Working with the New Federal Minimum Wage – Labor Management and Employee Scheduling

What is your business doing about the recent federal minimum wage increase? If you are an operator in the food-service, hospitality, retail, or other service-oriented sector, the increased federal minimum wage likely affects the profits of your company – the proverbial bottom line.

As a business, how are you combating the extra expense of staff with the increase in minimum wage? One way to deal with the increase is smarter human resources tools that save your business money – tools like TimeForge. TimeForge will save you 3-5% of your labor expenses by improving your staff retention, freeing up staff and management time, decreasing turnover, and enforcing the labor schedule – all of which are direct improvements to your bottom line.

Retention and Turnover Are Important Statistics at any Business

Every week, managers in the retail industry spend more than two hours creating a labor schedule. With an annual salary of only $40,000 (well below the annual average salary), two hours a week is more than $2,080 in direct manager costs spent building a staff schedule. These two hours exclude the time necessary to answer phone calls from staff, update availability, rewrite the schedule for changes, and all the rest of the scheduling duties that a manager needs to do. And while the manager is busy building schedules, they cannot run the business or work with customers.

Retention and Turnover Are Important Metrics at any Business

Most managers in the retail industry take more than two hours to build a employee schedule, every week. With a low annual salary of only $40,000 (below the national average salary), two hours weekly is $2,080 in direct labor costs to build a staff schedule. This excludes the time necessary to rewrite the schedule, answer phone calls from staff, update availability, and all the rest of the scheduling duties that a manager needs to do. And while the manager is building schedules, they cannot run the business.

Manager Time is Expensive, Use Tools to Keep Costs Down

Every week, managers in the retail industry spend more than two hours creating a employee schedule. With an annual salary of only $40,000 (well below the annual average salary), two hours a week is more than $2,080 in direct manager costs spent building a labor schedule. These two hours exclude the time necessary to answer phone calls from staff, update availability, rewrite the schedule for changes, and all the rest of the scheduling duties that a manager needs to do. And while the manager is busy building schedules – who is running the business?

So, with only 20 employees, the business is likely losing: $56,000 in retention and turnover related expenses, $2,080 in schedule creation expenses, $8,700 in schedule enforcement expenses … a total of $66,780 in direct labor expenses.

What will TimeForge cost a business with 20 employees?

TimeForge Lite will cost the business about $25 per month, or $300 per year – well below the cost of even a single manager’s time to build a schedule.

TimeForge Lite will cost the business about $25 per month, or $300 per year – well below the cost of even a single manager’s time to build a schedule.

What happens with five stores? Twenty? Three-hundred? Labor costs go up drastically, the more stores that a business operates.

Use TimeForge labor management software to put money back in the business and save thousands every year.