Access-to-Time have been working with Oxford City Council’s Waste and Recycling Services in a bid to streamline the service and make it more efficient, by using the latest technology to save time and money.
In March 2011 Oxford City Council managers gave the go ahead for the Focus Enterprise system to be installed, to monitor how much time staff spend at work. The system has two terminals and a specially-tailored on-screen display.
In the past, staff at the waste and recycling depot filled in their time sheets manually, which is not an accurate or efficient way to record attendance at work. The installation of the new time and attendance technology has enabled the council to streamline the service and make financial savings.
Ian Bourton is the project manager who has overseen the implementation of the new system, which is being used by around 70 waste and recycling operatives. He has been working with Alastair Slade from Access -to-Time to implement the new system. Alastair explains how it works:
“There are two terminals that are used for staff to clock in and out using handscan technology. One is located inside and the other outside, with a special hurricane cover so that it can be used in all weathers. A customised ‘Run Out’ screen has been provided so that managers can plan working schedules very quickly and more accurately. They can also see up-to-the-minute information about who has clocked in or out in real time.”
Ian Bourton, from Oxford City Council goes on to outline the reasons for installing the system and the benefits :
“The Focus Enterprise system has made it easier to allocate staff shifts and managers can monitor and report staff attendance. Holidays, lieu time and sickness absence are also recorded much more accurately. Precise clocking in and out of staff members means that managers can see the information at any time on the screen. There have been efficiencies made by using this system and in addition to the cost savings, you haven’t got staff filling out time sheets when they could be using the time to carry out work. The system has been very easy for the staff to use and there have been no objections to switching over. It’s also good at capturing data in real time. Staff can ‘bank’ hours they haven’t used, which we can use to undertake training for example. There is more accurate recording of overtime and we are now just using one database instead of three or four.”
The system has been running since May 2011 and Oxford City Council will be considering whether to roll the system out to other departments, especially those services where staff work outside normal office hours.
More information about Access-to-Time and their time and attendance systems can be found at www.a2t.co.uk
That’s one of the statistics revealed in a recent survey that was carried out by time and attendance specialists Access-to-Time, who have now helped over 1,000 businesses in the UK improve staff attendance and cut costs. Alastair Slade, Director at Access-to-Time explains:
“In the current economic climate it is more important than ever that businesses get the most productivity out of staff and the first way to do this is to make sure you are keeping an accurate record of the time your employees spend at work.”
The survey also found that installing a time and attendance system, had reduced administration costs for a significant number of businesses at 43%.
Not surprisingly 87% of businesses said they had a more accurate record of time data held following installation of a time and attendance system by Access-to-Time. Accurate attendance records resulted in improvements to other aspects of their business with 69% saying they now had more accurate pay and 63% less conflict over pay.
For more information about Access-to-Time’s time and attendance systems go to http://www.a2t.co.uk/
Businesses with managed groups of less than 50 employees can look at the uAttend system http://www.uattend.co.uk/
Sanguine Hospitality provide hospitality services to Cadbury House Hotel and Club in Congresbury, one of the largest and best known hotel and spa complexes in Somerset.
Shezan Aslam, Human Resources Director from Sanguine Hospitality found out about Access-to-Time’s Focus Enterprise system that is used to monitor staff time and attendance and a lot more besides. They were impressed with how easily it can streamline the way they plan staff schedules, record staff attendance and how it saves the business money.
Angus Fyfe, the Group Management Accountant at Sanguine Hospitality, explained that they provide a service to several hotels. They decided to trial Access-to-Time’s Focus Enterprise system at the Cadbury House Hotel and Club with 100+ staff, with a view to rolling it out to all seven of their hotels. He said:
“I liked what the Focus product did when I heard about it because it looked like something that could combat many of the issues we had about how much time people were spending at work. We started using Focus in June 2011 for our 100+ hotel and leisure staff at Cadbury House Hotel and Club. It basically clocks people in and out and we can then go online using terminal services to obtain stats on staff attendance. I liked the fact that it has a hand scanner as this works very well for people in the hotel and leisure industry. We believe the cost savings will be significant and the system will more than pay for itself. For example we saved 20 hours recently just in one day.”
Call Access-to-Time on 01761 410015 for more information on the system and how it could help your organisation.
In the news last week (12 July) have been tales about the challenging economy and how businesses are being pushed to their limit. Some believe that the economy shrunk by 0.2% this year, for reasons attributed to royal wedding and decreased output.
Meanwhile the Britsish Chamber of Commerce survey shows that the economy has grown by 0.6% because of exports, but this growth is still quite low.
Whatever your view is on the economy, this is a challenging time because everyone agrees that growth will be slow this year. Alastair Slade from Access-To-Time who helps companies save money on their staffing costs believes that many businesses, who are looking for financial savings can find this easily, with effective time monitoring. He says:
“Businesses should always look at their staffing costs, which for many businesses is their biggest financial commitment. For a small investment businesses can save thousands of pounds. Every penny can count in this difficult economic climate with increasing costs. This is great news for small and medium sized businesses.”
Access-to-Time work with businesses on a number of solutions to reduce their business costs by monitoring the time that staff spend at work more effectively. Most commonly this is done with the use of a system that uses a unique combination of cloud computing and finger print recognition, called www.uAttend.co.uk
Access-to -Time launched uAttend, which enables small and medium sized businesses to easily and effectively monitor their employees time at work. uAttend is already proving very popular with small and medium sized businesses. In the past these systems have been too expensive for smaller employers to use, but the uAttend system starts at £99 plus a monthly membership fee of £14.99. The price has been kept low because uAttend uses a unique cloud -based computing system that can be accessed online, with the added benefit of making it very easy for staff and managers to use.
Not only is the system very competitively priced, it has Lifetime Technical Support and Lifetime Hardware Warranty. This ensures that users have a known fixed cost, no surprises is the watch word!
The Access-to-Time uAttend™ system is available from www.uAttend.co.uk or call 01761 410 015.
