Nobody loves labour's lost cost

Managing labour can be tricky – so we thought we would share our experiences. One of the most common problems when managing labour in industries where an hourly wage is earned, is ensuring that employees are only paid for the hours that have been worked and authorised.

Many of PXtech’s customers have identified thousands of pounds of additional labour cost when comparing rotas to actual hours worked but have found the administrative effort in reviewing this on an ongoing basis too onerous. So as a result, we recognised the potential savings that could be delivered through software that could automate this and developed their Plan & Pay solution.

Additional labour issues, such as being able to accurately schedule staff and inform them about their rotas, were also identified for business owners to have better organisation and clarity between both parties.

This is particularly prevalent amongst multi-unit retailers says PXtech’s director Malcolm Mailer, who has experienced such issues first-hand throughout his 30-year tenure in the retail, leisure and fast food industries.

“The only way to control your payroll is to actively monitor the hours claimed by staff,” Malcolm commented. “This is virtually impossible to carry out if you have multiple stores, unless you are prepared to spend many valuable hours manually collating the information!”

With new developments in PXtech’s labour management software Plan & Pay, these problems have been addressed, so that senior management can instantly reduce time-consuming administration tasks and costs, react quickly to any payroll discrepancies, provide a consistent and fair way of payment for staff, and ultimately increase labour productivity.

“Some applications can be bolted onto existing infrastructures for very little outlay, providing a long-term, cost-effective solution,” continued Malcolm. “I have even heard of business owners reporting savings of more than £2,400 each month, having only initially invested a small sum of around £500 for such software – this is certainly a lucrative return on investment that retailers should investigate in 2010.”

In addition to utilising specialist labour management software, business owners should also follow a few more obvious, but necessary pointers of advice:

1. Staff training is crucial in any environment where customer service is key. It must be updated and carried out on a regular basis, particularly in the retail sector and when new EPoS technology is at play.

2. Alert employees to the fact that a labour management software tool is being used to organise payroll and workload, as monitoring activity will save on any staff discrepancies on wages and hours worked.

3. Internal processes must be clear and precise before any employees are approached regarding such discrepancies, so the HR manager must keep up-to-date with ongoing HR changes and regulations.

4. Make sure that the software is scaleable and that it works with the existing hardware, so there is no need for any great upheaval and it will be flexible enough for the future of your business.

5. Finally, whatever steps business owners take to labour management, they must be sure that the financial cost of the solution is viable, updated when necessary, and brings a quick return on investment that will reap rewards for years to come.