Tanda Blog

Rosie Ramirez

11 March 2019    |   

Are your employees quitting faster than you can train new ones? Are you having trouble finding employees who will stay for more than 5 years? You’re not the only one. In 2018, the national average turnover rate was 22%, with resignations making up a whopping 16% of it. Layoffs and terminations only accounted for 6%, while retirements made up 1%. What’s more, the average American employee stays at a job for 4.6 years. Millennials and service workers are the ones most likely to leave, typically after just 3.2 years. What do these numbers mean for American companies? First, hiring is expensive. While figures vary across industries and positions, hiring just one employee can cost between $1,000 and $5,000. This figure includes advertising costs, in-house recruiters’ salaries, third-party recruiter fees, travel expenses, sign-on bonuses, employee referral bonuses, and relocation costs. Filling up a position can also take days, even months. Once hired, there is also a necessary training period before the employee can become productive. Clearly, each resignation represents thousands of dollars in lost investments. Second, whether voluntary or involuntary, high turnover rates are symptoms of a larger problem. Employees resign when they are overworked, undercompensated, or simply bored. Layoffs and terminations, on the other hand, usually happen due to bad hiring decisions and management techniques. Both contribute to significant losses in productivity and profits. No workplace is perfect. However, companies with low turnover rates adjust their practices whenever necessary. Below are 3 strategies you can use to retain more employees this 2019. 1. Ramp up your onboarding process Companies that invest in hiring but not onboarding are effectively throwing their money away. Onboarding matters, for every position, in every industry. If you have great onboarding processes, you can expect to nearly double your corporate revenue growth and profit margins. Employees are more invested when the onboarding process is better. Some of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world tailor each onboarding experience to the relevant role. Onboarding starts even before the employee’s first day, so it’s best to have your complete checklist ready. Free eBook: Making the Onboarding Experience Work for your Business 2. Provide rewards and advancement opportunities Employees look for a position where they’ll get a great manager and be part of a productive management culture. This is especially true for millennials, who will make up the largest percentage of the global workforce by 2025. They want to find jobs in companies where they will be given opportunities to learn new skills and advance in their careers. Employers need to ensure that they have plans and opportunities for a long-term career path. And they need to reward employees for their hard work. If you provide this, you can expect loyal employees who will grow the company with you. Read more: Show up for success! A step-by-step guide to rewarding employee attendance 3. Introduce flexibility to the workplace Introducing flexibility to the workplace can immediately improve morale and work-life balance. Managers can implement solutions that will not hurt the company’s bottom line. This includes better time off management, optimized scheduling, and shift swapping. These solutions will not only increase employee engagement but also improve business in the long run. And it is not difficult, as introducing flexibility to the workplace is aided by technology. Today, workforce management software like Tanda can help you manage shifts and schedules. Read more: Should you approve shift swaps at work? Invest to retain your employees Employees give their best when they are trained, valued, and empowered. If not, they look for other opportunities. Some industries are hit harder than others. Foodservice, for instance, has a turnover rate of almost 73%, while the retail industry has a turnover rate of 60%. Investing in workforce management technology like Tanda can instantly help managers onboard, schedule, train, and reward better. It can even help employers communicate better through Tanda Chat. Managers will appreciate the efficiency of the system and help them have complete oversight of their staff. Employees will also benefit from the transparency that it provides. No business grows without well-trained and dedicated people. Genuinely investing in employees and showing them that management is willing to make reasonable concessions helps in fostering loyalty. It also increases your positive reputation as an employer. Once word travels that you take care of your employees, it will make it easier to attract the best talent. With enough planning and investment in the right technology, you too can lower your turnover rate.

Rosie Ramirez

7 March 2019    |   

Ever needed to talk to a staff member while they were working outside? Or needed to inform them about changes the night before an event? For many employers or managers, communicating with staff can be a challenge. In trying to reach employees through available channels like social media, details can fall through the cracks. They might miss recording a call. They might see messages too late. And often, there’s no way to archive conversations. That’s why having an app dedicated to work-related messages has several advantages. The digital revolution is an integral part of everyday life, so work processes and systems will need to change accordingly. Most employees today, across age groups, value the efficiency that technology brings to the workplace. Companies that know how to leverage apps and other modern tools have an edge over their competition. They are able to attract more employees and empower them to do their jobs well. Below are five ways that a work chat app can improve your office. Improved communication. Work apps are less formal than e-mail but more professional than social media. A dedicated app prompts employees to treat conversations with urgency and respect, but with candidness as well. They are able to interact more freely within the context of the task at hand. When they have a secure way to communicate, engagement among the employees is higher. And because all work-related conversations are in one platform, it streamlines the way everyone receives and provides feedback, helping staff concentrate better. Real-time responses. Work chat apps allow colleagues to coordinate in real time. This makes updating schedules, sharing facts, or sending links go faster than they normally would. Employees typically use email for less urgent matters or else more formal ones such as payroll. But when it comes to checking information or bouncing ideas around, using a chat app is much more effective. Real-time responses make for a more faster, more dynamic workplace. Group discussion. Work chat apps are much more effective in promoting engagement among groups than email threads. This is especially useful for teams who are working in a project together from different locations, or for those who have the option to work remotely. You can create groups and label them as necessary for every situation. You can tag individuals within the group (@name) to call their attention. This helps ensures that nobody oversees the important stuff. These features make correspondence flow faster and keep the discussion going. Increased collaboration. Business apps let employees collaborate better because they allow attachment of images and documents, screen sharing, video conference calls, and integration with other services. Employees no longer have to be in the same room to get work done. For teams working across different time zones, these features can make or break a project. When employees can collaborate, solutions arise quickly and can be implemented immediately. Archiving. Business apps archive all communications and have great universal search features. You will not lose any details because data is stored on the cloud and everything is available to all members. You can even easily review all discussions. This increases accountability for your staff. It also decreases the chances that instructions will be forgotten. Tracking progress and assignments are also easier with a dedicated business app. Engaging employees begins with investing in solutions that can improve the workplace in fundamental ways. It can simply begin with the way you communicate every day. One app that can modernise how you communicate at work is Tanda Chat. You can publish shifts, acknowledge progress, and deliver feedback from both desktop and mobile. You can even share updates to individuals or entire teams to ensure that everyone is always on the same page. To get the most value out of your money, invest in a business chat app that integrates with other programs. For example, Tanda also automates time and attendance by taking care of rosters and integrating with payroll. Any shift-related updates can then be coursed through just one system. And because the advantages far outweigh the initial cost of investment, many businesses today are choosing the workforce management software for them. Once you do this for your business, you will be more equipped to take on bigger challenges.

Rosie Ramirez

7 June 2019    |   

Every year, hundreds of businesses go under because of ineffective shift planning. When a shift isn’t staffed with the correct number of people, customers are disappointed and revenue is lost. In fact, 60% of consumers would stop doing business with a company if they are not met with friendly or satisfactory service. Staff level should always be able to respond to the changing demand. This is especially true in shift work industries, where staff is required almost 24/7. That’s why optimizing the schedule is a necessary investment. Businesses today use tools such as an employee scheduling app to track wage costs and cover shifts better. Three ways an employee scheduling app can change your business An employee scheduling app doesn’t just help you plan shifts. It also helps you stay within budget, track demand for staff, monitor attendance, and communicate with employees. In most cases, it comes with a time clock calculator that eliminates the need to compute wages yourself. It impacts all areas of business from day-to-day operations to planning for the year. Check out the three ways work scheduling software can change your business below! 1. Eliminate time and wage theft Time theft occurs when an employee is paid for time they have not worked. Wage theft, on the other hand, occurs when the company fails to pay the employee the right wages. Both issues tie back to inaccurate time and attendance. Every time the incorrect clock-in or out is recorded, either time theft or wage theft can occur. Similarly, badly computed timesheets opens the company up to these problems. Work scheduling software automates all these functions to protect your company from liabilities down the line. Read more: Wage Theft in the US: How to stay compliant with labor laws 2. Allow GPS clock-in for mobile employees Inaccurate attendance tracking is common for mobile workforces. Due to the unique condition of their workplaces, timesheets may not be as accurate as they need to be. A 2015 study found that 43% of hourly employees surveyed admit to exaggerating their work hours. Even the best time clock calculator can’t monitor mobile employees. GPS clock-in is a game changing feature that comes with Tanda’s employee scheduling app. Employees clock in and out from any job site. Using it remotely will send the latitude, longitude, and employee’s photo to cloud-based timesheets. Pay accurately, wherever your employees clock in from! Read more: GPS Clock-in: Changing the way you track your mobile workforce 3. Update schedules from anywhere Every manager has experienced being buried under paperwork. When this happens, you pay more attention to timesheets and payroll than what really matters — your people. This is the fastest way to become alienated not just from employees but also from customers. But today, this doesn’t need to happen.  Tanda’s employee scheduling app gives managers the information they need to run a shift on their mobile device. Paperwork will be a thing of the past and managers can stay on the frontline without worrying about administrative work. Read more:  Four Ways to Keep your Managers on the Frontline Our work scheduling software features automatic notifications and tools to respond to changes throughout the day. Managers can see who’s coming in for the day and when they start work. They can edit shifts without needing to sit down at a computer. They can even notify staff when new schedules are published, or when there are vacant shifts to fill. It doesn’t matter how many teams and venues a manager is handling because they can all be accessed from a mobile phone. They will be able to adjust schedules based on the flow of customers and other observations on the ground. How to invest in an employee scheduling app Getting started on your first employee scheduling app is an exciting experience. There are plenty of features that can be customized to fit your business. Shift work industries are likely to benefit from the various ways to handle schedules on the mobile app. Managers can spend less time in the back office and more time training employees. Investing in work scheduling software today can help you keep up with modern business demands. They can bridge the gap between you and your employees and provide you the data you need to become more profitable in the future. Ready to see how an employee scheduling app can change your business? Start your free 14-day trial with Tanda today! No credit card required.

Rosie Ramirez

13 March 2019    |   

When you think of the average American worker, who comes to mind? Did you imagine a waitress on her second shift in a big city bar? Or did you picture a plant worker in an automobile factory? Over 80 million workers aged 16 and above work in these types of jobs and are paid at hourly rates. They represent 58.3 percent of all wage and salary workers. For managers of American businesses, scheduling hourly workers has always been difficult. They need to balance workers’ skills and availability with the requirements of the business. They also need to make sure that the labor cost doesn’t hurt the company’s’ bottom line. In the past, managers had to schedule everything manually. They would draw up the week’s schedule on paper and leave it on a board for the employees to see. In case there were changes, it was difficult to communicate them. And when it came time to pay the employees, each time card would be scrutinized to create paychecks. Even for small companies, all of this would take hours and hours of administrative time. For larger companies, entire departments would be dedicated to the task. Today, managers use a variety of tools to optimize the process. From paper to screen: modern scheduling process Many managers have experienced scheduling employees through simple pen and paper. This manual process involved a considerable amount of time and resources. As a result, they would be spending more time on administrative work than really managing their employees. With the availability of computers, managers have shifted from paper to screen to get the work done. One way that managers do this is through free scheduling templates. A scheduling template can easily be uploaded and shared with employees. A typical scheduling template requires you to input the employee’s name, wage rate, shift start, and shift end. The template will automatically compute how many hours you scheduled them for that week. It will also show you how much you’re going to pay them for these hours. You can distribute this to employees via the Google Sheets sharing service, control their access according to your desired effect, and restrict them to view-only, allow them to comment, or even let them make edits. However, it has several drawbacks. First, because you are scheduling on a Google Sheet, you will be responsible for tracking conflicts. You will need to check if somebody has filed for leave or unavailability on a separate database. It will also not flag you if you’ve scheduled somebody over or under their regular hours. Second, you will need to manually compare this sheet with your time clock data and then use another sheet to compute for pay. Third, it doesn’t keep you updated on changes in US labor laws. It may be a step up from pen and paper, but there is still a considerable amount of administrative work. That’s why many businesses opt for software that can address all this and more instead. Read more: Wage Theft in the US: How to stay compliant with labor laws Taking it to the next level with workforce software A free scheduling template can only give you so much. While some tasks are automated, you still need to do manual scheduling, attendance tracking, timesheets, and communication with employees. With the fast-paced business world, simply getting by with manual scheduling is not going to cut it. Investing in modern employee scheduling will give you unprecedented control over your workforce. It’s not just about getting the schedule out anymore. Now it’s all about making that schedule work for your business. With Tanda’s Scheduling Software, you can save shift templates and set cost schedules to make sure you never go over budget. You will be able to see, in real-time, how much each employee will need to be paid for any shift. You will also be able to publish schedules instantly. Employees will receive their shift via SMS, email, or in-app notification. This is especially useful for cities and states that have already implemented predictive scheduling laws. With Tanda, you will never fail to comply with an advanced shift notice. Read more: Building a Solid Shift: Predictive Scheduling Laws across the US But why stop there? Time and attendance automation technology has come a long way. Tanda’s Employee Time Clock App can be used on any tablet and allow staff to clock in and out, photo verification included. It automatically generates costed timecards that you can export to multiple payroll add-ons like Xero and Quickbooks. That means you don’t need to communicate schedules, monitor attendance, transfer data, or compute for pay. You can do all the tedious administrative work on one platform at a fraction of the time. You can even approve shift swaps, use demand data to adjust staffing levels, and pool tips. The future of the American workforce US employment went up by 213,000 jobs in January 2019. The service-producing industry reported 46,000 new roles. The goods-producing sector reported 35,000 new roles. Employment is robust, and there are plenty of opportunities for hourly workers in America. But this rise in employment and the fact that many workers hold multiple jobs also means managers need to step up. Managers need to upgrade the way they schedule, monitor attendance, and pay employees. The old manual methods are just not going to cut it. Workforce management software like Tanda empowers both managers and employees to grow the business. Managers can spend less time on administrative work and more time training employees. In turn, employees need not worry about missing their shifts or being paid less than they should. Investing in good software eliminates many common management problems. It also improves efficiency, transparency, and sustainability. The future of the American workforce looks bright, and harnessing technology is going to determine which businesses will be able to take full advantage.

Renée Mellish

22 February 2018    |   

  Tanda now has a mobile app, this means your employees have one simple location where they can see exactly when they are working and also let their managers know when they are unavailable or would like to file for leave. What your staff can do right now with the app As of now, your staff can: View their rostered shifts View and apply for leave Enter unavailability In the coming weeks and months we will be adding many more exciting features timesheet updates, as well as features for managers! How to get your staff to use the app Your staff can download the app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Just search for “Tanda Employee App”: There will also be links to the app at the bottom of the roster email when you send that out. What if my staff don’t have an existing Tanda login? That’s no problem, all they need to know is their Tanda email address (the one they use to receive roster emails). Once they have downloaded the app, they simply click “I don’t know my passsword” and they will be prompted to enter their Tanda email for instructions. From here, they will receive a password reset link. After creating a password, they can then log in to the app! If you have any questions about your employee’s account or how to get your staff to use it, please contact employees@tanda.co and we’d be happy to help.

Enrique Estagle

20 July 2017    |   

We at Tanda are excited to let you know that our Time Clock application is now available for the iPhone. This new version adds on our existing Android, iPad, and desktop time clocks. And just like those, this has the same set of features. It lets staff clock in with their unique PIN and a selfie. The Tanda Time Clock accurately records employee attendance and compares it with the weekly roster. It also updates the timesheets automatically to the cloud and stores it offline when the device is not connected. This added presence gives added flexibility to businesses currently using our app. You can add it to complement your main time clock, decentralizing clock-ins-and-outs. You can refurbish old iPhones to serve as time clocks, instead of it taking up drawer space. It can also be the backup if, and when, your office’s main Tanda Time Clock is unavailable. Remote employees with iPhones can also use this to record attendance, wherever they may be. Click here to download the Tanda Time Clock for the iPhone. Are you a new user? Signup for free here to use Tanda to track time and attendance for your business, and so much more.  

Jessica Genio-Ignacio

10 July 2019    |   

Justin Raha of Grand Finale Desserts and Pastries knows exactly why his business has been so successful. Starting out as a baker’s apprentice with a passion for pastry, Justin eventually founded Grand Finale, starting out with a focus on wedding cakes and chocolate. Further along, he diversified to include more types of baked goods and pastries. Now, the small business employs five people and enjoys a good reputation among the local community of Grand Haven.  Locals Supporting Local (c/o Grand Finale Desserts and Pastries) “We use Michigan blueberries, Michigan strawberries, Michigan raspberries. We use dried fruit and we try to use Michigan sugar, and we get Michigan eggs, and so everything that we’re getting we’re trying to get as local as possible.” These ingredients are what makes Grand FInale’s treats so special, Justin says. The result? Quality products at affordable prices, with the added bonus of supporting other local businesses in the area.  Justin’s commitment to using local ingredients and participating in community events has solidified Grand Finale’s charm—they aren’t just another bakery in the area, but a recognizable name in the neighborhood. “We give back to the community a lot which is really big. We have a really strong local community that is all about growth and support of each other and different tasks, fundraisers, organizations, and groups,” Justin says. “And so any opportunity we can to help out more for our community we try to do that, which has gotten really substantial in kick back towards our business because people see that we give back to the community and donate to them. Because of that they tend to want to come to us.”  One event Grand Finale regularly provides desserts for is Prom with a Purpose, an annual fundraising event for nonprofit Extended Grace’s Momentum Center program. The event funds health and wellbeing programs for individuals struggling with mental illness. The participation of local businesses in the community like Grand Finale helps beneficiaries get the support they need.  Smoother Payroll with Time Clock Software Justin found Tanda through the mobile app store and thought to try it out. After trying a few other apps, he found Tanda the most user-friendly and affordable for Grand Finale’s needs, especially the notification aspect that allows requests to come in through email. Now, the small business has been using Tanda’s time clock software for a little over a year, as well as the employee scheduling features to keep track of operations. While employee schedules are pretty consistent, what the time clock software has done for them is make shift durations  much easier to track. With all the data about when employees clock in and out, calculating wages is faster—Justin just sends the timesheets over to his accountant, and a process that used to take an hour now lasts 15 minutes.  Sweet Gestures Whether it’s the local farmers’ market, events supporting mental health programs, or environmental fundraisers, Grand Finale Desserts and Pastries is there to lift the spirits of anyone who tries their baked treats. Building trust between small business owner and customers over time, through authenticity and visible effort are the key ingredients to the bakery’s success.   “They know we’re good,” Justin says. “They know that their money is going to stay local and get back into the community.”    Ready to find out how you can cut down timesheet work to just 15 minutes? Try Tanda for 14 days for free, no credit card required. 

Jessica Genio-Ignacio

10 May 2019    |   

Attending Georgia State University on scholarship after living in a small town, Savannah Samples didn’t originally envision her part time jobs would eventually bloom into the business opportunity she’s pursuing today. The young founder of Atlanta-based total family assistance company Angel Assistance started out doing nanny work to support herself alongside full-time studies. “I always did nannying as well as doing other things—doing laundry, doing dishes, cooking dinner, taking the kids places, all the different kinds of stuff the moms usually do. When they got home they would be all, ‘oh thank you so much, you helped so much, not just nannying but doing everything’,” Savannah says. She worked hard—a necessity when coming from humble beginnings. She found one regular in her sophomore year of university, and another the year after—and as word-of-mouth referrals from those two poured in, the list began to grow. Two became twelve, and she now had a loyal client base. But juggling the number of clients on top of schoolwork took a toll on her. “Everybody kept referring me, a good problem to have, but I only have so many hands. And this mom I was working with at the time who owned two businesses, she said, why don’t you just start up your own company?” From Side Hustle to Fully-fledged Business She decided to go for it despite no entrepreneurship background and little knowledge about government requirements. It took two years of her learning the ropes of business ownership alone for Savannah to hire her first full-time employee. From there, it snowballed. Angel Assistance, once a one-person company, now employs 6 full time “angels” and 30 clients, around 23 of whom have set recurring weekly schedules. The company’s services? A common misconception about is that they do elderly care, or purely nannying. That isn’t the case. “We wash, we walk the dog, we cook you dinner, we grocery shop, organize your closet, do summer, winter switch up on closets, make your beds, everything you can’t get from a deep cleaner, you can’t get from a babysitter, you can’t get from a chef, from a dry cleaning service. We do all in one. So family assistance totally, with individuals as a family as well,” Savannah says. This scale up meant Savannah needed to find a reliable employee scheduling app to ease her managerial load. Employees would contact her to manually schedule shifts, and repeatedly fielding calls would make her “go insane.” She tried one brand of workforce software, but despite the good customer service as time went on the app would glitch to the point where it caused operational issues. Read more: How to Avoid Timesheet Mistakes Employees wouldn’t be able to see their schedules, and clients would be waiting for an angel to show up at their door to no avail. It also didn’t have as much features as she would like. “I mean, I like the app and the people that I did talk to when I first started were great […], but the app glitched enough to where it was causing issues with our clients where angels weren’t showing up to the location because they couldn’t see their schedule published. So I knew something was going to have to happen.” Finding the Right Scheduling App Tanda’s name came up when Savannah asked around for possible alternatives. She became interested in it once she did some research: It had more features than the previous app, and the possibility of developing more in the future. Now, Angel Assistance uses Tanda primarily for its employee scheduling app. They’ve adapted to use it for their specific needs as well—instead of just Savannah holding the manager title, Angel Assistance’s families have manager accounts of their own, enabling these recurring clients to see and respond to the shifts of their assigned employee. This was in contrast to their previous app, where families ended up with a “put it out in the universe and hope the angel shows up” situation. Being someone who does organizing work herself, Savannah especially appreciates how Tanda has room for consolidating information about her angels. Other than the time clock and location features, which they also use, she mentions the qualifications tab: a place where she can keep a file on each angel that contains their background check, driving record, profile, and more. “I love that Tanda has the qualifications tab where i can put all of those on the app; if we need them we can pull them up and look at them.” Forward-looking Enthusiasm Tanda has also helped Savannah cut down on her role as middleman between clients and angels. She handles 2-3 different families per day herself for about 4 hours each, and keeps in touch with others in-between, with a short break for lunch. But the work doesn’t stop there. She gets home at around 9 or 10 pm, but sometimes the phone keeps ringing. “I’m to the point now where I have to put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ past like, 11 o’ clock because otherwise I probably wouldn’t sleep.” Despite her busy schedule, Tanda does help. With the employee scheduling app having features for leave request and shift time changes, employees don’t need to contact her as much as before. While she feels there are still more features they need from the software, such as a monthly view for schedules and more access for managers, she’s also optimistic for future updates to come. Read more: A Manager’s Guide to Modern Employee Scheduling Her eventual goal? To fully transition to overhead management. “It’s a lot, and I don’t mind it because it’s what I do and obviously I love what I do,” she says. “But I know I can’t give my 100% to families because I’m doing management. I’ve had some kids 4 or 5 years, so I feel bad that I’m not giving them full attention because I have to answer the phone for a management call for 20, 30 minutes.” She may be a business owner now, but Savannah—and Angel Assistance—retains the core that made clients trust her years ago: the sincere compassion and heart for the families they serve.