Reduce Remote Employee Babysitting with a Phone Time Clock

What could be more aggravating for a manager than the following scenario? You're safely home and ready to sleep when a night shift manager at a remote location calls in to say she's ill. Since her crew is relatively new, you check in with that office only to find that no one is answering the phone. Panicked, you climb out of bed and drive across town to find everyone working peacefully!

How could this scenario have been improved? Three words: Telephone time clock. Had your company already had in place a phone time clock system, the scenario would have been much different.

For instance, not every manager remembers to call in immediately when she's ill. Not to worry; a telephone-based time attendance tracking system can alert you by email when someone fails to report. Even if the manager hadn't called, you would have been aware of the situation.

The second way things would have been different with a phone time clock is that, rather than calling frantically to learn if employees were on the job, you could have learned their status online.

Telephone time attendance tracking systems are linked to an online interface for management. Once you learned of the manager's absence, a simple glance at the location's logins by phone would have told you that everyone was in place.

These terrific timekeeping systems, can't, of course, deal with the issue of employees who don't answer the phone! But in this case, you could have made a different decision about whether to race across town in the middle of the night.

This is all possible because each employee calls in to a central number and their time in and out is logged immediately in a web-based database. As a manager, you have employee time information from every office at your fingertips. Dealing with employee shortages is made so much easier when you learn, real-time, who's absent.

What a sane, orderly way to do business! If your company has remote locations and you're struggling to know if they're always fully-staffed, a telephone time clock can definitely restore your sanity.

Finding the Perfect Employee Time Clock

When my best friend and I decided to open up our small web design business, we did not expect to grow into a huge company. With the growth of our computer-based business came new and larger responsibilities. Many of the new responsibilities entailed keeping track of multiple clients to keeping accurate records of employee time recording.

My business partner and I were fine at first with juggling all of our clients, but we were having problems keeping accurate records of our employees who wanted to work from home. This problem was a big thorn in our side. We tried several different methods such as the traditional punch time clock to even having them write down their times in a log book. None of these methods were accurate and we ended up overpaying several of our employees that worked at home. We were on a search to find a solution to this problem.

One day during a business lunch with a regular client, the conversation turned towards finding new and innovate ways to increase employee productivity and also save money while doing this. The client informed me about a great company called Chronotek that he had been using to keep track of employee hours. He said that it was a service that is a

telephone time clock that uses a toll-free phone number that employees use to clock in and out from home. This grabbed my attention immediately and I could not wait to check this innovative service out and share the information with my business partner.

When I shared with my business partner what the client had been using for time attendance tracking in his business, she was intrigued. We went to the website and did a little research on this service. After checking everything out and reading the testimonials, we both knew that this was the perfect solution to our problem.

The Phone Time Clock has now been in use in our web design business for six months. Our employees now find it much easier to clock in and out with this groundbreaking invention. My business partner and I have also noticed that all of our employees are much happier using this simple system. The ease of access of the system makes it easier to keep track of payroll and has saved us thousands of dollars over the past six months. We could not have found a better solution to our problem and recommend it to all of our clients dealing with the same type of problem.

How Telephone Timekeeping Improves Response to Official Requests

Complying with official requests for payroll information can be very difficult with a paper-based timekeeping system. For example, if an employee files a complaint with a government agency about the way they are being paid, timecards must be gathered and copied at that agency's request. Using a telephone time card system with online access to records makes compliance much simpler.

You may not have yet experienced a request of this kind. Many companies, however, have felt the pain of responding to an official request for records for workers compensation reviews, wage and hour disputes or even an audit by the home office. Another reason an official request might be received is in the event of a lawsuit, when payroll records for a specific employee or group of employees are subpoenaed.

Firms with far-flung employees who bring in handwritten timecards are especially vulnerable when this type of request is received. Another possible obstacle is that those timecards might be sent to yet another location for storage. To determine your own exposure, why not take a quick look at how your payroll records are being collected, calculated and stored. Within your present system, would you be able to respond quickly to such a request?

Your payroll manager may reply with a terse, "I know where everything is stored, don't worry about it!" The problem is that filing systems tend to change when managers leave. Having the ability to retrieve records from a phone time card system does two things; it creates a backup to physical records being stored, and it counteracts the quirks (and failings) of individual employees.

Believe it or not, many companies that thought they had a system in place for quick retrieval of original time records have been stunned to find that records have been damaged or misfiled. In compliance situations, you must also be able to produce proof that records have been stored in a way that prevents tampering. A secure online database from which only specific employees are allowed to retrieve and print time records makes this much easier.

Simply put, a telephone-based time attendance tracking system is one in which an employee calls into a phone system and reports her stop and start times for each shift worked. From those phone calls, an online database of time records is created from which timecards can be printed and real-time payroll data managed.

None of us who own or manage a business wants to believe that we might be the subject of a regulatory audit or investigation. In today's highly-sensitized workplace, however, compliance with a whole host of payroll and benefits regulations is a formidable job. Knowing you have at your fingertips the records you need lessens the load significantly.

Why wait until you're unable to provide verifiable employee payroll data quickly? A phone time clock system with online storage of employee time records can easily keep you ahead of the curve.

Keeping Tabs the Easy Way

Managing remote employees has become a topic of interest for us as we explore opportunities available in the world of telephone monitoring. One of the most common concerns managers face when it comes to the maintenance and management of remote employees is keeping track of who is doing what. A telephone timecard system like the one developed by Chronictek is a useful way to keep track of which employee is completing what task at any given time. In fact, keeping employees accountable for their actions should be a number one goal of any manager.

As a management professional, you should pay special attention to the work ethic harbored by each of your employees. Unfortunately, when managing a telecommuting staff, keeping track of these work ethics is a more difficult and easier said than done. However, enlisting the use of the telephone timecard system will help you to keep track of whether or not your employees are where they say they're going to be.

The telephone time card is simple, easy to use, straightforward, and virtually foolproof. Not only will the enlistment of the telephone timecard system help save you money, it will also help you save quite a bit of trouble when it comes to monitoring and maintaining your telecommuters.

Telephone time card systems are easy ways to keep track of employee time in an efficient and quick manner. When an employee arrives for work, they dial a certain number to clock in and the time is recorded. When they get ready to leave for the day, they again dial a number to clock out. There is no figuring involved. There is no complicated set of keys to press or time zones to confuse the issue. It is as simple as dialing a number.

Then, whenever an employer chooses, they can view any or all of their employees’ time up to the minute in their internet browser. This is an excellent way to keep up with employees during the week. It will help determine who is getting to work early or late on a day-to-day basis instead of having to wait for a monthly report. And the system virtually eliminates discrepancies and problems with dishonest employees.

Don't spend another day wondering whether or not you've got all your ducks in a row, and instead, rest assured in your ability to monitor your telecommuters with ease and convenience.

Don't Just Be Busier- Be SMARTER

So, you’re trying to maximize your profits by using remote employees, that’s awesome…but to do it right, you have to do it smart.

There are quite a few things that will help determine how productive your remote employees will be. So the next time you’re meeting with your remotes, or your simply delegating and setting goals, suggest that your staff set aside a plan every day. This is another area where using a phone-in timecard system can be helpful – organization is key. If you organize a plan based on your daily needs, and stick to it, you'll find that your productivity levels increase as well. Instead of wasting time wondering what you should be doing, you can simply check new items off your list.

Basically, the best way to ensure productive home business is to organize, plan, and avoid distraction. Do your best to set up your home office in an area that will cultivate a thriving online business. After all, as in most things, you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. If you're spending all your time folding laundry and no time working, you're not going to make very much money.

Aside from tools like the phone timecard system, one of the first things to remember when setting up your home office is to avoid high traffic areas and choose a location that is relatively quiet.

Many of your employees will set their home office in the kitchen or living room and find themselves totally distracted day in and day out. Complete distraction is a bad idea for those of us trying to operate an online or remote business. So, if you can set up a separate area in a back bedroom or a private den, chances are your productivity will improve. Another key to successful home office operation is to maintain a certain level of organization.

It’s good idea to keep your home office strictly your home office. For example, in the area where you operate your online business, avoid personal distractions like your bills, children's report cards, and other things that don't have anything to do with your online opportunities. Avoid clutter and keep your desk as clean and clear as possible.

There’s no limit to what you can do when you’re organized and ready to tackle smart business. The key to running a remote business successfully is to work SMARTER, not HARDER!

Be Your Own Business Expert

Managing remote employees can be a challenge, so in order to provide you with some of the most beneficial information we can find, we turned to not just a management expert, but a clinical psychologist!

If you’ve never read the book The Power of Appreciation in Business, and you’re managing a company that employs remote staff, you should consider the following information as vital to your success.

First of all, managing a remote staff means keeping tabs on that staff. A company called Chronotek has devised a way for you to do just that through the use of telephone time cards. Telephone time cards will allow remote employees to punch in and out effectively no matter what time zone they’re in…but that’s not all;

According to Noelle Nelson, the aforementioned clinical psychologist, a weekly teleconference can do wonders for keeping a remote staff on task – but to do that, you will need to know who’s where and when. Here again, the telephone time card system can pay for itself in one application!

Here are some tips for helping you manage your remote staff. To successfully manage a remote staff, Nelson advises that business managers and owners need to be:

· Consistent in company messaging about goals and protocol.

· Authentic in their communications. If the business is struggling, you don't need to air all the dirty laundry, but it's good to be straightforward about where the company stands.

· Accountable to others. "If you say it, you must follow through with it," Nelson says. "Every initiative left hanging chips away at an owner's credibility."

We also gathered some information from a business expert named Charles Andrew. “Chuck” states that "It only takes five minutes to acknowledge one employee's good deed with an email blast to the entire company. We all have egos and it feels good to be recognized for what you do… Be thoughtful about what kind of incentive system will help your employees meet their goals," Andrew says. "And, of course, it's always good if they can see a straight line from performance to compensation in their paychecks."

The Tele-TimeCard...It's About Time!

What if there were a simple way for your remote employees to clock in? What if there was a time system that employers could access online twenty four-hours a day? Well, there is…and it couldn’t be more simple. It’s an accurate and efficient system, and requires only the telephone.

Telephone time clocks are an excellent option for offsite employers. Offsite managers are often faced with the inability to physically monitor employees or to collect tangible time sheets. As a result of this problem, time and attendance issues may go unnoticed for months at a time, thereby making it more difficult to address and correct the problem. However, with a telephone time card system, employers have instant access to time sheets, creating quick and efficient communication that doesn’t waste time.

After all, what could be more of a headache each month than is dealing with stacks of mailed or faxed in employee time cards? Too much paper makes it easy to miscalculate time and gives dishonest employees an advantage. Traditional time cards, punch cards, and even print outs can be difficult to read and easily manipulated. Even computer time programs can be accidentally miscalculated or programmed with the wrong time zone. With traditional systems, employers have to wait until the end of the month to view and monitor their employees’ time.

Telephone time card systems are an easy way to keep track of employee time in an efficient and timely manner. These telephone systems work in a practical and basic manner…when an employee arrives for work, they dial a certain number to clock in and the time is recorded. When they get ready to leave for the day, they again dial a number to clock out. There is no figuring involved. There is no complicated set of keys to press or time zones and such to confuse the issue. It is as simple as dialing a number.

Subsequently, whenever the remote employer chooses, he or she can view any or all of their employees’ time cards (kept accurately up to the minute within the employees’ internet browser). The tele-timecard is an excellent way to keep up with remote employees during the week. And, the system virtually eliminates discrepancies and problems employees may have with time management!