Sponsored by HotSchedules

For restaurants with hourly employees, time and attendance is a critical part of workforce management. Everybody clocks in and clocks out, but that’s just one small piece of the puzzle when it comes to juggling schedules and keeping the restaurant running smoothly.

Here are four simple ways a modern time and attendance solution can benefit your business:

1. Gain access to new and improved tools
Having the right tools can make a huge difference in how smoothly your business runs. Modern time and attendance solutions can give you access to newer, better tolls that help you in all aspects of tracking time – including payroll, mobile alerts, cloud data storage, time theft prevention, and labor law compliance.

Plus, modern time and attendance solutions can usually integrate with whichever point-of-sale system you use and allow multi-platform access, including mobile devices. That means fewer headaches when dealing with time card adjustments, better access and visibility for employees and managers alike, and real-time alerts when a scheduling issue needs attention. This makes life easier for everyone on the team – from the wait staff to the executive office!

2. Easily stay in compliance with changing labor laws
One of the major challenges facing any restaurant manager is labor compliance. As complex as it already is, labor compliance is also a shifting landscape, with laws regularly being passed and amended which need to be accounted for. Violations can bring hefty fines and employee conflict, so finding a scheduling solution that can keep your business compliant is key.

“As states’ labor restrictions become more favorable toward employees, there is a responsibility on the part of employers to document any time card transactions that aren’t directly controlled by the employees, like adjusting the start or end times of shifts,” says Nathan Pickerill, principal solutions architect at HotSchedules®.

Time and attendance systems that are integrated with robust labor management and compliance tools often have the capability to better deal with these issues, including support for predictive scheduling, remote access for better visibility, and mobile alerts to let you know about compliance issues before you run afoul of the regulations.

3. Offer transparency & security from top to bottom
By upgrading your time and attendance solution to one with cloud data storage, you can ensure constant security of all your data and provide improved levels of visibility from regional operations to the corporate level.

This allows larger businesses to identify problems and make strategy decisions much more quickly and effectively. Meanwhile, at the store level, a newer time card system is much more likely to offer affordable security features that can help combat time theft, such as photo recognition.

4. Get multi-platform support for all employees
Multi-platform support can let employees participate more closely in the scheduling approval and acknowledgement process, reducing errors and the time spent fixing them. It can also give them better visibility into the scheduling and payroll process, which helps them be more confident that their hours and wages are calculated correctly.

The bottom line:

“There are so many solutions out there that offer differing levels of advantages,” says Pickerill. “Finding time and attendance features that exist within scheduling and labor systems that integrate the compliance features that operators need to avoid penalties, the security features to prevent time theft, and the operational sales and reporting features needed in a near real-time environment is the Holy Grail for hospitality companies.”

With so many new features available in modern time and attendance solutions, there has never been a better time for you to take a look at your options and upgrade to a system that will truly make your life easier.

Download the HotSchedules eBook to learn more about a time and attendance solution that will fit your business’ needs!