Managing working time: The changing role of IT in working time
Section eight of the Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide to managing working time. Other sections.
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Get an overview of how IT can enable working time arrangements Understand working time planning systems and how to use them Review the
advantages of Workforce Management Information Systems |
Before the advent of the personal computer, shift patterns and calendars were largely hand-drawn. As any modifications or adjustments entailed laborious redrafting and recalculation, radical departure from tried and tested patterns was avoided wherever possible.
The concurrent evolution during the early 1980s of the annual hours concept and spreadsheet software, led to basic, but functional, applications for rota and calendar generation being developed. The British Paper and Board Industry Federation and the Chemical Industries Federation led the way among those trade bodies who made available Lotus 1-2-3 applications to assist member companies in the annual task of providing new patterns of work and calendars for their predominantly shift-working employees.
On the planning side, the past decade has seen the evolution of intelligent software capable of identifying and producing shifts and rota design options from specified labour demand parameters. A surge in advances in operations research and the availability of much-improved production and service demand data, coincided with low cost PC access to give the capability of using complex algorithms to handle the many different 'what if?' calculations involved in the task of developing new and innovative patterns of work.
Time recording has evolved over 20 years from mechanical, punch-operated clocking systems to fully electronic applications driven by advanced swipe and biometric proximity devices which collect attendance data.
Related human resource management (HRM) systems also evolved over this period, but the capability of handling the requirements of managers and supervisors for the day-to-day administration of working time falls outside the mainstream requirements of personnel management.
These days, off-the-shelf packaged software is available for all working time functions. These fall broadly into three areas: time recording, labour planning, and workforce management and control.
Time recording
Time and attendance
The best-known working time recording application is probably that of time and attendance (T&A). It is served in the UK by a multiplicity of suppliers with varying capabilities, industrial experience and areas of expertise.
The main application for T&A recording in the UK is for the collection of data on absence, punctuality and additional hours worked. The broad aim of these systems is to provide information to payroll for overtime payment and many systems have automatic links to the main payroll management systems.
Almost invariably today, these systems collect information through some type of electronic clocking system by swipe card, proximity or biometric device. It is then compared to an expected attendance register or pattern of work held within the system. Any exceptions are presented to a system administrator for decision on payment type and rate and in this way, data on hours worked and instructions on rates for payment can be prepared and then provided to the payroll system. This ensures payment for additional hours at the appropriate rate or deductions for shortfalls in hours worked.
Timesheet systems
These work in a similar way automating the feed of accurate and authorised data to payroll. But this data usually comes from a manual or paper-based collection systems. This type of system is common where workers are based off site at disparate locations, here information is increasingly being collected through email or mobile phone based recording systems.
Access control systems
Closely allied to time and attendance and often sharing data collection devices, are access control systems. These are often used in high security and/or high risk sites where:
there are potential dangers from unauthorised access
strict records must be maintained for health and safety requirements
Examples of sectors where access control systems might be found include secure environments like prisons, military establishments, and chemical/pharmaceutical plants.
A key function of such access control systems is photo identification and mustering so that in the event of fire or emergency, everybody on site can be identified and accounted for, including all employees, visitors and contractors. Clearly a by-product from these systems can be data on hours worked.
Shop-floor data collection systems
Also allied to time and attendance are shop-floor data collection systems. These are designed to accumulate hours spent on specific tasks, machines or departments so that accurate job and contract cost information can be collected for accounting and charging purposes.
Flexitime recording systems
These can be fed by clocking devices similar to those used by T&A or Access Control and increasingly in administrative functions through computer logons and logoffs. Such systems will often monitor flexible hours taken and provide reports of weekly, monthly or quarterly balances so that proper monitoring of the system can prevent abuses.
Risks
With all the recording systems and with the workforce management information systems discussed below, there is a risk of error and of data entry duplication between systems. To cut down on this risk, organisations need to make sure there are strict controls on the input and transfer of data between systems. For example, a time and attendance system will invariably hold key base data that will be used to identify and locate an employee, much of this data will also be held on both the personnel and the payroll system and potentially on a training records system. Unless the systems are integrated or there are clear data transfer protocols and routines, the risk of error and duplication can be costly and time consuming.
Fortunately, for most modern applications, data transfer between systems is no longer the troublesome task it once was and there can now be high degrees of confidence as to the integrity of data between systems given appropriate controls.
With these applications, the specific tasks that the systems are designed to support are generally handled well. But few systems are sufficiently flexible or robust enough to handle all of the requirements. A chemical or pharmaceutical plant might have the following requirements, for example, access control for health and safety reasons, an advanced annual hours monitoring system for its operators, a time recording system for its security and engineering staff and flexitime for its administrators and clerical people. When seen against related areas already mentioned, such as payroll, HR and training records, this multiplicity of applications all dealing with related data can give rise to confusion, duplication and potential for error on a large scale.
Working time planning systems
The growth of strategies such as demand-based rostering, annual hours and requirements for extended hours, extended weeks operations and seasonal working environments has led to increased availability of systems for the strategic planning of working time.
As indicated above, initially these systems were rooted in spreadsheet models devised by in-house specialists and consultants working in the field. It is these systems that became the forerunners to both generic and industry-specific packages that are now available to carry out this type of application.
It is important to make the distinction at this stage between long-range strategic planning systems and the administrative recording and management functions that are involved on a day-to-day basis. Long-range strategic planning systems do not consider the individual or the individual's preference for working time arrangements other than in a very general sense. The focus is on formulating strategy and developing working time arrangements and patterns of work based for a stated demand requirement over an extended period of time. To deal with individual nuance and preference at this stage would be counter-productive and add a level of complexity which could prohibit the achievement of viable solutions.
Using working time planning systems
Working time planning systems take into account the nature of employment contracts, along with the various levels of production or service demand stated on a daily, weekly and seasonal basis. From this can be calculated broad estimates of team structures, people numbers required and outline estimates of the type of working time arrangement or patterns that may be appropriate.
These systems will enable the user to consider various options in terms of shift lengths and start times so that stated demands can be fully covered by an acceptable set or range of shifts. The user then needs to weigh up what will be acceptable to the workforce, looking at the relative merits of:
patterns
cycles
rotations of work
The final stage of the process is the generation of a long range plan or calendar for each individual or team and the statistical analysis of the output to prove the equitability of arrangements for all concerned.
Benefits
The strength of this application is that it allows organisations to play 'what if?' with the many variables involved in what is a fundamentally mathematical process. The various concepts arrived at can then be presented to operational management and the rest of the workforce, allowing them to appreciate the complexities and nature of the process and increasing the chance of widespread understanding and buy-in to new arrangements.
What next?
Once the organisation feels confident that it can satisfy demand with a particular supply model, its business managers can then:
present and negotiate new working time arrangements with the workforce
fine-tune and develop the system, building in the most acceptable patterns and more usable leisure time, without undermining the basic principle of meeting demand.
The methodology described above is appropriate to all working time environments from continuous process where demand is flat throughout a period of time, to call centres and warehouses where there may be variations in labour requirement from hour to hour and from day to day, and where there may also be a requirement to cover seasonal fluctuations in demand. The methodology also provides a clear structure and process for solving this type of problem which is highly visual and promotes a common approach.
Crucially, these systems provide a means of applying shift planning constraints which ensure the continuity and integrity of patterns in terms of both internal and external regulations.
Workforce management information systems
With or without automated data collection, workforce management information systems promise to provide the next generation of highly user-friendly administration systems, placing working time management and, therefore, the cost and control of labour in the hands of the managers responsible.
Traditional IT approaches have split this type of application broadly into personnel or time and attendance. This division has left managers with little access to decision support and management information for what in many organisations is their most costly resource - that is, manpower.
Workforce management information systems offer a central repository of information covering key elements of organisational, personnel and working time data including:
Skills
Experience
Training
Shifts and patterns
Hours worked
Cover provided.
The key to the success of these systems lies in ensuring transparency and access to appropriate information so that users can identify and locate employees quickly and easily and to record information about changed plans and circumstances within one central database of employee and working time information.
Allowing for changes
Changes to a pattern may may be recorded and the impact of the change is reflected in the employee hours accounts and in the tactical planning modules which provide cover analysis for decision support.
Shift Pattern changes may include: -
Shift swaps
Shift extensions or reductions
Absence
Training
Holidays or floating days
Parental leave.
Employee accounts may provide records of:
Overtime
Reserve or bank hours
Holidays taken
Sickness
Training.
Each will be able to reflect the current situation as it relates to individual employees so that analysis can be carried out under any of a number of topic headings so that decisions can be made with regard to providing additional cover.
These systems will also measure the impact of changes to patterns with regard to legislative or other set constraints such as the Working Time Regulations. So if a shift is changed that will impact on the 48-hour maximum calculated over a pre-set reference period or a break between shifts, for example, the user will be notified of the implications.
Systems may also provide:
Employee self-service modules for holiday requests and shift swaps
Full integration with HR and T&A applications.
With the availability of workforce management information systems and moves to improved planning of working time structures, the need for overtime is reduced and there are fewer exceptions to the plan.
This has led to some manufacturing companies abandoning time-and-attendance applications altogether and very simply rely upon exception monitoring. This accords to the different 'trust-based' cultures which have appeared, notably among annual hours environments, a good example of which is Colman's of Norwich.
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Time and attendance Timesheet entry Access control Flexitime recording Shopfloor data collection Labour planning covers Demand forecasting/modelling Demand led scheduling Shift and rota planning Annual hours planners Workforce management and control systems covers Exception monitoring systems Shift pattern administration Employee hours accounting Cover analysis Skills and competency profiling Few of these applications are well served
by the major Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) providers and few of the
mainstream personnel/HR systems deal with working time in any more than a
cursory way. |
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Section one: Why
employers must tackle working time |
