. Similarly, although the “duty of candour” is a new requirement, it is our belief that any of our clients who are routinely collecting care data through their daily notes evaluations will be able to respond to any incident from a position of having full evidence of their care provision.

In summary, easyLog believes that the functionality currently provided in its care-Log+ system provides a robust and fully adequate response to the Care Act.

Dec

2014

Get your teeth into Android Lollipop

If you are thinking about upgrading your existing handheld devices, or are planning to start using smartphones and tablets for the first time, there’s no need to worry about running your easyLog rota management and staff scheduling software on your new hardware. All our apps have now been tested and are working on Android 5.0 Lollipop.

And remember, if you need any help and advice on choosing equipment, just give us a call. We’ll be happy to help.

Phone us now on 01892 834406 or request a callback