Volume 25: Time Is of the Essence

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, "There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full." And to think that was before cell phones, PDAs and laptops. With technology that enables us to work 24/7, our “time” is the crisis. In other words, there seems to be a serious shortage of it.

Today, supervisors must not only manage their people, but their people’s time as well. That doesn’t mean policing when employees clock in and out, although that may be part of it. Time management is the process of analyzing employees’ work and the time it takes to complete various assignments. To do this effectively, many managers rely on time management systems to help them monitor and strategize time utilization.

If new technology has changed the way we work, it has also changed our approach to time management. The Internet and email move information at light speed—literally—so while technological advancements may encroach on what was once our personal time, the same technology also allows us to work more quickly and efficiently.

“For the purposes of time management, technology provides instant access to employee attendance, productivity and performance information, so now supervisors can make intelligent, on-the-spot decisions,” said Anthony Grijalva, vice president of marketing for G&A Partners, an HR services firm that manages human resources, benefits, payroll, accounting and risk management for growing businesses.

Imagine, for instance, managing a manufacturing plant or a grocery store. In your role as supervisor, you probably would not have time to stand at the production line or the checkout counter all day monitoring productivity. (If you did, you probably would not be the most effective supervisor.) Yet, if from your desk, laptop or PDA, you could access information about production flow, you could make an immediate decision to move people around on the floor or call in additional workers. By looking at patterns in productivity, you could also identify the cause of the back up. In the case of the grocery store, you might determine that a particular time of day sees a spike in business, or you might find that one checker is especially slow—either way, you could make staffing adjustments accordingly.

Effective, real-time time management is certainly more than mere imaginings. Today, advanced time management systems allow managers and HR professionals to tap into labor data online anytime and anywhere, enabling them to assess their immediate staffing needs and make necessary changes. Even details such as potential cost overruns caused by excessive overtime can be flagged before they occur and calculated so managers can make quick, cost-saving decisions.

Additionally, effective time management systems can compile data, including overtime and paid time off (PTO), into reports that can be used for staffing and performance analysis or directly downloaded into a company’s payroll system. Service firms can use advanced time management systems to accurately track the hours their professionals dedicated to a particular project so they can better monitor and accurately bill the cost of each job.

The benefits of a fully automated time management system, such as G&A Partners’ fully integrated solution G&A Time Management, include reduced payroll errors, reduced payroll processing time, reduced unauthorized leave time, improvements in labor reporting and the elimination of time cards.

While on the subject of time cards, research suggests that 33 percent of companies still use paper time cards to track employee time. Although today’s more productive supervisors hardly have time to police a clock, the increasing reality of offsite workers and multi-site companies requires managers to diligently keep track of employees’ time, despite their location. Time management systems can provide virtual visibility to see, in real time, which employees are clocking in and out at any given time. In addition, time management systems can automatically calculate overtime, holiday and PTO.

Like its employees, time is one of a company’s most valuable resources. Unfortunately, it is easily wasted and can never be replaced. By alleviating the onerous time-tracking process, an advanced time management system can help a company ensure that its supervisors focus their time on more important things, like growing their business.

Sideline: Update on DHS “No-Match” Rules

*Last month, G&A’s Spotlight featured an article about the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implementing new, stricter rules related to employers’ obligations in response to Social Security number "No-Match" notices. We wanted to update you on the status of those new rules. Click the link above for more details. *