Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
Yes, children can harm your career.
Of course they can. But there are obvious rebuttals, the most obvious being, “What’s the alternative? Do we think it’s better for our careers to harm our children?”
A recent survey conducted in the United Kingdom that finds that the more generous a company/country is with maternity leave, the less likely that company/country is to have women in managerial roles.
(In the U.K.) one in three women (39 per cent) said they found going back to work after having a baby ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’, with 31 per cent saying their relationship with their boss had deteriorated since they had become pregnant.
This is what all those women’s magazines are talking about when they talk about balance. The one thing they leave out, though, is that it’s almost impossible to achieve. But a human resources professional is supposed to avert these kinds of disasters… and violations. After all, maternity leave is more than just a payroll headache, right?
What do you think? Read more about the survey here: http://www.nctpregnancyandbabycare.com/press-office/press-releases/view/184
Add comment December 7, 2009
Coming soon: Even better time and attendance software
We’ve been in the automated time and attendance business for more than 10 years. And while that’s a long time, right now is the best time for iEmployee.
That’s because we have a renewed commitment to bringing you the most reliable, accurate, and best time and attendance solution available today.
Okay, companies say this all the time. But you’re about to see what we’re talking about next week.
On the night of December 9, we’ll shut down iEmployee for a couple of hours so that our programmers can make a few very important changes to our time and attendance tools. When you log in on December 10, you’ll notice a few slight changes to how iEmployee looks. But you’ll also notice a few key functionalities are better than ever.
(That’s the beauty of Web-based software. It’s like little elves come in and upgrade your software overnight – no IT staff needed. All you see is the best iEmployee version out there!)
The biggest change is that fantastic “global navigation” toolbar at the top of the screen. We’ve added this to every page so you can navigate the entire software from those selections.
There are other changes, too, and you can learn more about them on our special 2009 Winter Release webpage. On this webpage you’ll also be able to review the following:
- A list of FAQs about the changes
- A downloadable Word document you can use to send to employees and managers so they’ll know what’s going on when they log on
- A 3-minute demo that walks you through some of the changes.
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE TO GET TO THESE LINKS
Of course, if you have any other questions, feel free to contact you support representative.
And here’s the best part: We want you to tell us what you think!
Seriously. Do you love it, hate it? What else can we improve? We’re committed to helping you have easier payroll days, and we can’t do it without your feedback.
Talk to your support representative or comment on this post, below.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
Add comment December 1, 2009
Hello, Texas Payroll Conference in San Antonio!
Greetings from San Antonio, Texas!
We’re at the Texas Payroll Conference 2009 in San Antonio, having a great time at Booth #28.
One of the best things about the Texas Payroll Conference is that we’re Texans, too. iEmployee is based in Austin, so we’re just a short drive up the road. We’re proud to have so many of our clients in Texas, and it’s fun to meet you all in person, shake hands, and talk payroll.
Lots of you have stopped by the booth already to say hi and learn a little about our time and attendance solution, which is fantastic because we know you’re busy in between sessions. If you only have a minute, here are the top three things you should know about iEmployee:
1. It’s Web based. That means no software to install, no IT department needed, no upgrades to worry about. Plus employees, managers and payroll administrators can access it from any computer at any time. Simple.
2. We customize it for you. Whether you have one office or several offices, whether each employee works for one client or several, whether you pay weekly, monthly… you get it. We learn about your business and how you do payroll, and we create iEmployee for you.
3. It’s the fastest way to eliminate the headache that can be payroll. Imagine … no more paper , no more entering data in Excel, no more wondering if an employee is coming into overtime. With iEmployee, all this information is automated and self-service. Entering time sheets, approving them, making payroll off of them is all done with a click.
We hope you’ll stop by the booth and ask us some questions. Or you can contact us at anytime here.
Add comment September 17, 2009
National Payroll Week, Sept 7-11!
It’s National Payroll Week 2009! Not sure what it is?
Here’s what it’s not: A week during which anyone who processes payroll can take a vacation. Too bad.
Here’s what it is: The American Payroll Association’s campaign to educate 156 million wager earners about their paychecks and celebrate the payroll professionals who pay them.
The website is a great resource for learning about how to get the most of their paycheck with savings, retirement planning, managing child support payments, and other deductions. There are also (ahem!) a number of ideas for celebrating that special payroll professional in your life.
If you’re doing something to celebrate National Payroll Week, please share.We especially want to hear from our iEmployee customers. How has automated time and attendance made payroll easier for you? That’s worth celebrating!
PS: Don’t forget to join us on our new Facebook page! We want to build a community of payroll pros – and the people who love them – so we can share/commiserate about the highs and lows of processing payroll.
We’ve been following lots of you out there on Twitter – you’re hilarious! I hope we can get together online and learn a little more about each other. (http://twitter.com/iemployee
Add comment September 8, 2009
Compare and contrast time & attendance tools
One of the best services the American Payroll Association offers its members is its annual buyer’s guides. These aren’t rankings or reviews, rather they’re charts denoting the platforms, features and other elements of dozens of products side-by-side so you can compare and contrast. It’s a great place to start if you’re shopping for payroll solutions.
In case you missed it, the 2009 Time & Attendance Buyer’s Guide is available. You can download it here: http://www.americanpayroll.org/pdfs/pto/bg_0901.pdf
If you take a look at the iEmployee entry, you’ll see we offer one of the most comprehensive solutions for time and attendance. But what this chart doesn’t show are things like ease of implementation or excellent customer service. We know those are important considerations, too, and we’d love to tell you more about it.
Add comment August 25, 2009
Great to hear from happy customers
We just got off the phone with a new customer from Texas who raved about the implementation experience with iEmployee’s time and attendance product.
She puts together a very complicated payroll with multiple divisions and multiple clients, and as a result, multiple types of timesheets. When she signed up for iEmployee she was sure she would overwhelm our implementation team.
And yet, she said, our team was “totally professional, totally attentive,” taking in the entire history of her company and setting up iEmployee to perfectly accommodate their needs.
Of course, this story makes us proud. We realize there are many time and attendance solutions out there, so we try to differentiate ourselves through service. It’s good to hear directly from our customers that this strategy is working.
Add comment August 6, 2009
We were there! American Payroll Association’s Chapter Exchange
iEmployee's Nate Pruitt and Jeff Vogt bond with APA Chapter presidents
This is the second year that we sponsored the American Payroll Association’s Chapter Exchange event – and what an energetic group of professionals! We were excited to have the opportunity to meet many of the front-line leaders of the regional chapters.
The APA’s Chapter Exhange offers chapter leaders the opportunity to “exchange” ideas for promoting membership in their chapters and growing unity among all chapters. For us, it was an opportunity to meet many of our customers and get to know them on a different level. That is to say, we had fun.
Nate Pruitt with our AmEx Winner Jennifer Unocic from Big Lots
Throughout the event, iEmployee gave away gift cards that escalated in value. We also gave out T-shirts and other fun iEmployee items, and did some serious bonding with the attendees.
We are already planning on sponsoring the Chapter Exchange event in 2010. Thanks to Susan Garcia, APA Chapter Relations Manager, for sending us these pictures.
iEmployee's Nate Pruitt and Mike Galyen at APA Congress
Add comment June 18, 2009
“Comply with me, comply, let’s comply today…”
Photo from APA Facebook page
We just couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to link you to the lyrics from this huge hit at last month’s American Payroll Association Annual Congress in Long Beach, California.
Get the full lyrics on the APA’s Facebook page. In the meantime, here’s a snippet…
“Comply with me, comply, let’s comply today
If you can use some payroll news
There’s a place for you at APA
Comply with me, comply, let’s comply today…”
Add comment June 16, 2009
The benefits of SaaS for time and attendance tracking
More companies are signing up for SaaS or Software-as-a-Service applications because they save money and offer a simple implementation. When it comes to time and attendance tracking, a SaaS solution can be the ideal way to get up-and-running and achieve a fast return on investment.
iEmployee SaaS Advantages
iEmployee Software-as-a-Service payroll solutions reduce IT burden and costs, and enable you to achieve economies of scale in deployment, service, management, and ongoing support.
Implementing our Time and Attendance software is a fraction of the cost of traditional on-site hosted solutions. Consider the following iEmployee SaaS benefits:
Lower Up-Front Cost: SaaS is subscription based, with no software or hardware to buy, install, or upgrade, no license fees, or additional investment in building IT infrastructure and resources.
24-Hour Monitoring: Our servers and applications are monitored 24 X 7 via sophisticated automated tools to ensure you are provided with the most reliable service possible.
Painless Maintenance and Upgrades: iEmployee performs maintenance and automatic upgrades (to both the servers and the iEmployee application), freeing our client’s IT resources from the burden of planning, implementing, and testing in house, so their expertise can be repurposed to more strategic areas. Our timely upgrades ensure that users have instant access to the latest innovations at no extra cost.
More affordable: The monthly subscription rate based on user volume makes budgeting more consistent.
Flexibility: New application features and functionalities can be added and activated quickly as your business demand changes.
Quick to Install and Easy to Use: iEmployee applications can be deployed in a few weeks. The client gains easy access to the applications any time, any where over the Internet. Users can simply log in and start using iEmployee Time and Attendance solutions without investing in extensive training, resulting in faster learning curve and higher user adoption rate.
Seamless Integration: iEmployee offer customization capabilities and easily integrates data with our client’s existing third-party payroll software.
Better Return on Investment
While non-mission critical applications for payroll and HR are often pushed to the back of the IT schedule, the ROI of automated time and attendance can be quickly and easily achieved, thereby justifying the organization’s investment.
Because iEmployee time and attendance is a SaaS solution, it offers an economical, low-risk, and quick alternative to traditional on-premise hosting. The competitive edge of SaaS over the traditional hosted-software model allows companies to scale without adding costly infrastructure. Not only does iEmployee offer that quick return your company needs now, it can keep up with your company’s growth in the long-term, and pay back your investment many times over.
Want to know more about SaaS? Click here and choose “Chat with a Product Specialist” for more information.
1 comment June 16, 2009
Four Ways to Streamline Payroll
As companies tighten their budgetary belts and scrutinize profit and loss sheets, they will look increasingly to payroll professionals to account for resources in their departments.
Processing delays, missed deadlines, and re- keying errors can literally cost your department thousands of dollars a year and countless wasted hours. This translates into tighter profit margins and less opportunities for growth. Moving to an e-payroll platform can help reduce the time, money, and man-power needed on unnecessary manual procedures. This will increase productivity and free up staff to pursue more strategic tasks, giving employees more control of their information. Pushing for streamlined payroll processes will give your company the ability to make better use of the resources that are already available and drive growth for the business as a whole.
1. Bridge the data gap
When it comes to measuring productivity, it’s the little things that count. If you have had any experience with working with payroll software systems in the past, you will no doubt have experienced the need to jump from one standalone system to another. This is because most companies run their payroll, HR, general ledger, and tax reporting processes on different applications.
That’s why reason, systems integration should be the first priority of any well-run payroll department.
The benefits of payroll systems integration are far-reaching and immediate. By making diverse components of your payroll related business practices work together, you allow for significant performance gains. Some of the more obvious advantages include:
- No double entry – Eliminate the double input of data between HR, payroll, and benefits departments.
- Real-time data – Eliminate the need to transfer data across applications. Information is automatically updated which keeps up-to-date figures for reports.
- Simplified routine requests – Allow employees to review their own personal data by integrating with an automated services solution.
- Save time – Alleviate need to double-check figures with other departments. Have more time to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Many companies are choosing to tie their systems together with a Web interface capable of connecting islands of automation. Others are deciding to go with complete Web-enabled packages that give them instant support in a comprehensive suite of services, without the need for hardware or software. These services tend to be more cost-effective and put the risk of rollout success on the vendor.
It is best to be fully versed in this kind of time- saving software as these applications are becoming more and more popular. Payroll staff will be called upon to analyze their data and examine trends as their usage increases.
2. Go with the flow?
Nothing is more annoying than having an important deadline looming and having to wait on two or three other people before you can complete your task. How can you ensure that you get the support that you need to keep the wheels of your operations moving?
Workflow automation programs help you keep track of the progress of any requests you make by recording the time the request was made and when it was completed. Safeguards can be put in place whereby a manager is contacted if a reply isn’t received by a certain time. This gives employees the added peace of mind that critical tasks will be dealt with promptly and saves the hassle of having to chase people down.
3. Push for progress
While it is important to consider the needs of individual employees when organizing payment methods, ultimately you have to keep the big picture in mind. Companies are looking increasingly to payroll professionals for advice on how to optimize resources and cut costs. The greater the direct deposit adoption rate, the greater the savings.
Some companies have achieved adoption rates of up to 98 percent by using raffles, contests, sweepstakes, and promotions to encourage participation. Others have stopped delivering checks in person to employees, instead mailing them on payday, which provides an incentive to use direct deposit because you receive your check sooner. Still others require all new employees to use the direct deposit system.
To achieve the desired efficiencies, it is best to gear your solution towards your company’s culture. Although your eventual goal is for the universal adoption of the system, it will require small, gradual steps.
4. Track labor more effectively
One of the most common payroll errors is not meeting labor compliance regulations. It is easy to lose track of PTO when there are so many functions that come under the payroll umbrella. Unfortunately, this is a costly mistake that can eventually cost the company heavily in lawsuits.
Most companies have solved this problem with time and attendance software that allows employees to monitor their own schedules and enforces the policy equitably. This also reduces the burden on you and your managers and eliminates PTO abuse.
For more information about how to streamline your payroll process, contact an iEmployee product specialist.
Add comment June 15, 2009
