We have refreshed our website with a new look, more information about our time, attendance, scheduling and analytics product, a separate section for Philippine payroll and pricing information.
Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below.
Ever notice that moment when you smile at someone and they instantly smile back, almost unknowingly – why is that? The reason is because humans react biologically. When you see someone smile it triggers the same neurons in the brain that react if you were to smile yourself. Years of research have shown that the simple act of smiling elevates both your mood and that of those around you. Your stress levels are reduced just by having a grin on your face no matter who is around which also lowers your heart rate levels after daunting tasks. The most incredible part is that these results are not only caused by being emotionally happy, your mood will still be elevated to the same extent even if you are faking a smile! The motion of creating a smile a few times a day real or fake is by far the easiest way to help improve moral in an office and consequently your health as well.
When we first started creating the concept that is PayrollHero, we wanted to improve the experience someone has coming to work and knew that this idea of elevating mood was important. We can all agree using a punch clock or time card can likely have a negative impact on your mood as it stands as a reminder of just starting a long day. If you could start your day with a smile and a tone that sets the pace for the rest of the day for you and your employees wouldn’t you try to? Our software is designed so you see all your colleagues smiling faces and goofy grins everyday to help create that desired effect of uplifting your mood and experience. We want to help elevate the happiness in your organization, check out our site PayrollHero.com to see more about our TeamClock and MyTimeClock that allow employees to clock in and out with just a picture and a better start to their day.
Source: Forbes.com
One of our core values at PayrollHero is incremental improvement (Kaizen) and part of that means constantly learning new things. I asked some of our team what they are reading at this moment, here is what they said:
Stephen Jagger – Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
Brandon Strong – Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords” by Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd
Tin Sanchez – Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Dane Natoli – The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Mylene Seyeux – The Devil Wears Prada’ by Lauren Weisberger (french version)
Bram Whillock – Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
What are you reading?
Square is talking about rethinking the receipt, Pete Smart wants to rethink the airline boarding pass – here at PayrollHero we have been working to rethink the punch clock.
Traditional punch clocks are bulky, easily manipulated, offline, paper based and enable time theft. We have met with countless business owners who have complained about the issues with their punch clocks and the desire for a new way to handle employee time and attendance.
We sat down a couple years ago and rethought the punch clock and how it should work. Of course we wanted something cloud based, that eliminated fraud and time theft and was easy to use. The biggest challenge we wanted to tackle was how employees perceived the device. Employees hate the punch clock. They don’t enjoy the process of clocking in and out for work. We understand the importance or accurate time and attendance but wanted to rethink how we could collect this information while making it an enjoyable process for employees.
Introducing the TeamClock (iOS) and MyTimeClock. We began with photos, and built a platform that lets employees clock in and out for work by taking a picture of themselves. We added IP address support as well as GPS location so that we can ensure that the right employee is in the right place at the right time.
The big benefit – employees love it!
We added props to the clock in screen, random background images, social sharing functionality and there is more coming. Check out PayrollHero.com for more details about how our time, attendance, scheduling and analytics platform works.
You can see PayrollHero’s TeamClock Web in action here at Krispy Kreme:
According to the Urban Dictionary, buddy punching is “when a person at work clocks in (“punches in”) their friend when their friend is late to work.”
It is a common occurrence in many companies, organizations and even governments who use traditional punch clocks, passwords or pen and paper to track their employees time and attendance. An employee contacts another employee asking them to clock in for them as they are running behind.
While not a small cost to your business, buddy punching really ads up. Imagine an employee is 9 minutes late every day but has a colleague clock them in. 9 minutes a day, times 5 days a week times 52 weeks a year equals 2340 minutes which is 39 hours. Those 9 minutes a day add up to almost a full week off over a 1 year period. Now imagine you have this happening with 20, 50 or 500 employees. Those costs really add up.
How can you eliminate buddy punching?
PayrollHero’s selfie TeamClock uses your employees face as the metric for clocking in and out, eliminating buddy punching. Plus, PayrollHero can be locked down to specific IP addresses and is location aware on iOS devices adding another level of security.
Our friends at New Leaf Ventures have another fantastic event coming up at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf 26th Street Bistro in the NetLima building. One January 25th 2014, come learn about “The Winning Entrepreneur – 5 Lessons that Will Bring You Success”. It is a free event, but you must register to attend.
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This is one of the most valuable questions to ask not only yourself but every staff member you have at your company. You will be surprised at the results and you will see how people curtail their roles into their answers like almost biased but inevitable responses. Generic responses may seem the clear answer but breaking down your initial thoughts to the very basis of what your company is trying to achieve on a daily basis will show how you should be aligning your strategy.
Key words will pop up such as profit, growing clientele base, customer satisfaction, employee happiness, market share, the list goes on forever and at the end of the day they primarily revolve around money. You have to look past the paper though and analyze what is it that actually will take your business to being a leader. My answer is learning. As a start up or a lifelong veteran business, the key to being an expert in any category is how quickly you can learn every aspect that drives your business. Acquiring new customers is great and pretty much a requirement but looking at a number increase or decrease is meaningless. You must learn why new customers wanted to use your product or service and why several did not. The answer to this question will be what truly drives your growth. Learning through feedback channels what is working well at your company and what needs to be changed is a triumph. Any company can experience these triumphs everyday if you are taking the time to figure out better processes and solutions. The firms that don’t take the time to learn from their mistakes and the changing environment are the ones that will not exist next year simple as that. With this I challenge you to examine what successes can be unveiled that will contribute to your goals. What will you analyze about your industry and product that will truly give you a clearer approach to your strategy? What do you still need to figure out to be the best at what you do?
“When employees feel that the company takes their interest to heart, then the employees will take company interests to heart” Noelle C. Nelson from her book Make More Money by Making Your Employees Happy.
It seems that most companies have heard or been taught how happy employees save your company money but few have changed their regimens or implemented any real tactics to help. Looking at the statistic in the photo above however, you may place a bit more priority on the issue. Focusing on only the monetary benefits is eye opening but it is truly the qualitative benefits that derive from a happy workforce that stand out.
Making your employees happy by providing a quality work environment and dependable resources will improve productivity, engagement, results, idea creation and creativity. When I mention dependable resources I am also referring to pay. Arguably one of the most basic crucial requirements someone working has. Anyone who has been waiting on a company to receive a pay check that never seems dependable or always late can highly damage the loyalty an employee feels to their firm. We like to help eliminate this for our customers by creating a dependable payroll solution that ensures timeliness and abundant data that employees need like previous pay stubs, vacation hours, taxes, change of address and a schedule that is viewable anywhere in the world. You must improve your employees work life as much as possible; prove your company has compassion and is held accountable to your word and they will reward you with results. Your company will save money in productivity right before your eyes with a ramped up work force that feel a part of something. Take a look at PayrollHero.com to see how our platform and time attendance app TeamClock can help simplify your business and keep your valuable employees smiling everyday. We thrive on helping business owners learn more about their company to help grow it and improve work life for employees across the globe using PayrollHero.
Time and attendance fraud is a costly and often hidden aspect of almost every business. Over the years we have seen and heard about many ways employees have been abusing the system to squeeze out extra time. Image an employee that shows up 5 minutes late every day and leaves 4 minutes early. Those 9 minutes add up to 40 hours over a 1 year period. That is an extra paid week for unworked time. Here are 5 ways that employees could be scamming your time and attendance system;
1. Buddy Punching – if your company uses passwords, punch cards or the like for employee clock in/out then chances are you have some employees who clock in and or out for each other.
2. Inflated Hours – if you have a manager using a paper based (or excel) time and attendance solution chances are you have inflated hours in there. If an employee walks in a few minutes late, in many cases the manager will mark the employee as on time. It is a hard place for a manager to be, while they want hard working employees, they also want to be seen as “friendly” so their tracking might not be as accurate as an automated system is.
3. Ghost Employees – not specifically a time and attendance problem, but larger companies, government organizations, etc can have ghost employees within their organization. This can happen when an employee in the payroll department adds a family member, friend, etc to the payroll but that person does not actually work for the company.
4. Favouritism – when managers pick and choose who gets overtime or have the power to override attendance records there can be some leakage.
5. Inaccurate Data Entry – when an employee is tasked with coping over time and attendance data from time cards or time sheets simple human errors can find their way into attendance or worse, an unscrupulous employee could adjust the numbers on purpose.
These are just five examples of time and attendance fraud that goes on within companies. Have you heard of other examples?
If you want to learn more about how PayrollHero eliminates these issues, reach out to us for a one on one call with one of our sales engineers.