tensor_tandauk, Author at Time and Attendance Southwest

Exeter business park expansion plans submitted to council

14th February 2019 4:33 pm Leave a Comment

Phase three of the development for a new building at the 20-acre Matford Green Business Park has been submitted in plans to Exeter City Council.

The warehouse will be capable of sub-division in to four units from 7,500 sq ft.

Noel Stevens, of Alder King in Exeter, said: "With industrial supply at historically low levels, the market is crying out for quality accommodation.

"This development will suit local, regional and national occupiers and add to the success of Matford Green Business Park.

"Planning has been submitted and we’re looking to have the building completed by the end of the year. There will remain a final development phase of approximately four acres."

Source: Insider Media South West

______________

Amazon may be using robots in its warehouses nowadays, but most warehouses and other storage facilities still rely on manual labour to fulfil tasks. These positions are likely to be filled by temporary workers, obtained via an agency, particularly around holiday seasons.

Many temp agencies still pay their employees using timesheets to record the working hours. The temp worker fills them in weekly with their hours and sends them to the agency. Sometimes these are digital timesheets, using Microsoft Office or PDF, and sometimes they go all the way back in technology to pen and paper.

This kind of payroll process is fraught with possibilities for errors and outright fraud. Not only is it possible for the worker to submit an incorrect timesheet, as often agency timesheets aren’t signed off by the worker’s supervisor, but the process of typing out all these handwritten timesheets into an Excel document or whatever the company payment software requires is very likely to yield typos which change the end payment.

In order to stay on the right side of the National Minimum Wage regulations and the European Working Time Directive, sensible and forward-thinking companies should invest in technology to remove these weaknesses.

Our time and attendance system collects clocking data via radio-frequency smart-cards or fingerprint biometrics. Once workers clock in, the data is sent straight to the centralised software. From there, it can be easily exported (to send to agencies) or used to create reports with our helpful report wizard.

Barwood Capital plan new prime logistics stopping point on M49

31st January 2019 3:04 pm Leave a Comment

Barwood Capital, a property investment group, has elaborate plans for its site in Bristol.

The site will include a logistics warehouse, a petrol station, a Travelodge with 81 beds and three drive-throughs.

The 12-acre site which is next to J1 of the M49 is intended to be part of the new “gateway” to the Central Park warehouse & distribution park development.

The new logistics warehouse will be called “Junction One”. Barwood Capital has started developing it, with the intention of finishing in the last quarter of 2019.

Planning permission has been submitted to South Gloucestershire Council for the 81-bed hotel, and Euro Garage has also submitted plans for the petrol station and three drive-throughs.

Barwood Capital director Andrew Barlow said: "We have been pushing forward with our plans to support Central Park’s occupiers and the wider Avonmouth Severnside Enterprise Area.

"The new warehouse will be delivered to a high specification, answering the strong demand from businesses who are looking to expand or locate within this key logistics hub. We are in current discussions with potential occupiers.

"The hotel, petrol filling station and drive thrus will offer a much-needed local amenity to the Park’s occupiers and their staff, in what is becoming one of the UK’s most sought-after logistics locations."

Source: Insider Media South West

______________

The hotel industry often employs a diverse mix of casual, temporary, agency, part time and full-time permanent staff in order to staff the hotel around the clock. If there was ever an industry which suffers from still using paper timesheets to record working hours, it is this one.

Keeping track of shifts, especially on night shifts or other times when the manager isn’t around, is very difficult with high volumes of staff and timesheets. Employees regularly forget to hand in their timesheets, and agency staff hand it straight to their agencies meaning that sometimes the employer never even sees it to approve it.

Purchasing a workplace management system from Time and Attendance North East will solve these issues. If staff have to clock in at the clocking terminal before entering and leaving, there will no longer be any ambiguity about working hours and no need to sort through hundreds of timesheets at the end of the week or month.

Here at Time and Attendance South West we can offer two ways to clock in with our reliable clocking terminal: using a radio frequency “smart-card” or by using fingerprint biometrics for extra security.

If you cannot use our physical clocking terminals for some reason (such as landlord not allowing wiring changes), then we can provide a browser-based clocking program called the Self-Service Module (SSM) so that workers can clock in and out with a click of their mouse. There’s even a mobile app, which is very useful for remote workers.

Plantforce Rentals saves Hinkley C project from stalling

24th January 2019 12:04 pm Leave a Comment

Plantforce Rentals, a supplier of plant hire machinery to the construction and energy industries, will take on all of Hawk Plant’s site-based machinery, contracts and infrastructure.

This will enable work to continue on the Hinkley C project, and it will ensure the safety of almost 100 jobs.

The chief executive of Plantforce, Claire Trott, emphasise the importance of the transition having minimal impact on the Hinkley C work.

She said, "Hinkley C is a strategically significant project and we are pleased that this deal will minimise impact for suppliers and customers and ensure continued work for 100 employees at the site.

"Plantforce’s involvement in the project for the last four years provides us with deep insight into the strategic priorities and operations of the site. We are looking forward to getting straight to work."

Source: Insider Media South West

______________

Many construction contractors and clients require contractor staff to hold and display Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) smart-cards, which prove their qualifications, before allowing them on site.

Here at Time and Attendance Wales, we are an IT partner of the CSCS. This means that we can provide seamless integration between the CSCS smartcard and our WinTA.NET software, which provides time management, visitor/contractor management and fire/evacuation roll-call systems.

The integration takes the end-user form of a CSCS “card wizard”. This set of rules allows a company to quickly grant construction contractors recognition by and access to our hardware, such as clocking terminals, turnstiles, and door controllers. The wizard will run one of three scenarios when giving access rights to contractors. These are:

• Contractors who are completely new to the system.

• Contractors whose name exists on the system but their CSCS card has not been entered.

• Contractors who are fully recorded on the system and have used their card at other sites, but are new to this particular site.

For each different scenario the wizard will guide the user through the enrolment procedure. The result is that:

• The contractor’s CSCS card is read (using a USB card reader attached to a Tensor.NET Client PC)

• Details are extracted from the card to update the contractor’s details within the system

• Options such as a company, site, shift group and department are assigned to the cardholder

To make it easier to include new contractors in your site’s existing health and safety and security procedures, please contact us today. We can handle any size site: our Enterprise software is able to perform for global, multi-site corporations with thousands of employees/users, while our Start edition helps small businesses with between 10 – 50 users.

Specialist Somerset coat maker moves premises to optimise online sales

16th January 2019 4:09 pm Leave a Comment

Country Innovation, a specialist coat maker based in Somerset, will move into new premises in order to better support the new direction of the business,

The coat maker, whose customers include wildlife presenters Bill Oddie and Simon King, will move out of its current home in Congresbury to The Stables Business Park near Rooksbridge, half an hour down the road, where they will be moving three members of staff into the 600 sq ft Granary suite.

Founder Maria Chilvers said: "It’s a big move for us and we’ll be very sorry to be leaving Congresbury where we’ve made so many friends over the years.

"But ours is now almost entirely an online business: we really need premises where we can still have a showroom for those customers who drop in from all around the country (and even further afield) to see what we offer, as well as more space to focus on fulfilling the Internet orders we receive.

"The Stables gives us all the space we need, ultra-fast broadband to keep us in touch with our customers, and easy parking for distribution.

"It’s also only a few minutes from the M5 – making it easier for customers to see us – as well as for our suppliers to make deliveries."

Source: Insider Media South West

____________

A vital step in Country Innovation creating a successful showroom is to have an organised and effective visitor monitoring and management policy.

According to a visitor management white paper by Proxyclick, two out of every five people in the 2,000 US and UK workers surveyed claim their perception of a company or brand has been negatively affected by their experience in the corporate lobby or reception area.

Source: Time and Attendance UK

Our Management of Contractors and Visitors Software (MCVS) app allows visitors to book their appointments in advance in their browser. A confirmation email is sent to the visitor and to the person they are visiting (the host).

Once the visit is set up, it can be entered onto the host’s diary. This eliminates the possibility of a clueless receptionist turning someone away, or panicking unprofessionally as they try to ring the host to confirm.

For companies who don’t need or can’t afford a full-time receptionist, we can offer our Unmanned Reception App, otherwise known as the Self-Service Visitor Management App (SSVM). This app runs on any Android or iOs tablet and allows visitors to check themselves into their pre-brooked appointment without a receptionist needing to be present.

Whether checked-in by a receptionist or by themselves, once a visitor is registered in the building, they are also put onto the fire roll call list. This means that if a fire alarm sounds, the central system will print an up-to-date, real-time list of everyone who is in that building or zone. So even if the visitor has nipped to the loo on the way out of their meeting, they will not be overlooked or forgotten about.

Recycling plastic and paper is good for the environment

8th January 2019 4:18 pm Leave a Comment

Recycling Technologies, an advanced plastics recycling company based in Swindon, will be partnering with Swindon Borough Council to build a plastic recycling facility in the town.

The intended facility will be able to recycle virtually all plastics, according to Recycling Technologies, and will be their second facility of this type after one in Scotland.

Swindon Borough is currently reviewing its current ten-year waste strategy and plastics recycling infrastructure.

The facility will hold Recycling Technologies’ patented recycling machine, the RT7000, which converts plastic waste back into an oil called Plaxx, from which new plastics can be made. It does this by heating up the waste plastic in an oxygen-less environment. This procedure allows for the breaking down and recycling of ‘unrecyclable’ plastics, such as food pouches and crisp packets.

Adrian Griffiths, chief executive and founder of Recycling Technologies, said: "We are delighted that Swindon, the home of our manufacturing facility and HQ, is hoping to also be the home of England’s first aPRF which includes our RT7000 feedstock recycling machine.

"There is an urgent need for more plastic recycling capacity in the UK to not only stem the flow of plastics into landfill and our environment, but to also create jobs and boost economic prosperity across the region."

Councillor Maureen Penny, Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet member for highways and the environment, said: "I am delighted Recycling Technologies is working with Public Power Solutions to develop this exciting plastic recycling technology in Swindon.

"We are currently developing future action plans on how we manage our waste as part of our recently-adopted 10-year Waste Strategy."

Source: Insider Media – South West

________________

Here at Time and Attendance South West we admire companies like Recycling Technologies who are working to improve humanity’s impact on the environment.

One line from a recent customer testimony had us stop and really consider how we help to reduce paper usage:

“I also like the fact that we have drastically cut down on the amount of paper we are using, which is better for the environment.”

Our products help companies to reduce their paper wastage if they still use paper timesheets to record attendance, or if they use paper holiday forms to deal with booking individual employees’ holidays.

Neither timesheet nor holiday form is necessary with our Self Service Module software. This can be accessed easily by employees, via browser or mobile phone app, and using the platform they can clock themselves in or out and submit holiday for approval.

This can be used either alongside our physical clocking terminals or on its own with our centralised software. Having both a physical and a virtual option is useful for companies which rent their premises and can’t alter any writing in the building.

Other ways that all office-based companies can reduce their paper usage include minimising handouts in presentations, printing double-sided, and having an easily accessible paper recycling bin which you encourage all employees to use.

Bill Kenwright Ltd theatre company obtains warehouse storage facility

3rd January 2019 4:54 pm Leave a Comment

Bill Kenwright Ltd, a theatre production company known for such well-known West End musicals as Blood Brothers, Whistle Down the Wind, and the tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, has bought the Rygor Building, a warehouse in Westbury.

The long leasehold was sold by Carter Jonas, the national property consultancy, on behalf of HE Rygor & Sons. The warehouse building is self-contained. It has been part-converted into office space, and also comes with a secure yard.

The theatre production company will use their new building to store scenery and props, including those for Heathers, Foxfinder and Evita.

Alison Williams, associate partner at Carter Jonas Bath, said: "The sale underscores the demand for well specified space along strong transport corridors from a diverse array of occupiers.

"This one is certainly unique and we are proud to be bringing a touch of West End glamour and inward investment to Westbury, Wiltshire."

Source: Insider Media – South West

______________

Amazon may be using robots in its warehouses nowadays, but most storage facilities still rely on manual labour. These positions are likely to be filled by temporary workers, obtained via an agency.

Many temp agencies still pay their employees using timesheets. The temp worker fills them in weekly with their hours and sends them to the agency. Sometimes these are digital timesheets, using Microsoft Office or PDF, and sometimes they go all the way back in technology to pen and paper.

This kind of payroll process is fraught with possibilities for errors and outright fraud. Not only is it possible for the worker to submit an incorrect timesheet, as often agency timesheets aren’t signed off by the worker’s supervisor, but the process of typing out all these handwritten timesheets into an Excel document or whatever you require is very likely to yield typos which change the payment required.

Devon hotel sold to new owners

19th December 2018 4:15 pm Leave a Comment

A hotel in Ilfacombe, Devon, formerly called Crescent House and now known as The Habit, has been sold.

The five-floor property has eleven bedrooms, and was bought for £750,000.

Ed Jefferson from Colliers International’s Hotels’ team said: "The Habit overlooks Fore Street between the Harbour and the High Street and is within walking distance of the town centre attractions.

"Our clients set about an ambitious refurbishment of all the public areas, bringing 11 of the rooms to an unrivalled standard. There are a further nine rooms waiting to be fitted out.

"There is also a planning application at the consultation stage to develop eight flats in another part of the building which the new owners may retain or sell off. "

Source: Insider Media

______________

The hotel industry often employs a diverse mix of casual, temporary, agency, part time and full-time permanent staff, in order to staff the hotel around the clock. If there was ever an industry which suffers from still using paper timesheets to record working hours, it is this one.

Purchasing a workplace management system from Time and Attendance South West will solve these authorisation issues. If staff have to clock in at the clocking terminal before entering and leaving, there will no longer be any ambiguity about working hours and no need to sort through hundreds of timesheets at the end of the week or month.

Here at Time and Attendance South West we can offer two ways to clock in with our reliable clocking terminal: using a radio frequency smart-card or by using fingerprint biometrics. We can also integrate PINs and facial recognition into your clocking process for maximum security.

Brexit affecting packaging company GWP Packaging

13th December 2018 4:26 pm Leave a Comment

GWP Packaging, a packaging manufacturer, has completed their third warehouse in Cricklade, Wiltshire.

The extra 10,000 sq ft of space gives the company space for another 950 pallets to store finished packaging products for their customers. This space will help the company to continue its growth throughout the south-west and beyond by improving their ability to supply and distribute their packaging products. The currently unknown outcome of Brexit is also playing a part in their use of the new warehouse.

James Pedley, operations manager at GWP Packaging, said: "One of our key services is to hold our customers stock, and to supply it to them on a ‘Just in Time’ basis. This frees up their warehouse space, reduces their associated costs, and also allows us to monitor stock levels and manage peaks in demand for them too.

"Around 80 percent of our customers have us manage their packaging inventory for them, and with continued growth over the last 24 months, we have needed to increase our storage space in order to maintain the success of this service."

Ruth Cook, managing director at GWP said: "Many of our customers are nervous regarding the uncertainty of Brexit, and what it could mean for supply of goods and services – including packaging – to their business.

"One of the steps we are taking is to increase our buffer stock of raw material and finished product, and the additional space provided by the new warehouse will be a great help with managing this."

Source: Insider Media

_____________

GWP Packaging is not the first or the last company to react to the potential effects that Brexit could have on the “Just-in-Time” supply model. The manufacturing, engineering, retail and consumer goods industries are particularly at risk. Countless companies have been stockpiling what they can for several months, and voicing their concern if they are too small or their product too perishable to do so. At the time of writing this post, 13th December 2018, the day after Prime Minister Theresa May survived a vote of no confidence, the outcome is still very far from clear.

However, some things remain the same even in uncertain circumstances, and one of those is the vital importance of monitoring time and attendance accurately in a warehouse environment!

It is vital to have a reliable method of knowing when the workers are coming and going because the supervisors cannot be expected to recognise the often transient workforce over the full expanse of large sites.

If staff work on a production line or in packing or another sector with very tight time constraints then it is vital that management know if someone is turning up late or leaving early, as this will affect productivity levels.

Here at Time and Attendance South West, we offer a reliable, affordable and full-featured system. Our clocking terminals will read either RFID smart-cards or registered biometrics, and provide you with nearly-real-time data which can be used for reports or exported for easy payroll processing.

As well as functioning as a kind of electronic timesheet, our software has a wide range of useful features, such as linking to alarms and wall clocks, and assigning staff absence codes.

CarShop expansion into Bristol business park

5th December 2018 3:25 pm Leave a Comment

CarShop, one of the UK’s biggest car supermarket businesses and part of the Leicester-based Sytner Group, will be opening a new retail premises at the Horizon38 business park on the A38 in Filton, Bristol.

The 7.3-acre site will hold a £15m sales and service retail operation, creating 80 new jobs. It is CarShop’s sixth location in the UK.

Jonathan Dunkley, chief executive of the Sytner Car supermarket division, said: "We’re delighted to have commenced our move into Bristol, one that we’re extremely excited about, and something the whole team has high expectations for.

"The vibrancy and popularity of the growing city and surrounds presents a great opportunity for us to strengthen our position in the South West and offer car-buyers more choice and convenience when it comes to buying, selling and servicing their car."

Horizon38 is a development by MSF Filton Ltd, a joint venture between iSec and St Francis Group.

Gareth Williams, director at St Francis Group, said: "Having broken ground on this landmark mixed-use development in 2016 we have already made significant progress, both in terms of signing deals and some great buildings coming out of the ground.

"The deal with CarShop follows commitment by leading firms such as Selco Builders Warehouse, Village Urban Resorts and Ceva Logistics."

Paul Hobbs of GVA, joint agent with JLL at Horizon38, added: "We are fielding a significant number of enquiries and expressions of interest in the newly available space, and expect to make further announcements shortly.

"Similar high-profile sites remain available fronting the A38, as the scheme takes shape."

Source: InsiderMedia

_______________

CarShop is obviously a growing and ambitious company, increasing their foothold in the south-west of the UK and creating new jobs.

However, there are several areas which often get overlooked as companies rapidly expand.

One is how they measure their time and attendance. (E.g. lateness, holidays, calculating working hours for payslips etc.) This is particularly important if they are also recruiting new staff, which CarShop intends to do, since this puts more strain on existing processes and make them more likely to fail.

Accurate clocking in and out is particularly important in the retail industry. While most businesses have identified this and purchased automated time and attendance clocking stations, a disturbing number still trust in old-fashioned paper timesheets.

These are easy for employees to make mistakes on, or to deliberately enter false information into, and they waste the time of your payroll staff who have to decipher everyone’s handwriting on a weekly basis. Not monitoring your employees’ work hours effectively can end up in accidental infringements of regulations such as the European Working Time Directive or the National Minimum Wage.

An automated system records everyone as they come in and out, so there is no more option for your employees to pretend they did overtime. For extra security, you should opt for a biometric clock in so that employees can’t swap time cards amongst themselves anymore.

You can’t swap, or indeed lose, your biometric data!

There are many different types of biometrics and we offer two affordable and reliable options: fingerprint scanning and hand geometry scanning. Fingerprint scanning converts fingerprints into a unique code (rather than an unnecessary copy of the print itself), and hand scanning verifies the employee based on the size and shape of their hand.

Successful, growing businesses must monitor their attendance management

28th November 2018 4:13 pm Leave a Comment

Paragon, a building and project consultant, has opened an office in Desklodge House near Temple Meads, Bristol.

Their new Bristol office is the second office that the company has opened this year. They have five in total: London, Esher, Manchester, Edinburgh and now Bristol.

Paragon are reacting to a demand for business in the South West, thanks to increased development investment in the region such as the £350million Temple Meads enterprise zone. The company merged with Bond Davidson in May, creating a £22 million company which employs nearly 200 people.

They plan to hire 12 people over the next two years.

Joint managing director Robert Perry, said: “At the time of our merger we said we were actively exploring a South West presence, and we’re excited to see this come to fruition.

"We’re always looking for ways to remain ahead and spot the next opportunity – a Bristol office is this opportunity."

“We are making excellent progress in our strategic growth plans. This move will bring further commercial advantages to our clients and even more career opportunities for our people.”

Paragon director Paul Arthur, added: “There’s a great deal of commercial opportunity for us in Bristol, as well as an impressive talent pool. We think our distinct approach will make a big impact here.

“Our clients and the wider industry are showing increased interest in the South West as a hub for investment – the region is primed for huge growth.

"Having feet on the ground in Bristol enables us to provide local services for clients and make the most of new opportunities for both their benefit and ours.”

Source: South West Business.co.uk

________________

Opening a new office and hiring new staff are impressive signs of a growing and successful company.

However, it is very common for a growing company to forget about “back-room” tasks such as processing payroll. The phrase “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” is completely wrong here. If you ignore these tasks and never investigate how to improve and optimise them, eventually they will “break”. This could take the form of your staff making errors in the payslips due to an overstuffed workload, or unscrupulous employees taking advantage of lax processes to commit time fraud and take home money that they didn’t actually earn.

So the earlier you can maximise efficiency and accuracy in these processes, the better off your business will be in the long run.

The least effective type of time and attendance management is the self-reporting paper timesheet. This is far too open to human error, such as forgetting to hand it in, filling it in wrong or payroll staff misreading bad handwriting.

The timesheet method is also the easiest for employees to fake entries for time they never actually worked. This fraud becomes more and more likely the less likely the manager is to carefully check every entry: i.e. if a shift manager has too many people underneath them or isn’t given enough time in their working week to go through the timesheets thoroughly.

As your company grows, it becomes a steadily better idea to introduce some automation into your time and attendance management processes. For example, our clocking terminals remove the need for (and the risk of) employees reporting their own hours, because every entrance and exit is automatically recorded and sent to the central system. Managers can check the times on the software, which is easier than shuffling through bits of paper, and the data can be quickly and easily exported to all leading payroll programmes.

Author Archives: tensor_tandauk