Hey SkedXers,
Today we will continue our discussion about how retailers can find big savings in the little things. This post will focus on what I call the time thief, otherwise known as your time sheet.
Employees work different hours day to day and week to week. Keeping track of who has worked where and when, can be a nightmare! Many retailers to ‘make things simpler’ by using time sheets. This is where the problems begin.
The biggest cost with time sheets, is that there is no true time stamp. In many cases, employees can be a little more generous when writing in their times than you would like. This ‘generosity’ usually equates to no more than 15 - 30 minutes per shift, but when you look at all of your employees, and how many shifts happen each week, this easily can equate to thousands of hours each year.
On the more extreme, but total not rare end of time theft, I’ve heard from one company that their employees were tacking on an average of two hours per shift, or employees saying that they had worked 8 hours, when in fact they were never there. This scenario is not impossible to believe. It happens more often than you think.
There have many studies that have been conducted that say that every company experiences time theft in one form or another which equates to anywhere from 1.5% - 5+% of total payroll. Do the math, what is it costing you?
The other big expense with time sheets, and really, any non-digital way of tracking time, is time. I mean wasted time. Payroll administrators can be very expensive, especially when you are getting them to do simple tasks like addition.
Many retailers are spending a ton of money each week to have calculated for them how many hours each of their employees are working, what breaks need to be deducted, and if overtime occurred during the week. Once that is all done, they can finally put the hours through to to payroll, hopefully with no addition errors.
That process takes unnecessarily long with too many resources (including money) wasted for nothing.
What retailers need to look for are solutions that are digital, inexpensive, and flexible. The solution must be digital because it keeps employees honest. It must be inexpensive, because there is no need to spend a lot of money when you don’t have to. And it must be flexible enough to fill your needs.
I do realize that this seems like a big change, especially if you have been doing your time and attendance the same way forever. But let me tell you, one medium-sized retailer was able to save over $300,000 per year, just by using a digital, inexpensive and flexible time and attendance solution.
Now, you may or may not see that big of savings, but I can guarantee that you will see a big change. Most of all, you will experience less headaches with trying to figure out payroll. Your employees will be kept more honest, and most importantly, you will have a lot more money left in your pocket.
If you're interested to learn how we at SkedX have made the time clock awesome, digital, cheap and flexible, then sign-up for our Time Clock Webinar on May 1st @5pm est. It will be the best 20min you have ever spent!
