With new guidelines recommending that home care visits to the elderly should last a minimum of 30 minutes, it’s more important than ever to have a simple and dependable staff clocking system and effective rota management software.
The guidance, developed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), does allow for shorter visits but only if they are not the main visit of the day – for example, a follow up to check if a client has taken medicine. It also includes taking steps to ensure that clients know their carers by trying to use the same ones whenever possible and letting clients know in advance if their carers are likely to be late or not turn up.
To find out more about our wide range of attendance monitoring and staff scheduling systems and how they can help you meet the demands of this new gold standard for home care, visit our web pages using these links or contact us for further information.
As a long-standing supplier of products and services to the contract cleaning industry, we understand that cleaning service providers are looking for convenience, efficiency and flexibility as well as excellent value for money – so we have freshened up our cleaning management web pages to make choosing the right solution quicker and easier.
Our improved web pages now show all available services in a clear and concise format with relevant links and screen shots. Two areas that are likely to be of particular interest are our various clocking devices, which can be used to track cleaner activity, and mobile apps that enable managers to estimate job costing and perform assessments and quality management on the move.
easyLog’s software suite for contract cleaners enables you to mix and match from the following management functions:
Ensure staff are arriving and leaving on time at unmanaged locations
Calculate time spent at each location and produce reports on total working hours over any period
Enable workers to log the cleanliness status of a site
Assess job times and costs using specialist options
All functionality is available on mobile devices or PC-based systems so you can choose whether to work on the move or from a desk.
You can find an interesting new case study on the easyLog website about an implementation of the company’s staff scheduling software at a dinosaur-themed adventure park in Norfolk.
The Dinosaur Adventure park has expanded rapidly over the recent past and invested to make itself a major attraction in the local area. Their investment in easyLog’s staff scheduling software has also paid dividends as park operations manager Adam Goymour reveals, “It’s given us a faster system, with an improved layout for departmental breakdown of rota costs, and provided the potential to look in far greater detail at our wage bill. It’s been well worth it.“
If you would like to discuss any functionality or issues raised in this blog, please call one of our team on 01892 834406 or e-mail us on info@easylog.co.uk
According to American analytical research company Techworld, (source: Techworld mobile worker research) this year it estimates there will be 1.3 billion mobile workers in the world. That’s a lot of employees who do not regularly attend the same place of work each day. Or put another way, that’s a lot of staff presenting their managers with some interesting logistical issues if they are required to complete a timesheet to record their work hours and location.
easyLog has always been mindful that the mobile worker requires a fundamentally different approach to electronic time and attendance management versus their static colleagues. Immediate issues arise in terms of the IT infrastructure that is available at any location, does the worker have a company-provided or a personal mobile phone? does the employer require just an attendance record or are there greater efficiencies to be gained from providing additional work-related information and data entry options?
In addressing these scenarios easyLog has developed a wide array of tools to assist the employee in recording their hours and working more efficiently. These in essence can be divided by either the type of solution platform used to record attendance, for example mobile phone, hardware device, land line call, PC login record, etc and by the visit scenario. So is the employee a regular visitor to the location? Do several staff visit the location? Are there multiple sites that an employee will visit in a day or week?
easyLog’s experience will help you find the most suitable and cost effective solution for the employee tracking requirements that you have. And this may involve different approaches to specific groups of employees within your organisation. This ‘mix and match’ response is very typical amongst easyLog clients but the solution will still present a single and common interface for the tracking and recording software.
Details of all our employee tracking solutions can be found on our website.
If you would like to discuss any functionality or issues raised in this blog please call one of our team on 01892 834406 or e-mail us on info@easylog.co.uk
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.
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.
As you may know we recently gave our specialist product for domiciliary care and supported living providers, Home Care Studio, an overhaul – and now we have completed a revamp of our web pages for community-based care customers to match.
We have divided the section into two parts for simplicity, covering the Home Care Studio software and visit recording hardware options.
The Home Care Studio pages detail the six main features of the system: client records and care plans, rostering, payroll and invoicing, staff records and training, the easyLog care-Logger app and risk assessments. Each description includes sample screen images that can be expanded to full size with a click of a mouse so you can see how it all looks for yourself.
The visit recording pages cover three options popular with our domiciliary care and supported living customers: mobile phone and tablet-based devices, SIM-based devices and our range of specialist terminals for mobile workers.
You can find out more about our software and hardware products for community-based care providers by checking out our web pages or discussing the options with one of our team.
Community care and supported living providers should take note that we have given our specialist home care software a makeover so it’s now even more effective if you have smaller numbers of service users. We have also given it a new name – Home Care Studio
The areas we have upgraded are:
Rotas – we have made it easier to find staff to fulfil contracts by providing multiple rota views to meet a range of circumstances
Risk assessment screens – these now feature improved scorecards so you can add more details
Care screens – we have included social care and person-centred care planning to give a better all round picture of the service user as an individual
Reporting – this now offers the option of printing out care documents in part or full for greater flexibility
Ease of use – we have improved functionality for handheld devices, such as smartphones and tablets, so it’s easier to make initial assessments, log service user information, clock in and out and check rota information on the move
If you want to know more about how Home Care Studio can help you save time and provide higher standards of care, visit our supported living web pages or contact us.
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.
A flexible workforce is good for your staffing budget – but it can be a major headache when it comes to managing the rota and calculating pay.
If you have staff working full-time, part-time, extra shifts or a few hours here and there, read our case study to find out how one employer is using our software to take the guesswork out of managing his highly flexible workforce.
“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, and how much money we are going to take,” he says.
“If we know we’re going to have a busy day we can afford to have more people in and on a quieter day, fewer people. So it’s not just about filling spaces or job functions but also about hitting the budget.”
Our case study features a retail catering business but we can create similar systems for all kinds of employers and industries, from hotels and restaurants to the healthcare sector and college campuses.
In a first for easyLog, we will soon be releasing a new generation of devices based on near field communications (NFC) technology, which will allow tablets and smartphones to be used as clocking-in terminals – and much more.
“This is a great step forward because it means we can supply an all-purpose reader built into an everyday device – a computer or phone – rather than one designed specifically for clocking in,” says easyLog’s Graham Rolando.
“It makes the technology more convenient and flexible and, at the same time, more cost-effective for our clients, which is something we think they will welcome.”
The easy-to-use and fully automated system operates on Android tablets and smartphones, turning them into fixed location clocking terminals or handheld devices carried by individual employees. It works in conjunction with special NFC-enabled tags, which come in a number of formats, including cards, key fobs and stickies.
The pack includes a master tag and user tags. Waving either type of tag near the device, or vice-versa, automatically invokes the software. A user tag will bring up a screen prompting for clock in or out. When an option has been selected, the device sends the record to the host computer. The master tag allows system administrators to configure the device and program user tags.
There are two handheld modes and one terminal mode:
Software on smartphone with tag in fixed location (handheld mode 1) – suitable for domiciliary care or the cleaning industry
Software on portable tablet with tag in fixed location (handheld mode 2) – suitable for night checks in care homes
Software on fixed tablet with tags held by individual employees (terminal mode) – conventional staff clock-in
This product is available for order now. Tags can be configured with i-Button codes for seamless transition from the i-Button system.
Three further products based on this software will be available later this year:
NFC Employee Station – wave tag over device to see employee messages, rota and pay information (extension of terminal mode above)
NFC Care Room Checks – care records currently available via Care Logger automatically accessed in new front-end when tablet is presented to resident room tag
NFC Domiciliary Records – employees wave phone near service-user tag to display care requirements, visit information, care plans and risk assessments relating to the service user (extension of handheld mode 1 above)
For further information on any of our NFC products, please contact us.
Our Windows staff rota app has been officially launched and is now available from Microsoft’s online Windows Store. The app is called Staff Rota-8 and is published by easyLog Ltd. Go to the store to download the app (to login, insert the username ‘user’ and leave the password space blank).
Touchscreen technology has already revolutionised mobile phones and will soon be coming to a desktop or laptop computer near you – which is why easyLog is shortly releasing a rota management app specifically designed for Windows 8 touchscreens.
The Windows 8 app has been created with speed and ease of use in mind. There are minimal menus and pop-ups and no setting-up screens are required, because the rota is based on existing e-Log+S core user functionality defined on the main system. So, whoever is setting the rota just selects the relevant job function and shift, then taps on where they want it to go.
As well as tablet PCs, the app can be run on a traditional PC – desktop or laptop – with a touchscreen monitor. Although the computer must have the Windows 8 operating system installed, the monitor does not need to be W8 compatible – a Windows 7-combatible monitor is equally suitable.
“We wanted to take advantage of the user-friendliness of touchscreen technology to make rota creation even easier for everyone – and the new Windows 8 environment has enabled us to do that,” explains easyLog marketing manager Nicola Clark.
“We realise that few of our clients are using tablets and other touchscreen devices right now. But it is the technology of the future and we strongly believe it will transform the way people use computers in their working lives in a very short time.”
easyLog’s W8 rota app at a glance
Designed to Windows 8 development guidelines
Can be used with touchscreen or mouse on W8 operating system
Ideal for Windows 7 compatible touchscreen monitors as well as tablet PCs
Minimal menus and pop-ups
Easy to operate for users of all levels
Works in conjunction with e-Log+S staff scheduling software
Fast connection to server by broadband to avoid Terminal Services and Citrix type environments
For those organisations, especially in the public sector, that operate a TOIL (Time Off In Lieu) system for their employees, help is now at hand to monitor and report on this efficiently within easyLog’s staff scheduling software.
A TOIL system allows employees, in agreement with their line manager, the option to take additional (non-holiday) time off instead of being paid at a higher overtime rate. Like a bank account with a running balance, an employee therefore earns TOIL hours and then has them debited as they take time off in the future. Usually TOIL hours must be taken within an agreed period or the TOIL credits are lost.
easyLog’s implementation of TOIL within its scheduling software allows the manager to see instantly the TOIL hours on the rota. The periods of TOIL both given and taken can be viewed together with the original shifts that were additionally worked to earn TOIL and the shifts that will not now be worked due to TOIL being taken. Each employee has a TOIL account that can be viewed across any date range and shows the current balance of TOIL at any time together with any notes that the manager made at the point of agreeing, giving or removing TOIL periods.
The TOIL facility is available to any client currently on software support and will be provided within their next automatic upgrade.
Any organisation that is not a current user of our staff scheduling application but would like to discuss or see a demonstration of the software’s TOIL functionality can contact our offices on 01892 834406 or e-mail info@easylog.co.uk.
For a growing number of people, going to work doesn’t mean travelling to the same place at the same time every day. These days even smaller employers usually offer flexible hours and homeworking, while bigger companies are increasingly moving parts of their business to specialist remote offices. In fact, global market analysts IDC predict that by 2013 there will be 129.5 million mobile workers inWestern Europe– that’s more than the number of traditional workers.
According to IDC, mobile workers can be broadly defined as office-based, non-office-based and home-based. But in real life it’s a bit more complicated. We have discovered from working with our wide client base that mobile workers come in many and varied forms – and they are becoming more diverse all the time.
This makes choosing an appropriate mobile worker tracking and attendance recording solution difficult to say the least. So we have put together this four-point plan to make the process easier.
1. One size does not fit all
Do an instant audit of your mobile workers and break down their activities. Categorise them according to the extent of their mobility – for example, do they:
Always work from home?
Check in to an office daily or just from time to time?
Work at a range of company or client sites?
Also take a note of the numbers in each category and how often each employee visits a location. This should give you a picture of the diversity of your workforce and the kind of attendance system, or systems, you’ll want. For instance, you’ll probably need to consider whether staff arrive at a work location individually or in groups; if they are occasional, part-time workers or regular, full-time staff; if you need instant notification of their arrival or can receive the clocking record later; and whether you might need more than one monitoring system for different employees.
2: Make your investment count
Of course, there are cost-implications to take into account, too. For example, if you have staff who work for just a few hours a week at a particular location, you are unlikely to want to invest in a state-of-the-art visit tracking system based on smartphones or a biometric hand-scanner.
But just how do you work out which attendance monitoring hardware offers the best value for money? We always find it helps to decide where your main cost lies. If your workers are attending multiple sites on a regular basis, for example, it’s likely to be with the employees. But if you have a variety of staff making irregular visits to a single location, you should probably focus your investment on the site.
3: Keep an eye on the bigger picture
So you’ve found what looks to be your ideal attendance monitoring solution and it’s the right price – but are you sure it really meets your needs? What looks good on paper can sometimes be a let down in the field. For instance, can the system cope with more than one employee starting work at the same time? And what about ongoing costs? Have you got your clients’ permission to install terminals at their sites? And is the necessary infrastructure in place? It’s easy to overlook details like this when you have so much ground to cover.
The best approach is to look at what’s required from every point of view – your employees’, your clients’ and your own – before you make a decision. You may end up compromising on some details, but the system you choose has to work for everyone involved if it’s to be a success.
4: Big is not necessarily better
You may start off wanting an all-singing, all-dancing fully-integrated staff scheduling system with full payroll analysis and client invoicing functions, but experience shows that such complex, all-encompassing solutions are likely to prove a disappointment. Staff often have too little time or inclination to learn to use them properly and managers struggle to implement such a major project.
The issue of implementation is one that you need to keep in mind throughout the selection process. Sometimes starting smaller and developing your system as your needs change can be the most effective way forward. It’s easier to manage and, in an increasingly joined-up world, the best way to take advantage of future technology.
Whenever easyLog is asked to supply a biometric reader for recording staff attendance hours we will only make one recommendation based on our current experiences – implement a hand scanner.
Installing a biometric time clock presents many advantages. It uniquely proves the attendance of each employee without any possibility of another member of staff clocking in on their behalf. A biometric reader needs minimal administration because there are no cards or tags to distribute among the workforce and it removes the possibility of staff being unable to record their attendance because they have forgotten their badge or tag. However, these advantages will be lost, and time could even be wasted in calculating staff hours, if the biometric recording device you choose is unreliable in its primary task of correctly recognising an employee first time and every time.
Until easyLog is presented with a fingerprint reader that identifies an employee every time then the following remain true:
1. A fingerprint reader is based on identification of the minute detail of an individual’s finger. A process that is fine for highly secure access control in a clean environment but not always appropriate for busy staff wanting purely to clock in and out.
2. A biometric reader must be compatible with the situation in which it is operating. If workers are consistently involved in a dirty environment, frequently immerse their hands in water or handle cleaning chemicals, for example, a fingerprint reader will always struggle to identify the employee.
3. If a biometric reader cannot identify an employee with 100 per cent reliability it causes doubt. This affords the employee with an excuse for not recording their attendance. The reader is entrusted with providing irrefutable proof of time and attendance and is therefore critically relied upon for the calculation of staff pay. It must work first time and every time.
Based on easyLog’s considerable experience of implementing biometric readers, the only reliable and value-for-money biometric reader at this present time is hand scanning. A hand scanner, appropriately for time and attendance, views the shape of the individual hand and verifies this against his or her record. Its reliability is not impaired by dirt, cuts, hand gels, subtle changes in hand size due to heat or cold or immersion in water. With only a routine weekly cleaning procedure it will carry on working consistently with any size of workforce.
easyLog has implemented hand scanners with all of its time and attendance, pay analysis and staff scheduling software modules. In all cases the reliability of the applications has been completely matched by that of the biometric reader.
easyLog is always reviewing its product offerings and will be very pleased to hear of user experiences of fingerprint readers that differ from our conclusions.
As an expanding business providing activity-based services for primary school children, Fit For Sport needed to be totally on the ball when it came to its back office systems. Yet, until recently, the company was struggling to organise shifts manually for its 250 staff with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Because of its complexity, this all-important spreadsheet could only be operated by two employees – a situation that was clearly unsustainable for a growing company. So Fit For Sport decided to look for a more technologically appropriate staff scheduling system.
A realistic return on investment
Fit For Sport admitted they found the selection process difficult. “We weren’t and still aren’t what I would call IT savvy,” says company founder and chief executive Dean Horridge. “Our objective was to find a software application that was user friendly, supplied by a company that we felt we could work with as the business changed and at a sensible price to provide a realistic return on investment.”
The company opted for easyLog’s e-Log+S off-the-shelf scheduling application, along with some bespoke software development. This centred on two functions:
A definable e-mail facility to inform clients about changes to their usual Fit For Sport representative and to provide client details by text to the Fit For Sport staff member
An interface with Fit For Sport’s Sage accountancy software, including a sign-off sheet for clients giving details of all sessions per month and the option to create an invoice in the Sage Sales Ledger
“That is just brilliant!”
As one of the two operators of the old spreadsheet-based staff rota system, Sally Webb, operations coordinator, was particularly appreciative of the new e-Log+S system.
“The software highlights any gaps in the schedule and indicates available qualified staff. I can then automatically send out a text message to advertise the shift,” she says, adding that the best thing is that now anyone can do this task.
“It avoids errors from employees misreading the old spreadsheet. Likewise, with just one click, clients are e-mailed the full details of their sessions without having to look up e-mail addresses, contact names and staff CRB details. That is just brilliant.”
Dean Horridge adds that the new staff scheduling system has had a positive impact on customer service as well as satisfying the original goals of enabling wider staff participation in the rota creation process and giving the business a sounder management platform.
“The easyLog software has heightened our awareness of staff downtime and costs, while matching staff to client requirements is much improved and more accurate. The integration with our accounts system means that bringing our payroll in-house is now realistically achievable and will save further time and overhead,” he concludes.
“We are currently exploring the expansion of our business geographically through establishing a franchise network. I know that the easyLog system will be a part of these plans.”
Fit For Sport runs curriculum PE sessions in schools throughout London and in the Midlands, as well as offering after school clubs and Kids Camps during school holidays. The company is also an accredited provider of sport and active leisure training and apprenticeship schemes and has formed a registered charity, the Fit For Sport Foundation, to provide wider access to Fit For Sport programmes.
Contract cleaning is a competitive business, so a product that can cut costs and help win new clients is a worthwhile investment. At least, that is the view of John Milton, managing director of Matrix Office Services, who was so impressed with his first easyLog staff attendance system that he keeps getting more.
Quality and reliability
Matrix, a growing company currently employing around 90 staff, is a specialist provider of contract cleaning services to shopping centres and blue chip organisations. But it was finding that larger sites, where 20 or more staff could be working at a time, were putting its administration systems under increasing pressure.
“We needed a more practical, automated solution to monitoring staff attendance and calculating payments,” explains John. “I also wanted to distinguish Matrix in the marketplace and show our clients how serious we are about quality and reliability.”
Attendance records at a glance – and no absenteeism!
When John read about easyLog’s GPRS-based staff attendance system he was immediately impressed. Employees record their date and time of attendance at any site by touching an identification tag against a terminal, which automatically sends the information back to the main office in real time using GPRS technology (like a SMS text, but cheaper). The attendance record is instantly read into the easyLog software, so you can see at any time who is at a client location.
The system was first used by around 18 cleaning staff at a shopping centre in theWest Midlands. It was originally implemented with easyLog’s a-Log software, which provides simple timesheet reporting for each employee across any date range.
“There was no staff absenteeism for the first three months,” says a delighted John.
This pattern has continued, with reduced absences one of the major benefits of the system. “The attendance record provides undisputable proof of an employee’s timekeeping so there are no arguments about whether someone was late or not. A supervisor can therefore approach conversations about attendance with clarity and certainty,” he adds.
The shopping centre management team was also impressed. “They saw that we are serious about our long term involvement and that we could produce accurate management reports for them on demand,” John explains.
Automated pay analysis
The company has subsequently upgraded to easyLog’s e-Log+S staff scheduling software, which compares staff attendance against the shift on the rota and automatically creates a payment record at the correct rates.
Matrix has also implemented one of easyLog’s battery-powered aB-Log terminals at aLondon site where access to mains electricity is difficult. Staff again use an identity tag to record their attendance, but the records are downloaded by a supervisor at the site each week using a data transfer stick and then passed into the scheduling software manually.
John praises the easyLog support team for its help in getting the systems operational. “They were willing to listen and provided the advice we needed at any time,” he says.
He concludes that his easyLog products were a very good investment. “I am now providing a better quality service with reduced costs from a workforce that consistently arrives on time. I proposed the easyLog system on our last two tender documents and won both. That’s the result I was looking for.”