3 Ways A Time Clock App Overcomes Labor Shortage Challenges

Shannon Corgan, Director of Marketing 

Are you using a time clock app? Labor shortages in the construction industry are a major issue and a top concern for construction business owners. You may be wondering how a time clock app can help you with this problem, especially since, according to the USG + US Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index – 2019 Q4, 83% of general contractors are challenged to meet schedule requirements because of the skilled worker shortages. Changing your current time collection process to a time clock app with real-time entry and allocation may seem small, but I guarantee you will quickly see how it helps you work smarter, not harder when it comes to optimizing construction labor.

Here are 3 Ways a Time Clock App Helps You Overcome Your Labor Shortage Challenges.

1. Gather Accurate Labor Hours

You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and to overcome your labor shortages, it’s imperative to accurately measure your labor hours. You don’t want your employees to overestimate their hours by putting in a standard scheduled of 7 AM to 4 PM daily. When you use a time clock app to track labor in real time, you only pay your employees for the hours they work. A time clock app also eliminates buddy punching so you’re not paying employees when they’re not working. If you have a mobile time clock app, your labor cost accuracy will skyrocket, because employees simply clock in/out on their mobile iOS or Android device. No more paying employees for travel time to the job trailer or to the office to clock in or out. GPS will tell you where the employee is when they clock IN/OUT to reduce overpayment for labor hours. If you start using a time clock app with real-time data collection, it’s likely you’ll find your labor hours for a job are less than what you’ve paid in the past and you can actually complete the job in less time than before.

2. Track Completed Work in Real Time

Once you have accurate labor hours captured in real time with a time clock app, you need insight into what your labor force is doing in the field during their shift. Again, to overcome your labor shortage challenges, you have to measure not only total labor hours, but you also need to know how much work is completed during those work hours on each task to optimize your current staffing levels. When you’re measuring labor hours, tasks, and production in real time, you can make adjustments to keep your project on time and within budget. Find a time clock app that captures completed work as soon as your employees change from task to task with the flexibility to have supervisors enter the crew’s production or allow each employee to enter it. When the employees know they’re being measured in real time and that everyone in the company will have access to how much work they’re completing, you’ll see an uptick in productivity. With a time clock app, you’ll have global visibility across your entire organization and can see the most productive crews. To learn more about why you should be tracking your production in real time in your time clock app, view our video, 4 Reasons to Track Completed Work in Your Time Clock App. 

3. Identify Most Productive Employees, Crews, and Projects

Now that you’re using a time clock app to track labor hours, tasks/cost codes, and production in real time, there are several labor shortage issues that it can solve for you. Firstly, with a time clock app with real-time data collection, you now can see which crews are completing the most work and compare them to other crews doing the same work with similar labor hours. If one crew is consistently outperforming another crew, you can find out what the high performing crew is doing and share their best practices. You may find that you have enough employees and crews to do the work with your current staffing levels. We’ve had small customers save hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to $1.2 million, by switching to collecting labor in real time. It’s never been this easy to collect project field data in real time and take actionable insights to solve your labor shortage problems by tracking, labor, tasks, and production from a mobile time clock app.

Once you have accurate costs and production in real time, you can also bid more aggressively on future projects because you have accurate historical data from your real-time field data collection of similar projects. Once you have real-time insights into labor and completed work on your projects, you can easily identify best practices from your most productive crews and will likely be surprised by how much more productive those crews can be. In fact, you may be far less understaffed than you previously thought. Using real-time labor, tasks, and production data from a time clock app, you’ll optimize the labor you have and reduce your current labor shortages by working smarter, not harder.

To learn more about how WorkMax TIME can provide you with real-time actionable insights into how to optimize your staffing, click here or schedule a demo now. 

World of Concrete 2020: Must-See Technology Partners 

WorkMax TIME’s Top Integration Partners

Shannon Corgan, Director of Marketing 

As you’re walking around the trade show floor at the World of Concrete 2020, don’t forget to check out the Technology for Construction section in the North Hall to see how you can make it easy for your field employees to give you accurate live job cost data for your job cost reporting. One of the most important decision factors in purchasing a live field data collection solution for controllers and financial managers is whether it integrates with their existing accounting solution. You’re in luck because we have a list of the must-see technology at the World of Concrete 2020, so you can find the right live field data collection app that works with your accounting system. You can also talk with the staff of our accounting solution partners at the World of Concrete 2020 to find out why they love WorkMax and tell you how well it integrates with their accounting software.

1. WorkMax TIME – Booth N1146 at World of Concrete 2020

WorkMax TIME integrates with the top accounting systems used by most contractors attending the World of Concrete 2020. This way you can be certain that only active employees are clocking IN/OUT and only active projects, locations, or cost codes have labor hours and production units assigned to them. WorkMax TIME’s permission profiles mirror your organizational structure and project cost structure to show only the relevant job cost data to your field employees for accurate real-time job costs. Controllers and financial managers don’t have to spend hours doing reallocations or spend weeks creating work-in-progress reports. Below is a list of our ERP and accounting integration partners also attending the World of Concrete 2020.

2. Acumatica – Booth N1463 at the World of Concrete 2020

Acumatica Cloud ERP offers a special Construction Edition to meet the needs of the construction industry. Acumatica Construction Edition allows you to manage construction payroll, contract management, financials, and cost estimates from a single subcontractor. Stop by their booth and find out why WorkMax TIME and Acumatica are a great fit to grow with your business.

3. Viewpoint – Booth N1153 at the World of Concrete 2020

Viewpoint has multiple ERP options for contractors attending the World of Concrete 2020. They offer ProContractor by Viewpoint, Vista by Viewpoint, and Spectrum by Viewpoint. Viewpoint provides integrated software solutions for the construction industry to improve project profitability, enhance productivity, manage risk, and effectively collaborate with internal and external stakeholders. Swing on by their booth to say hi and see why WorkMax TIME and Viewpoint solutions have so many happy mutual customers.

4.  Sage – Booth N1263 at the World of Concrete 2020

Sage helps small and medium businesses perform at their best and manages finances, operations, and people. One of WorkMax’s most common accounting integrations is with Sage 100 Contractor and Sage 300 CRE. It’s one of the top-selling accounting systems for construction, so don’t be shy and stop by the Sage booth at World of Concrete 2020 to find out why the integration works so well for all of our mutual customers.

5. Foundation Software – Booth N1563 at the World of Concrete 202

WorkMax TIME also has a robust integration with Foundation Software. Foundation Software offers construction accounting software for job cost accounting and project management with mobile applications to help construction companies run their businesses. Make sure you stop by their booth and they can tell you why so many of their Foundation Software customers love how well WorkMax and Foundation Software work together.

6. A-Systems Corp – Booth 1650 at the World of Concrete 2020

A-Systems JobView is another top construction accounting system that integrates with WorkMax TIME to provide live job costs. JobView also provides other cost control tools to create daily reports for timely informed decisions. In addition to core accounting features and job cost accounting, A-Systems JobView also manages payroll (certified, union, multi-state), invoicing / AIA billing, importing estimates, change orders, customer management, and more. Check out the case study of our mutual customer, Archer Mechanical, that saved $153,296 in labor costs with WorkMax TIME.

Want to see how easy it is to integrate these top accounting systems? See our full list of integrations and click on their logo to see a video. 

Buddy Punching: Your Arch Nemesis to Accuracy and Profitability
3 Ways a Biometric Time Clock App Can Eliminate Buddy Punching Forever
By: Shannon Corgan, Director of Marketing 

Buddy punching is common for companies with a mobile workforce especially when supervisors move from job to job and manage multiple crews. They’re not always around when employees are clocking IN/OUT leaving an easy opening for this to occur. Every business owner, accountant, payroll employee, and supervisor needs to know what buddy punching is because it’s most likely happening and negatively affecting your payroll and job cost accuracy. But more importantly, you’re paying employees when they’re not actually working and it’s driving up your labor costs. It’s great that your employees are buddies and work well together, but you don’t want them to clock each other into work before they’ve arrived at the job site or clock each other out after they’ve left the job site for the day. In a nutshell, that’s what buddy punching is; Employees are paid for working but they’re not at the job site working.

Here are 3 ways WorkMax’s biometric face recognition will end buddy punching for your business:

Accurate Biometrics Results with WorkMax’s Time Clock App 

With true biometric face recognition, you’ll know you have the right person clocking IN/OUT and there’s no buddy punching happening. Faces in a profile photo are matched based on their visual geometry, including the relationship between the eyes, nose, brow, mouth, and other facial features to the clock IN/OUT photos associated with their time records. After the faces in the two photos are compared, you’re provided with a match percentage. You may be wondering if your employees can fool the system and continue buddy punching for their coworkers by wearing a hat, wig, or glasses. You’ll be happy to know that the answer is no. You’ll still achieve accurate face comparison match percentages even if your employees change hairstyles or wear glasses or a hat. The visual geometry in WorkMax’s biometric time clock app still measures the relationship between the facial features for the most accurate way to eliminate buddy punching.

Easy To Use

According to Pew Research, 96% of Americans own a cell phone and 81% of Americans own a smartphone. Most people’s mobile phones have replaced their cameras and they frequently take photos with their mobile devices. To use the biometric face recognition, simply have your employees take a photo on a mobile device when they clock IN/OUT and the biometric face recognition is done in the background. Employees just go to work as soon as they clock IN/OUT just like they’ve always done. Facial recognition is the best way to eliminate buddy punching and when you make face recognition easy to use, you’ll see the results you want.

No Expensive Equipment 

When we developed WorkMax TIME’s biometric features to eliminate buddy punching and reduce your labor costs, we wanted to remove any cost barriers to using biometrics. There’s no need to purchase expensive biometric devices or equipment like other biometric solutions that cost over $1,000 per device. With WorkMax TIME’s biometric time clock app, the cost really isn’t an issue because employees can clock IN/OUT on their iOS or Android device or use existing company tablets or iPads with WorkMax.

To see how WorkMax TIME’s face recognition will eliminate buddy punching forever and reduce your labor costs, learn more about face recognition here or schedule a demo right now.