And if you’re like 64% of US small business owners, you expect to increase your revenue in 2023. But have you given much thought to how you’ll increase your revenue? It might be time to consider expanding your small business to a second location, depending on your business model. 

Expanding your small business isn’t a decision to make lightly. We’ve pulled together everything you need to know before you commit to opening a second, third, or additional locations for your small business.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• How to know when you’re ready to expand
• The pros and cons of opening a second business location
• How market research plays a role in expanding your business
• What tools are going make your expansion successful

Let’s dive in.

How do you know if your small business is ready to expand to new locations?

Opening a second (or additional) location and expanding your small business is a crucial decision for every business owner. Sure, wanting to expand your business is a given for most people, but finding the right time is essential. 

Opening too soon puts you at risk of overextending yourself and your business. But waiting too long can mean you lose the buzz and momentum you’ve worked so hard to build. 

So, how do you know if you’re ready to open a new location? Take a look at your current business and ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have more business than you can handle at your current location?
• Is your physical location too small for the customer base you’ve built?
• Do you have the systems to recreate your business in a new location?
• Do you consistently have high wait times, long reservation lists, or line-ups?
• Do you have a stable financial foundation to support market expansion?

If you answered a resounding “definitely” to most of these questions, it might be time to start planning how to expand your business to new locations.

The advantages of small business expansion to new locations

It’s natural for entrepreneurs and business owners to want to see the businesses they’ve worked so hard for grow. And when you’ve been successful—especially early on—it can plant the idea of expansion in your mind. While it’s natural to have some hesitation around expanding, there’s no doubt that there are clear advantages to expanding your small business.  

Welcome a new customer base

When you ask business owners why they want to expand their business, you’ll often hear about reaching new customers. And that’s for a good reason—while repeat customers are extremely valuable, new customers are the fuel that take businesses to new heights. 

When you expand into a new geographical area, you’re entering a new market with a new pool of customers. You can reach people who may not have been able to travel to your original location, tap into those who live locally, and fit your target market.

A large, diverse customer case is a great way to future-proof your business from being overly reliant on a single client type. 

Increase your sales volume and profits

When you have a physical store, you’re constrained by the available space in that space. After all, you can only stock and sell a certain amount of products. But when you expand to a new location, you’re also expanding your space. You can carry more products, new product lines, and even new categories of products. This gives you the chance to increase your sales volume.

It also makes sense that your profits will increase. For example, if you currently have a 10% gross profit margin in Store #1 and replicate that success in Store #2, your GPM remains 10%, but you’re doubling the money from that percentage.

Simply put, it’s a no brainer: you can expect more revenue if you’re making more sales.

Expand your brand 

Brand recognition is a significant factor for consumers when it comes to how and where they spend their money—being consistent with your branding can increase your revenue by 20%. 

From social media to your in-store experience, you’ve spent years honing your brand identity, making sure it comes through in everything you do. And with the opportunity to open a second location, you also have the opportunity to expand your brand and grow your brand recognition.

Expand your brand 

Brand recognition is a significant factor for consumers when it comes to how and where they spend their money—being consistent with your branding can increase your revenue by 20%. 

From social media to your in-store experience, you’ve spent years honing your brand identity, making sure it comes through in everything you do. And with the opportunity to open a second location, you also have the opportunity to expand your brand and grow your brand recognition.

When you open a second location, suddenly your brand will pop up in front of potential customers in more than one place. You’ll start to stand out from competitors as you positively influence people’s buying decisions. 

You’ll also have the opportunity to add layers to your brand that appeal to different target markets depending on your business plans and geographical diversity.

Create an economy of scale

Expanding to a second location has the benefit of spreading out the risk of doing business. It can reduce the potential negative impact of one poor decision or unsuccessful product on your business.

You can also spread the business costs across more markets, creating an economy of scale. Economies of scale are the financial benefits that a business gets because of its size. When you spread your business costs over larger scales, you effectively lower the cost of doing business per customer.

The disadvantages of small business expansion

While there are clear advantages to expanding your business, there are also disadvantages that you should consider. These disadvantages shouldn’t be seen as a reason not to grow. Instead, they’re things to keep an eye on as you expand so your second location can be as successful as your first.

Loss of control

As your business grows, you’ll inevitably need to consider delegating management responsibilities and relinquishing some control. You can’t be everywhere at once, so you need to be able to step back and trust your team to effectively manage while you’re away. 

Before you expand, get comfortable with the idea that you need to be able to lose a bit of control. Work to build a team that you have confidence in—this will help relieve some of the stress of opening a new location.

Cash constraints

Expansion requires a significant financial investment to be successful. You’ll need a new property, equipment, inventory, staff, and more to open the doors to your new location. Evaluating your financial situation before jumping headfirst into expansion plans is important.

You may need to borrow money to make your expansion dreams a reality. Take a clear look at your finances and the obligations of taking on debt beforehand.

Increased overhead costs

Beyond the initial start-up costs of opening a second location, you’ll also be faced with an increase in your ongoing overhead costs. With more employees, more inventory, and more everything, it’s important to ensure you’ve got the needed capital to cover your operating costs.

Make sure you’ve crunched the numbers before signing the lease on a new location!

Higher employee turnover

When businesses expand too quickly, they often hire quickly as well. This can lead to poor hiring and onboarding practices. Plus, when small businesses expand, employees are often given extra work, which can lead to overworked employees. 

These factors lead to higher employee turnover and with the US turnover rate sitting at 47.2% in 202, you should be working hard to lower your turnover rate. Plus, replacing an employee costs up to two times their annual salary. So it makes sense that you should do everything possible to create positive work environments and maintain excellent hiring and onboarding practices.

The importance of market research before expanding your small business

Before you dive into expanding your business, it’s vital to do some research—specifically, market research. 

Market research is collecting and analyzing data about your industry-specific market to better understand everything from your competitors to customers to geographic areas. You can use all this data to help you make decisions about your expansion plan.

It’s imperative to conduct market research before expanding your business. The information you get from your market research will help reduce the risks associated with expansion. For example, suppose you were looking to open a new location in a suburb but find that 95% of your current customer base identifies as urban dwellers. In that case, you may reconsider where to open your second location.

When you undertake market research before expanding to a new location, you’re more likely to:

• Find the right geographical location for your business to expand into.
• Understand the wants and needs of your target market. This can translate into improved customer satisfaction and increased sales—when you know what your customers want and need, you can serve them better.
• See better results from your marketing efforts.
• Improve your overall brand awareness.

If you’re wondering where to start regarding market research, there are two key research areas to explore before you commit to an expansion plan.

1. Customer research

Customer research is the most important kind of market research you can do. Ultimately, it helps you understand more about your current and potential customers. This research has the power to inform every decision you make about your second location—from what products to stock to where your physical location should be. 

If you want a simple way to conduct customer research, consider contacting your customers to complete a survey or poll. You can email your customer list or even let them know about your survey during their checkout process. Offer a discount code to incentivize people to complete your survey. 

You can also go one step further and conduct focus groups or one-on-one interviews. This is a great way to go in-depth with your customers and spend time learning about who they are. You should also offer an incentive to participate, especially since a focus group or interview takes longer than an online survey.

Both methods will help you learn why they love your business, what they would change, and some key demographic information about who they are as consumers. 

2. Competitive research

The next type of market research you need to consider before expanding is competitive or competitor research. Understanding what your competitors are doing is essential to know how you can stand out in your industry. It can also help you pinpoint a physical location that may need your services due to the lack of competitors in the area.

Review your competitors’ marketing strategies, locations, product offerings, and pricing. With this information, you can make informed decisions about expanding your business to a second location.

Valuable small business expansion tools to help you manage several locations

Now that you’ve finished your market research and weighed the pros and cons of opening a second location, it’s time to find the right tools to make this transition easier. 

While some of these tools may be familiar to you, ensuring the option you’re currently using can manage and integrate with a second location is essential. Because having to manage two separate systems sounds like a headache you don’t need!

With these five tools, you’ll be well on your way to streamlining the operations of your newest location.

1. Find an integrated POS and inventory management system

There’s something to be said for tools that can manage more than one thing simultaneously. And a point-of-sale (POS) system that integrates with your inventory management is one of those things that will save you time, money, and sanity.

Take it one step further with a POS system that can integrate with your ecommerce store, if you have one. When looking for a POS system, keep your eyes out for an “omnichannel platform.” This is a system that supports the sale of your product wherever you find your clients—think stores, pop-up shops, local markets, desktop computers, mobile devices, and even social media.

Here are five must-haves (and two nice-to-haves) to consider when selecting a POS system to help you manage new locations:

Must-haves

• A wide selection of payment options. You want to get paid, so to do that as often as possible, give your customers as many payment choices as possible. Remember, the more flexibility, the better!
• Built-in inventory management capabilities. Update and track your inventory across multiple locations so you never order too much or too little product.
• Credit card processing. It should go without saying, but it’s essential that your POS can process credit cards and is compatible with multiple credit card processors. That way you can accept as many different credit cards as possible.
• Bulk product importing. Adding your product information into your POS system is a slow process; if you have hundreds of products, it could take days to enter all that information accurately. Some POS systems have a bulk-product import function that lets you import all your product information at once. 
• Add in promotions and discounts. A POS system that can easily accept discounts gives you the flexibility to mark down your products and offer special promotions. 

Nice-to-haves

• A mobile POS system. Taking your POS system on the go is great for certain businesses. If you participate in a lot of local markets or events, bringing your POS with you instead of relying solely on cash is ideal.
• Third-party compatibility may be necessary in the future. A POS system that can integrate with third-party systems opens up a world of possibilities. Adopting a POS with this capability lets you add new functionality as needed.

2. Use a messaging system to organize your team

Distance might make the heart grow fonder, but it can be hard on a small business. As an owner, splitting your time between two or more locations can be difficult for you and your staff. 

Finding ways to communicate with your staff is essential even when you can’t be in the same place. Why is communication so integral to running a successful small business?

• Effective communication in the workplace can make teams stronger and increase productivity
• Good communication can eliminate unnecessary problems
• Open communication is linked to higher employee satisfaction and engagement
• Strong communication can help prevent toxic workplaces
• Conflicts between employees or conflicts between employees and management are mitigated with good communication

Take advantage of all these fantastic benefits and make the transition to a second location smoother by using a messaging app that makes it easy for you and your team to communicate with each other. 

An instant messaging app that lets you directly message team members as individuals or as groups is a great way to simplify day-to-day communication. With a team communication app, you’ll be able to keep everyone on the same page, even if they aren’t in the same location.

Send a quick message to alert employees of an incoming delivery, relay information about an upcoming sale or promotion, or find a team member to fill a shift. With a messaging app, you can reach all your team members at once. 

For a messaging app to be truly effective, you need to put it in the hands of your employees. What better way to do that than using a system that works on their mobile devices? The most efficient messaging system is a messaging app that can be installed on iOS and Android.

3. Make scheduling across locations easy with a modern scheduling tool

Adding in a second location doubles your admin workload. Creating a schedule for your employees is one of the time-consuming tasks that absolutely will double up when you expand. A second location can also complicate scheduling when you have employees working at both locations—you need to make sure you aren’t double-booking anyone or short-staffing either location. 

Finding tools to help you automate these tasks can save you time and—you guessed it!—reduce errors. 

When exploring employee scheduling tools, look for one that incorporates auto-scheduling to save you even more time, and automatically connects to your messaging app—so you can instantly notify your staff of any updates or shifts that need to be covered.

4. Streamline payroll with an integrated payroll–timesheet tool

A new location means more staff, which means more payroll entries, which means more time spent in front of a spreadsheet. And with two locations, it can be challenging to know when staff members are showing up for their shifts and when they are clocking out.

But with the right payroll software, you don’t have to rely on these arduous processes or guessing games. 

First, to help you manage two locations, you’ll want to find a payroll system incorporating a digital time clock. There are three main reasons why time clocking is an essential feature when you are expanding your small business:

1. There’s no way you can be at both locations at the same time. Having a digital time clock lets you know when employees are at work and when they’re running late, giving you the peace of mind that your business is running smoothly.
2. Save time and kick data entry to the curb with a time tracking system that integrates with your payroll system. When your time clock generates timesheets and automatically converts hours into wages, you can run payroll in just a few clicks vs. a few hours.
3. Digital time clocks help reduce time theft. When you track hours with digital time clocks, you can enable GPS location requirements for clocking in. You can give each employee a unique pin, or even snap photos when they clock in. All this can help you better keep track of who’s clocking in when and where.

Now that you’re on board with digital time clocks, make sure your payroll system makes life easier for you too. That might sound like an outlandish ask from a payroll system. Still, digital payroll systems should be equipped to help you with everything from calculating taxes, filing W-2s and 1099s, and ensuring you’re staying compliant with FLSA record-keeping rules. 

5. Hire the right candidates using a hiring and onboarding tool

Hiring a single new staff member is a lot of work. Hiring and onboarding an entirely new team to run your second location? That’s a full-time job.

As a small business owner, you know how important it is to hire the right people for your business. And when hiring for a second location, you need people who will uphold the culture you cultivated at your first location. 

To make sure you’re hiring right the first time, it’s important to have hiring and onboarding processes in place. This will ensure that you’re not only getting the best candidates but that you’re also setting your new hires up for success. 

When it comes to hiring, follow these five steps to find suitable candidates for your small business:

1. Write a job description that accurately conveys what you’re looking for in a candidate and what they can expect from the position. Being as transparent as possible will help your posting land in the hands of the right people.
2. Post your job to as many online job boards as possible. Make sure to look for any industry-specific job boards to narrow down your niche.
3. If your posting isn’t getting the traction you need, promote it! Putting money behind your job posting may be the push it needs. 
4. As you move into the interview process, add a few screener questions or a screener interview to ensure you’re spending time on the right candidates.
5. Keep the interview process short and sweet—having four different interviews plus a written test is a great way to scare off great candidates.

Once you’ve hired the perfect candidate, it’s time to onboard them. The onboarding process is the final step in ensuring your new hire succeeds. Onboarding will look different for every business, but if you follow the Four C’s of successful onboarding, you can rest easy knowing you’ve done everything possible to set your second location’s team up for success.

1. Compliance. Explain all of the rules and policies of your business. This includes filling out all necessary paperwork. 

2. Clarification. Make sure your employee understands their role and responsibilities. In many retail and restaurant businesses, this involves shadowing a current employee so they can learn the ins and outs of the role.

3. Culture. This C sets the stage for what the culture is like in your business. Show them around the new location and consider having them work a few shifts at the current location so they can fully understand the culture of your business in action. 

4. Connection. At this stage, your new employee starts to connect with other employees. This is integral so that they begin to feel like a member of your team. You can help this process by introducing them to their coworkers, scheduling informal activities, and assigning them a buddy for the first few weeks who can show them the ropes.

A lot goes into expanding a small business to new locations, but with a bit of planning and the right tools, you can grow your business—and your revenue.

With Homebase, you can streamline your small business expansion with one easy app. Hire, onboard, and schedule your employees, run your payroll, get help with compliance, and keep tabs on what’s happening when you’re away—all from one app.

Optimize your small business expansion with Homebase

Is your business struggling with adding a second location? Get Homebase for easy scheduling, time clocks, payroll, messaging, HR, compliance, and more — all in one app. Get started for free.

Small business expansion FAQS

How will I know when it’s time to expand my small business?

You’ll know it’s time to expand your small business when you have more business than you can handle in your current location. If you’ve always had plans for future growth, there are a few things you’ll want to have in place before you start thinking about expanding:

• A solid team of employees
• You continually hit your financial goals 
• You’re running out of space
• Your industry is growing
• Customers come from far and wide to visit your business

How do I find staff for my new location?

Finding staff for a new location can be overwhelming. But with Homebase, hiring has never been easier. Look through our library of pre-written, customizable job descriptions and then post and promote your job to the top online job boards from one easy place. Track your applications and schedule interviews from Homebase—we make hiring the best candidates for your business easy.

What steps should I take to expand my small business?

The steps you should take to expand your small business will differ for everyone. Some people will need to consider financing, for example, while others can pay any associated costs upfront. But every business can benefit from these four steps:

1. Make sure your personal management skills are in good shape. Managing two locations takes a lot of juggling, that excellent management skills will only bolster. 
2. Focus on developing a strong managerial team at your first location. You might not be able to bring people to your second location, so having a solid team in your established location that others can rely on is extremely important.
3. Put a set of standardized business practices in place, including everything from scheduling and payroll to hiring and HR. Not only will this be valuable if you have staff working at both locations, but it will also make it easier to replicate your success at a second, third, and even fourth location.
4. Take the time needed to plan. From your finances to a location to hiring new staff, opening a second location takes time. Be patient and give yourself everything you need to expand your small business successfully.

What’s the difference between expansion and franchising?

The difference between expansion and franchising is that franchising is an expansion plan that relies on local operators—or franchisees—to open new business locations using the branding of a pre-existing business. While this is a great way to expand a business, expansion refers to either opening a new location or moving to a larger location to grow your business.

How long will it take to open a new location?

The time it takes to open a new location for your business is a tricky question to answer. It’s dependent on many varied factors:

• What’s the real estate market like in your area?
• Do you need to take out loans?
• Will you need to renovate your location once you purchase or lease?
• Is your supply chain able to handle the increased demand for products?
• Can you hire staff for your new location quickly and efficiently?

The answers to these questions—and many others—will help you establish a realistic time frame for how long it will take you to open a new location for your business.

The post Small business expansion: 5 tools to help open your next location appeared first on Homebase.

It’s easy for bad habits to form accidentally, especially if staff aren’t sure what’s expected of them. Or if no one has taken the time to lay out the company’s mission, values, or processes. In the ‘busyness’ of running a business, taking the time to listen to your employees and set up good communication channels can easily get missed.

But poor communication can have serious consequences. It can decrease productivity, lower morale, cause confusion and frustration, and eventually lead to big mistakes and high — and expensive — staff churn.

In contrast, great communication is rocket fuel for small businesses. It means everyone pulls together as a team and feels seen, heard, and appreciated. Everyone works more productively and happily, and stays around for longer.

That’s why in this piece, we cover:

• Why good team communication is so important for small businesses
• Seven ways that poor communication can develop (so you know what to look out for)
• Nine ways to improve communication (so you can get better results, fast)
• Why centralizing workplace communication is key

Why good team communication is important for small businesses

Good team communication is important because of the serious advantages it brings small businesses. These include:

• Better productivity and organization, which improves output.
• Improved morale and staff happiness, which improves results and staff retention.
• Less risk of mistakes, like clashing shifts, which improves effectiveness and work quality.
• Lower staff turnover and churn, which saves money on hiring and training.

Good communication also means that team members are always kept in the loop. No one is left out of company updates and everyone feels included, no matter their position.

Ultimately, high-quality communication works both ways — if management communicates well and encourages staff to do the same back, everyone will feel listened to and respected within a cooperative, open ethos.

6 factors that lead to poor team communication

Poor team communication is rarely intentional, but it can happen easily. Some major things to watch out for include:

1. Lack of specificity or expectations

As a manager, you can’t expect staff to communicate in a certain way if you don’t let them know your expectations in the first place.

Staff may not know how you want them to talk to each other or what’s acceptable in your workplace. You may feel the need to chase them or become angry with them if they’re not interacting how you want them to. And yet, if you don’t state expectations upfront, it’s unreasonable to expect people to read your mind — even if it seems obvious.

A lack of specificity, processes, or clear expectations can lead to frustration, confusion, missed messages, resentment, and costly mistakes.

Without clear expectations or a ‘master document’ that explains how to do something, it’s difficult to be sure everyone knows how to complete their tasks successfully and consistently.

A lack of processes leads to frustration as people ask the same questions over and over or get things wrong. And new hires stay in the dark about certain tasks and don’t receive proper training.

2. Assumptions

Making assumptions about what people do and don’t know — and not thinking to check — is at the root of many communication problems.

If you never investigate assumptions or knowledge levels, you could create an environment where people are too afraid, confused, or proud to ask questions. This could cause staff to feel overwhelmed, alone, or ‘stupid,’ and may lead to them making bigger mistakes down the line.

3. Lack of respect

Good communication is about respecting all your team members, even if they’re saying something difficult or not behaving as you’d expect them to.

Without a clear ‘respect’ value in your company culture, staff may unintentionally bring their own prejudices and biases to the table. You’d hope that this wouldn’t happen, but during times of low morale, frustration, and stress, it can be easy to say the wrong thing.

Poor boundaries and a lack of processes make this more likely, and people who feel unheard themselves are often more inclined to be disrespectful to others.

4. Not accepting criticism or feedback

A common symptom of poor communication is when staff don’t deal with criticism or feedback well.

Never asking for feedback, not having feedback channels in place, or not accepting feedback when it’s offered — and even worse, reacting negatively to those who speak up — leads to much poorer communication.

Staff will feel as though they can’t offer opinions and that their views don’t matter. It’ll create an ‘us and them’ environment where some people feel valued and others don’t.

When staff don’t feel comfortable sharing feedback, it can also cause people to feel isolated and like they can’t speak up when problems arise. This will cause unhappiness, a lack of productivity, and a higher turnover rate.

5. Not offering dedicated communication time

You can’t expect staff to be open and happy to talk to management if they’re not invited to do it or aren’t in the habit of doing so.

Failing to schedule regular meetings or opportunities for no-pressure chats means team members won’t feel like there’s an open line of communication between employees and managers.

And if staff are only invited to meet with management in negative situations, they’re unlikely to speak openly and offer feedback, positive comments, or helpful suggestions. Any invitations to talk may feel forced and uncomfortable as a result.

This is more likely to foster a closed-off, secretive environment that will negatively impact morale, productivity, commitment, community, and innovation.

6. Poor communication tools

Even with the best intentions, sometimes poor communication comes down to poor tools.

Trying to coordinate a team with bits of paper, random emails, and inconsistent, manually-sent texts is a recipe for disorganization, missing things, and haphazard results. It’s all too easy for updates to get missed and your day-to-day operations to become inefficient.

Plus, without a centralized place to interact with each other, like a chat app, staff have nowhere to interact or build a community, which makes professional communication even more difficult.

8 ways to improve team communication

Now that we’ve talked about how poor communication can happen, here are our top tips for building excellent communication practices in your workplace:

1. Get specific

Setting specific expectations and boundaries upfront is key to good communication. It means that everyone knows what’s expected of them and understands how they can make their voices heard, too.

Be clear about what each person should — and shouldn’t — be doing and where certain roles end and others begin.

One way to get 100% specific is to create processes.

Processes mean that you have clear, written guidelines that explain what everyone should be doing and how. They reduce the risk of misunderstandings, frustration, confusion, and missed tasks. Processes also ensure consistency throughout your business and reduce needless questions and frustration.

Communication processes don’t need to be set in stone and should be open to regular re-evaluation and staff feedback where needed — but they should be followed as much as possible.

And always state your specific communication policies upfront during the onboarding process. Some example expectations might include:

• Requiring a chat message if a staff member is sick one day and at least one hour’s notice before their shift is due to start.
• Making it clear that staff should acknowledge all of your chat communications with a reply, emoji, or thumbs-up.
• Requesting that staff check their email or messages at the start and towards the end of their shifts at the very least so that no important messages get missed.
• Asking staff to give at least two weeks’ notice for vacation requests.

2. Check, and check again

Never make assumptions, whether about people’s work, tasks, roles, abilities, or needs.

When you’re running a small business, it’s always better to double-check — especially if a staff member is new or handling something complicated— than assume they’re OK and have them suffer, feel overwhelmed, get something crucial wrong, or end up quitting suddenly.

Making double-checking, compassionate responses, and ‘overcommunicating’ part of your work culture — while still trusting your team’s competency and ability to learn and work hard — is a much better policy than just assuming everything is already clear to everyone.

3. Be respectful

Make respectful communication one of your workplace values. That means believing each of your team members is capable of learning and good work and that everyone deserves to be treated with compassion.

Respectful communication includes:

• Being intentional and specific with your words and expectations
• Giving fair, objective feedback
• Working hard to avoid offense — even if you’re joking or teasing

And it should go without saying that good communication (especially critical feedback) should focus on solid facts rather than subjective anecdotes or the employee’s personality traits.

Respect is also about seeing everyone in your team equally and treating people how you’d like to be treated. That means prioritizing compassion and positive feedback, even when problems come up.

4. Schedule regular feedback meetings

Offer regular slots or times when staff can talk to managers without expectations or risks associated with their work, position, or pay.

Depending on how you run your business, this may mean:

• Putting office hours in your calendar where team members can come in to chat
• Scheduling regular one-on-one or team meetings
• Setting up larger meetings where staff are encouraged to offer their ideas and feedback

Remember — staff on the ground are likely to have better insights into your customers than you, so be sure to listen to them.

And when criticism is offered constructively and politely, a company with great communication practices should have processes in place for making a note of those comments, taking action, and/or reporting back. This helps teams feel more collaborative and reduces the risk that staff will feel punished for voicing suggestions.

5. Define each meeting’s agenda ahead of time

Respecting your staff members’ time is a key way to improve your internal communication and results. And a major way to do so is by setting specific agendas for all your meetings.

This enables people to:

• Estimate how long the meeting will take
• Prepare for the call or session
• Plan the rest of their workday accordingly

As a result, your meetings will generate better results as staff will be more prepared for the agenda points. Employees will also be more likely to show up and be alert during the session as they’ll trust it won’t go on too long or conflict with the rest of their schedule.

In addition, assign agenda points to relevant staff members when it makes sense. And stick to your meeting plan and give staff their time back or a chance to bring up other important issues if you finish early. Be sure to apologize and move agenda points to the next meeting if you run out of time.

6. Provide regular team-wide updates

Providing team-wide updates as well as having regular one-to-one meetings offers several benefits. It can:

• Give staff confidence that you’re in control and the business is well-organized
• Keep workers feeling ‘in the loop’ and ensure them they’ll be first to know about any changes or updates
• Foster a sense of community and unite your staff around your wider company mission
• Provide the opportunity to restate company values and shout out staff wins

Using a communication app like Homebase lets you easily send updates and messages in a ‘chat’ style. This lets you take the temperature of your team, build community, strengthen your mission, and take proactive action when issues come up.

7. Centralize communication

With email, texting, messaging apps, social media, and more, the number of ways you can get in touch with someone is nearly limitless. But so many options can make it even more difficult to keep up.

If staff can WhatsApp, voice note, DM, email, text, call you — or even leave Post-Its on your desk! — even the most organized manager would struggle to keep records updated and not miss any important messages.

It makes much more sense to keep everything on a single digital platform. All staff members can check the app easily, chat, send updates and requests, and follow processes. Nothing gets missed.

For instance, handling team communication on the Homebase platform makes it simple to:

• Send, receive, and view updates
• Message individuals, custom groups of employees, or everyone at once
• Get shifts covered and approve swap or vacation requests

8. Learn about your employees’ specific communication patterns

Different people may have different communication styles. For example, some individuals respond better to direct forms of communication without any ‘sugar coating,’ while others find blunt communication confrontational and prefer a softer approach.

A big part of establishing good communication practices is being alert to different communication skills, body language, facial expressions, and personality types between team members.

In practice, this means adjusting your approach to management and communication depending on who you’re talking to. This could include:

• Giving someone space to talk before you do
• Telling someone what the meeting is about before giving them a chance to speak
• Giving someone positive feedback before and after talking about areas for improvement
• Getting straight to the point when delivering feedback
• Having a chat with someone over coffee rather than in a formal office setting
• Going for a walk with someone rather than sitting down across from each other at a table
• Making clear suggestions rather than asking questions
• Asking questions rather than making suggestions

Of course, many of these points contradict each other. So, the ‘best’ course of action depends on the manager and the team member in question.

However, no matter the type of communication, it’s always best to prioritize respect, allow the employee to feel heard, and avoid needless criticism. And if in doubt, you can also ask your team members themselves what they need or prefer in terms of communication.

How Homebase can help improve team communication

Centralizing communication with an app like Homebase makes effective communication easy.

That’s because Homebase lets you:

• Keep all your professional communications within one platform
• Reduce the risk of any communications or important updates getting lost, missed, or overlooked
• Gather data — such as performance, pay, hours worked, and shifts — to offer more fact-based feedback if needed
• Create new hire packets to welcome new team members
• Keep track of staff information, paperwork, and certifications

All of the above will also help your team members feel more informed, empowered, and part of a wider community, which boosts morale and job satisfaction.

Forget random texts and lost Post-It notes — with Homebase, communication is straightforward and easy.

Great team communication is vital for your small business

The nine tips laid out above may feel like a lot, but they can be summarized as:

1. Set expectations
2. Be respectful
3. Keep communication channels open

It’s true. Failing to set communication expectations that explain what you want to see and what’s acceptable in your workplace is a recipe for an unhealthy, unproductive work environment.

Instead, laying out clear guidelines and processes avoids confusion and mistakes. And being open to feedback makes for a collaborative, successful, and supportive workplace. Ultimately, everyone wants to feel heard, included, and respected.

Harnessing the power of technology, like with Homebase’s specially-designed communication app, makes this easier than ever.

The post How to improve team communication: A step-by-step guide for small businesses appeared first on Homebase.

That’s because it’s essential for employers to understand what staff members are working on and how much time employees need to carry out all their tasks. Many business owners also want assurance that their team members are spending and accounting for their time responsibly — it might seem like overkill, but squandered time quickly adds up and ends up costing you.

That’s where employee attendance trackers come in handy. Once small business owners have these realizations, they often start looking to transition away from pen-and-paper systems to punch clocks or biometric time clocks. But then they realize:

• They’re not the most reliable as they don’t prevent buddy punching and other forms of time theft.
• They won’t help you stay compliant as they can’t help you track overtime or breaks to stay ahead of state and local labor laws.
• They don’t make payroll easier as you still have to export your time tracking data and build timesheets on your own.

So, what’s the fix for this? Attendance tracking software, which isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. Time and attendance tracking software is a valuable — and often affordable — investment that can help you avoid a whole host of costly payroll errors and inaccuracies. That’s why we’ve developed this guide with everything you need to know about employee attendance trackers for your small business.

4 ways to track employee attendance

Time tracking can be as low-tech or as high-tech as you want it to be. But these are four common ways employers track employee attendance.

1. Pen and paper timesheets

The pen-and-paper method is inexpensive, flexible, and easy to implement and use, especially for small businesses. It may involve a printed spreadsheet or a piece of paper on a clipboard. You can use it to track employee hours, breaks, and even calculate overtime.

Pen and paper timesheets are a good fallback when you’re getting started, but they do have limitations. They require employees to work on an honor system, and some team members may be more precise about recording their working hours than others. And, if employers don’t carefully track and check employee hours, people can easily make mistakes or intentionally record the wrong start and end times.

2. Digital timesheets

With digital timesheets, employees track their hours on an Excel spreadsheet or timesheet. They’re similar to paper timesheets but allow for more flexibility in terms of location — employees can record their hours anywhere as long as they have access to the timesheet link and the internet.

Like paper timesheets, digital timesheets are inexpensive and easy to use, but they can also make it easier for managers to process payroll, especially with the accounting functions on Excel or Google Sheets. Still, employers who use them also have to trust that their employees will be honest about tracking the hours they work. This disadvantage may not be sustainable or scalable enough for small businesses that are growing fast.

3. Punch clocks

Many employers in industries like construction or manufacturing use punch clocks and time cards to track employee hours because they work well when you have limited access to computers or the internet on a work site.

Punch clocks have been around for decades, and you can find both analog and digital versions of them. To use a punch clock, employees typically insert their time cards into a slot and clock in or out. The punch clock then stamps their shift start and end times on the card.

Some employers prefer punch clocks because they allow for precise time tracking and can prevent some forms of time theft. However, you may not feel comfortable with punch clocks if you’re worried about “buddy punching,” which is when an employee clocks in or out for one or many absentee co-workers.

4. Biometric time clocks

Biometric time clocks may sound futuristic for the spreadsheet users among you, but they can be an effective way of preventing time theft. In particular, they’re a great way to prevent buddy punching, as they make clocking in for other people almost impossible.

How do they work? Biometric time clocks use unique identifiers like fingerprints, retina or iris scans, hand or face geometry scans, and even voice recognition to sign employees in and out of their shifts. And while they can help prevent time theft and its associated costs, they also come with some drawbacks.

First, some employees find biometric time clocks intrusive, and they’re not even legal in every state. Many states — like Illinois, Texas, Washington, and New York — have even implemented laws regulating their use.

If you want to implement a biometric time clock solution in your business, you’ll have to research your specific state’s laws. But in general, employers who want to use them will have to:

• Obtain employee consent before gathering any biometric data.
• Notify employees that they’re collecting their personal data and explain what they’re using it for.
• Declare they won’t sell, lease, trade, or profit from any workers’ biometric data.
• Follow all confidentiality, data storage, and information disposal regulations set by their state.

The top 5 employee attendance tracking software

Attendance tracking software can help you transition from tedious manual processes to a faster, easier, more error-free experience. Here are our top five recommendations.

1. Homebase time and attendance tracking software

Source: https://joinhomebase.com/time-clock/

Caption: With Homebase, GPS location and clock-in photos make sure the right employees are signing into their shifts at the right times.

Homebase is a team management software solution built specifically for small businesses and hourly teams. It has features for time tracking, scheduling, hiring and onboarding, payroll, team communication, and HR and compliance.

Homebase has helped over 100,000 small business owners to transition from their pen-and-paper system to an intuitive app that’s a lot less intimidating than other solutions out there, and it only takes a few minutes to get started for free.

Main features

• Secure, mobile time clocks: Employees enter a unique PIN to clock in or out, so they don’t have to carry a punch card or submit a weekly timesheet. GPS locations and clock-in photos also prevent early clock-ins and buddy punching.
• Employee alerts before shifts: Homebase automatically notifies employees of their upcoming shifts, helping you avoid no-shows.

Source: https://joinhomebase.com/time-clock/

Caption: Homebase automatically notifies employees about their upcoming shifts and employers when their people are signing in late.

• Payroll integrations: Homebase’s time clock feature integrates with our payroll software and scheduling software, making it easy for managers to schedule employee shifts and process payroll directly out of employee timesheets. Employees can also stay up-to-date on their timesheets by checking their hours and pay in real-time.
• Secure information handling: Homebase stores your cloud-based time and attendance data for up to four years — two years beyond what the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) laws require.

Pricing

You can sign up for Homebase time clocks and timesheets for free! Otherwise, you can access more features with the Essentials plan for $20/month, the Plus plan for $48/month, and the All in One plan for $80/month.

2. BambooHR

Source: https://www.bamboohr.com/time-tracking-software/

Caption: Managers can easily approve time off requests from within BambooHR’s platform.

BambooHR is a human resources information system (HRIS) that’s popular among both large and small business owners. Companies use it to automate and track HR operations like hiring and onboarding, compensation, company culture, and people data and analytics. And, as part of their compensation features, BambooHR provides users with tools for time tracking as well.

Main features

• Mobile app for time tracking: Employees can clock in and out from their phones with the BambooHR mobile app and take a look at their time off data.
• Payroll hours reports: BambooHR consolidates personal time off (PTO), regular hours, and overtime hours into payroll hours reports, which lets HR professionals and managers quickly check and approve employee hours before they run payroll.
• Security measures: BambooHR’s platform automatically logs you out of your session when you’re inactive for a certain period of time as a security feature. While some employees find this inconvenient, it’s meant to protect sensitive employee data.

Pricing

BambooHR’s Essentials plan starts at $5.25/month, and its Advantage plan starts at $8.75/month. Users then have the option to upgrade their plans with add-ons, including one for time tracking. Pricing for these additions isn’t readily available on their website.

3. Rippling

Source: https://www.rippling.com/time-and-attendance

Caption: Rippling lets you create automated workflows for managing time tracking.

Rippling is a software solution that companies use to track and manage their human resources, information technology, and finance operations in one unified platform. And among its HR products, Rippling includes tools for managing time and attendance.

Main features

• Create custom settings for tracking employee hours: Rippling lets you set up custom rules that the system triggers when certain conditions are met. So, for example, you can set a custom trigger for overtime pay when employees work a certain amount of hours.
• Pre-built workflow templates for time tracking: Rather than creating your own custom settings for employee hours, you can choose from one of Rippling’s templates.
• Integrates with Rippling’s other products for IT and finance: If you’re the owner of a larger business, you might appreciate the ability to consolidate your IT and financial data in one platform rather than relying on multiple different tools.
• Best for larger, more established businesses: Rippling’s functionality makes it a great solution for business owners with more people to manage. But it may not work for employers who are new to time tracking software, especially because some users report a lack of helpful customer support.

Pricing

Rippling starts at $8/month per user, and prices go up from there depending on the add-on features you want to include. Per add-on pricing isn’t available on Rippling’s website.

4. Bob

Source: https://www.hibob.com/

Caption: Bob’s mobile app lets employees easily check their time off requests and time off balances.

Bob is an HR platform built for on-site, remote, or hybrid workplaces and it has features for performance and culture management, as well as core HR operations like compensation and time tracking. With their time and attendance software, employees and managers can monitor hours worked, access time sheets, and get access to attendance records and data.

Main features

• Bob’s “quick fix” feature: If an employee wants to adjust their hours or if they forget to clock in or out, they can manually edit them without having to get manager approval.
• Monthly summary of employee hours: Employees can also access monthly reports that detail how many hours they worked during the month, including their overtime hours.
• Attendance metrics for managers: Managers and leadership also have more visibility into employee attendance with customizable reports. With this feature, you can filter out employee attendance information and get a closer look at employee vacation days, holidays, and sick days.

Pricing

Bob doesn’t provide pricing information on their website, but you can get a custom quote from their sales team.

5. Paylocity

Source: https://www.paylocity.com/

Caption: Paylocity gives supervisors an overview of employee attendance week by week.

Paylocity is an HR and payroll system that helps small, mid-sized, and large businesses manage their people, payroll, and benefits. And, as part of the HR platform, Paylocity offers tools for workforce management operations like time and attendance, and scheduling.

Main features

• Communication within the platform: If employees notice a mistake or missing shift in their time cards, they can notify their manager about the errors within the system rather than having to send them a separate email.
• Supervisor dashboard: Supervisors can get an overview of pending time off requests, absences, and attendance.
• Customer service by online chat, phone, or email: Although some customers have reported that not all customer service representatives are as knowledgeable as others, they appreciate how convenient it is to access their support.

Pricing

Paylocity doesn’t list its pricing options on its website, but you can contact them for a custom price.

Clock out of your time tracking troubles with Homebase

Many small business owners opt for simple pen-and-paper or spreadsheet time tracking systems because they feel too intimidated by software. They worry it’ll come with too high a price tag and too much of a learning curve.

That’s why Homebase has made time tracking tools that are both free and easy to use. It only takes a few minutes to create an account and get set up. And once you’re familiar with how our app works, you can also access our free features for scheduling and team communication, which share data automatically with our time tracking software for more reliable employee management.

The post Top employee attendance tracking software compared appeared first on Homebase.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of scheduling with Homebase vs. using employee scheduling templates in Google Sheets or Excel.

1. How to use a shift schedule template in Google Sheets or Excel

Using modern scheduling software is the easiest and quickest way to schedule employee shifts. But if you still prefer creating your schedules with old-school spreadsheets, here are the best ways to do it with templates.

Creating an employee shift schedule with Google Sheets

First, to create an employee shift schedule in Google Sheets:

1. Go to “Google Drive.”
2. Click “New,” hover over the arrow next to “Google Sheets,” and choose “From a template.”
3. On the next page, the template gallery, choose “Employee shift schedule.”
4. Now, it’s time to customize. Google’s template includes a monthly overview as well as weekly schedules.
5. Customize your color scheme and, if you’d like, add your logo. It’ll make your schedule look more professional and only takes a few minutes.
6. Build your schedule.

Creating an employee shift schedule with Excel

Here’s how to create an employee shift schedule in Excel:

1. Go to “File” and then “New From Template.”
2. In the search box in the upper right corner of the “Template Gallery,” search for “schedule.”
3. Scroll down and you’ll see a template called “Weekly employee shift schedule.”
4. Double-click on the template and a new spreadsheet with this template will open.
5. Customize your template — highlight cells and change the background colors to match your business’s branding.
6. Add your logo. Go to “Insert” and “Picture.” It’s a quick step that’ll add some customization.
7. Add in your employees’ names and build your schedule.

Remember, you’ll have to repeat those steps every time you want to make a new schedule. Sounds like a lot of manual work, doesn’t it? Let’s look at a simpler method that’ll save you tons of time in the long run — using Homebase to schedule your shifts.

How to use Homebase to build your employee schedule automatically

Using Homebase is the easiest way to create a work schedule – certainly better than a manual shift schedule template. In just a few steps, you’ll have your schedule set up and ready to share. Best of all, it’s free!

Here’s how you can create your employee schedule automatically with Homebase:

1. First, create employee roles. Click on “Schedule” in the main menu and then “Departments/Roles.” From there, click on the “Add New Department” green button.
2. Type in the box to create new roles or scroll down to select old ones. Then, name the department whatever you like.
3. Now, to set up your employee auto-scheduling rules. Click on the “Team” tab in the main menu to pull up a list of your employees. Click on any employee to open their profile.
4. Find the “Auto-Schedule rules” at the bottom of the “Job Details” page. Assign the employee their maximum weekly hours, seniority, and roles.
5. If you know your team members’ availability, you can go ahead and set it. Go to the “Schedule” tab again and this time, click on “Team Availability.”
6. You’ll see a table where rows are employees and columns are days of the week. Each box is a potential shift. Click on a box and select “Unavailable” to show that an employee can’t work it.
7. You’re ready to make some weekly schedule templates. Inside the “Schedule” tab, select a week.
8. At the top of the table, there’s a row called “Open Shifts.” Click on a box in that row to add the roles you need for that shift.
9. Go to “Tools” at the top of the “Schedule” page and select “Templates” from the drop-down menu. Name your weekly schedule template and hit “Create.”
10. Now we get to the good bit! Go to the week you want to automate and go to “Templates” in the “Tools” drop-down menu one more time. Choose the template you want to work with and hit “Apply.”
11. Do you see the wand icon in the “Open Shifts” box? Click on it, and — presto — you have your schedule ready to go.
12. Make any changes you need to and hit the “Publish” button.

And that’s it! All the schedules you need are set up and ready to go for weeks to come.

Why switch from Google Sheets and Excel to Homebase

If you’re used to Google Sheets or Excel, making the switch to an app like Homebase may seem daunting. Learning anything new takes time.

But scheduling apps like Homebase were built with small business owners like you in mind. They’re quick to onboard and intuitive enough to learn with minimal guidance, so there won’t be any teething problems.

Once you’ve made that leap, scheduling with Homebase offers nothing but advantages over using traditional spreadsheets. One of our customers even said he could never go back to pen-and-paper scheduling once he started with Homebase as it freed up hours of his week.

“I can never go back to managing on paper. It would take hours a day.”

-Troy, General Manager, Carefree Boats

Here are some of the concrete ways Homebase can help with employee scheduling:

1. Save time on repetitive tasks

No business owner wants to spend all their working hours pouring over spreadsheets. Homebase lets you automate repetitive tasks, but also gives you the flexibility to make quick changes to your schedule to accommodate your business’s needs. That leaves you with more time for bigger-picture activities like sales strategies and advertising campaigns.

2. Avoid unnecessary costs

Homebase helps you cut costs in ways that regular spreadsheets can’t:

• When an employee is about to hit overtime, you’ll get a notification warning you.

• You don’t have to pay someone else to create a weekly work schedule for you (or get your shifts covered so you have time to create one yourself).
• The Homebase app goes beyond scheduling and helps you monitor sales and labor costs to reveal where else you can save money.

3. Finetune your staff schedules with no extra effort

Going over a Google Sheets spreadsheet in detail takes a lot of concentration. With Homebase, all the information you need about your business operations is laid out clearly and intuitively. You can easily factor in employee availability, seniority, and roles — and keep accurate track of what hours your employees work too.

4. Boost communication

Unlike Google Sheets and Excel, dedicated scheduling apps are also excellent team communication tools. Homebase allows you to publish your schedule to the app so employees can view it on the go, even on their mobile devices.

You can speedily notify employees about any changes to the schedule, too — especially last-minute ones. The Homebase app always shows updates in real-time, so nobody has to hang around waiting for a message.

5 Access to extra features and integrations

No need to stop with scheduling templates. Homebase offers a variety of other free features that tie into scheduling, like timesheets and time clocks. The platform can also integrate with other software you use to run your business, like POS platforms, payroll software, job boards, and general business tools.

Get started with Homebase for free

Gone are the days of painstakingly filling in Excel schedule templates, box by box. Now you can download powerful, user-friendly apps like Homebase to manage your entire scheduling process.

That’s not to say Google Docs and Microsoft Excel don’t serve a purpose. But their functionality is rather limited when it comes to managing a fast-paced, small but growing business. Homebase offers a whole range of features to assist you in scheduling, like workflow automation, granular configurations, and specialized templates. Once you start using it, you’ll wonder how you ever coped without it.

The post Create an employee shift schedule with Homebase instead of Google Sheets or Excel appeared first on Homebase.

Overbooked and under-booked shifts make doing business harder and less profitable and can negatively impact employee productivity and lower retention rates. And many companies see just-in-time (JIT) scheduling as the solution to reducing labor costs and meeting changes in customer traffic.

But does JIT scheduling really give business owners a financial advantage by avoiding unnecessary expenses, or do they end up losing money due to high turnover rates?

In this article, you’ll become more familiar with JIT scheduling, its pros and cons, and how scheduling tools can ease the transition to more stable and predictable employee scheduling.

What is just-in-time (JIT) scheduling?

Just-in-time (JIT) scheduling is a practice that tries to manage labor costs by scheduling employees based on fluctuating consumer demand. That means if a manager thinks their coffee shop’s going to be unusually busy for the next three days, they can update their schedule on the fly and ask additional employees to come in. Or, if a salon is having a slow couple of days, the manager might drop some shifts and send certain workers home. 

JIT scheduling is extremely common in industries like retail and service where hourly and wage work is the norm, as opposed to salaried work. That’s because salaries employees are paid a set amount each month, so reducing the number of hours they work has little impact on the bottom line. 

How does JIT scheduling benefit or hurt your business?

Adopting JIT scheduling can seem like an attractive option to business owners that employ wage workers and need to keep labor costs down. But the unpredictability and constant changes that come along with this kind of scheduling can be frustrating and demoralizing for employees. 

We’ve put together a list of pros and cons to help you get a better idea of how JIT can affect your business.

Con #1: JIT scheduling is limiting for employees

his form of last-minute scheduling makes it difficult for employees to properly arrange work transportation, set up childcare or social arrangements, and pursue other part-time work or educational opportunities. It also hurts an employee’s ability to properly budget or save money since they’re not guaranteed a set income, and their projected earnings can change drastically from week to week.

Also, when team members have to call in a couple days or even just an hour or two prior to their scheduled shifts to find out whether they’re working or not, they’ll have to scramble to find a last-minute babysitter or fight traffic to arrive on time.

Con #2: JIT scheduling negatively impacts overall well-being

JIT scheduling can have a negative impact on employee well-being and mental health, as unpredictable schedules don’t let individuals properly manage their finances, social lives, and family situations. That makes you more likely to end up with a burnt-out team that’s much less productive, absent regularly, resentful, and likely looking for opportunities elsewhere.

Indeed, the uncertainty of JIT scheduling can easily create an irritated and stressed-out team. It can also make things more difficult for employers by increasing employee turnover, complicating timekeeping processes, and increasing the misuse of PTO and sick leave.

Con #3: JIT scheduling can lead to high turnover costs

Disengaged employees will leave your business the second a more stable opportunity comes along. And reduced employee loyalty and high turnover mean you’ll end up spending more time and money hiring, training, and onboarding new workers. 

On the other hand, predictable scheduling leads to happier employees who are much more likely to continue working for you, which means they’ll feel motivated to put their best foot forward during their shifts and be better assets to your business overall. 

Pro #1: JIT staffing cuts costs 

Imagine this: you own a salon, and both your colorists are working the afternoon shift. However, you only have a couple of people come into your salon for a quick trim, which means you’re paying for the colorists to stay at the salon when they have nothing to do and could easily just go home.

Businesses use JIT staffing as a cost-cutting measure because it only requires them to pay for the hours their employees are actually working. 

Pro #2: JIT scheduling makes managing demand fluctuations easier

Because of its flexibility, JIT scheduling helps managers respond to fluctuations in customer traffic in real time. Businesses in the retail and service industries often use forecasting software to respond to fluctuations in the number of customers by tracking real-time sales and even traffic conditions. So, if a manager notices that the next couple of weeks are likely to be slower than usual, they can update their staff schedule and reduce the number of usual shifts.

Or, if a nearby event or concert draws a rush of customers into your bar or restaurant, you can offer additional shifts and hours and quickly have employees come in to handle the situation. But if you only had a set number of workers scheduled to run the show that day and didn’t have the flexibility to call in more employees, you’d end up understaffed and unable to deliver top-notch customer service. 

How businesses are moving away from JIT scheduling

In 2014, Victoria’s Secret was pressed with a potential class-action lawsuit, which prompted them to end on-call scheduling in 2015. Many major employers — like Starbucks, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Gap — shortly followed suit and started phasing out on-call and JIT scheduling under the looming threat of lawsuits and government mandates. 

In fact, cities like San Francisco and New York have already enacted legislation since 2015 to protect workers in the retail and service sectors. 

It’s clear that this form of shift management is on its way out. And more often than not, the costs of managing and losing stressed-out employees outweigh the benefits of on-call scheduling. A high turnover rate is almost always expensive, and what appears to cut costs on a day-to-day basis could very well hamper revenue in the long term. 

What if my business requires just-in-time staffing?

Retail and food services, call centers and other customer service roles, IT and software firms, and security staff often rely on JIT scheduling to operate effectively and keep customers satisfied. So how can you go about implementing JIT scheduling in a healthy way?

Businesses like Costco and Aldi show that you can still turn a profit while moving away from JIT scheduling.

One way they accomplish that is by training employees to be proficient in handling different parts of the store’s operations. So, for example, a worker that’s trained to stock shelves can also run the register. That way, employees can switch between tasks and easily transfer to an understaffed section of the store when it’s necessary. 

Some other sustainable approaches to applying JIT scheduling include:

1. Offering benefits or higher wages to workers who need to stay on-call or have schedules that are frequently subject to last-minute changes.
2. Ask workers to volunteer for extra hours instead of imposing extra shifts. You may have plenty of part-time employees who’d gladly take on an extra few hours for additional wages and tips.
3. Eliminate the element of surprise as much as possible by using shift extensions. That way, you’d only be asking an employee who’s already at work to stay for additional hours as opposed to asking a worker who’s “out of office” to come in at the last minute.
4. Use scheduling software for shift optimization and gathering insights so you can use your sales forecasts and labor targets to build schedules in advance (more on this in a second!)

3 ways you can use scheduling software to your benefit

Scheduling software like Homebase save you time and help you make the most out of employee timetables by automating the process of creating and managing work schedules. Here are three ways you can use tools like Homebase to streamline your scheduling process and run a better team overall:

1. Create an optimized schedule in no time

Homebase lets you create a schedule in minutes with easy-to-use templates and drag-and-drop scheduling features. You can assign shifts based on role (like barista or cashier), employee, and even individual departments. And if you have two employees working the same shifts, you can save time by simply duplicating the task and dragging it to the desired day and employee.

You can then share your schedule with your team, manage changes quickly, and view information about your employees within one dashboard.

Once you publish your schedule, Homebase instantly notifies your employees by text or email and through the mobile app. Alerts let your team know about any changes, and you’ll be able to confirm they’ve seen the latest schedule, which helps reduce misunderstandings and no-shows.

2. Give employees autonomy over their schedules

One of the most challenging things about being on-call is feeling like you don’t have control over your time. With Homebase, employees can easily access their schedules in advance, share their personal availability and desired time off, and claim open shifts.

That means workers are more engaged and have some control over their personal finances and budgeting, which increases satisfaction and engagement.

3. Reduce manual tasks by streamlining employee communication

As a business owner or manager, you have way more important things to do than go back and forth between employees trying to manage each person’s availability. Homebase’s built-in messenger tool allows employees to cover and trade shifts —  all you have to do is approve.

Your team can easily communicate with each other on the go and resolve scheduling issues between themselves as they come up. 

1. Send messages to individuals, groups, or your entire business.
2. Instantly create groups for quick requests, like everyone working on a certain day or everyone who’s available the next day.
3. Easily reach new team members who get added into groups automatically.

“The rule here is that if you need to request off — or if you’re scheduled and something happens that you need to switch days — I am the last person that you talk to. You need to reach out to your team first. And Homebase gives them the capability to see who’s on the schedule.” 

-Kenia Stubblefield, general manager at Houston retail shop Forth & Nomad

You don’t need JIT staffing to turn a profit

JIT scheduling may reduce labor costs in the short term and can, at times, help meet last-minute customer demands. But the trade-off is often unhappy employees who feel stressed out, overwhelmed, and frustrated with unpredictable schedules. 

That’s why businesses are moving away from report-to-work shifts to more stable — but strategically advantageous — scheduling. Of course, some companies and industries might still have to rely on JIT scheduling, but there are healthy ways of approaching it.

Last-minute changes are inevitable. But scheduling software like Homebase can make your employee’s work lives more predictable while still helping you turn a profit month after month.

The post Just-in-time scheduling: What you need to know for your business appeared first on Homebase.

Need more small business guidance? Homebase HR Pro gives you live access to certified experts who can answer any questions you may have. 

HR Q&A: What happens if I misclassify employees? 

From exempt vs. non-exempt, to employees vs. independent contractors, misclassifying your team members can result in serious trouble for your business, and it’s important to know what the consequences are. 

Take a look at the expert advice below. You can learn more in our article about how to classify independent contractors, and we’ve also got a piece on labor law violation penalties to help you better understand what happens should you fall out of compliance. 

What are the penalties and costs for misclassifying employees?

Answer from our HR Pro Kara, JD, SPHR:

The answer will depend on a number of factors, such as how many employees are misclassified, how much extra money they would have been paid if properly classified, and whether or not lawyers or regulatory agencies get involved.

Generally, if an employee goes to the federal Department of Labor (DOL) and claims that they’ve been misclassified, the DOL will investigate.

If the DOL determines that an employee—or entire group of employees—should have been paid overtime but wasn’t, the employee will be owed up to two years’ worth of unpaid wages (or up to three if the misclassification was “willful”). 

The organization may also owe the employee or employees liquidated damages equal to the amount of money owed. So, if an employee should have been paid $2,000 in overtime, the organization may owe them $4,000. The organization would also owe the government taxes on those wages, as well as interest on the taxes. 

Most states also have their own minimum wage and overtime laws, and often an organization can be held liable under both federal and state law, meaning the employee would be owed additional damages for violations of state wage law. 

And if you are in a state with late payment penalties, the organization could owe additional damages for not having paid all wages by the time they were due. There’s also a very good chance that the organization will be held liable for attorney’s fees—both the organization’s and the employee’s.

On top of the costs mentioned above, there are potential federal civil penalties of $2,074 per violation (generally one penalty per misclassified employee), state penalties (which will vary), and in some cases the potential for jail time. Finally, statutory interest may immediately begin to accrue on the amount owed.

Employee handbook tips + Restaurant Revitalization Fund info

The Restaurant Revitalization Fund kicked off recently as part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and it’s important to apply as soon as possible if you need a grant. Check out our latest article to learn who’s eligible, how much you can get, and how to apply.

Homebase can also help with employee handbooks. Learn how to write one effectively, as well as how to avoid the most common employee handbook mistakes. 

The SBA Restaurant Revitalization Fund: What to know

The $28.6 billion grant program recently launched—learn the ins and outs of how to apply and how much money you may be eligible to receive.

American Rescue Plan Act: small business relief

The bill includes several provisions aimed at helping small businesses, with an emphasis on relief for restaurants and bars that have been severely impacted by the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

How to write an employee handbook effectively

The beauty of an employee handbook is that your team can refer to it for answers to any questions they may have about important policies—so it’s important to write it effectively and cover all your bases.  

Common employee handbook mistakes and how to avoid them

Errors in your employee handbook can be problematic in the long run, and there are several common mistakes employers make when setting it up. Luckily they can all be easily avoided. 

HR Q&A: What if a worker won’t sign our employee handbook?

Our HR Pro experts shared advice on what to do if a worker won’t sign your employee handbook. You can also learn more about employee handbooks in our article about how to write one effectively.

One of our employees refuses to sign the handbook. What should we do?

Answer from our HR Pro Kara, JD, SPHR:

First things first, talk to them about why they don’t want to sign the employee handbook. There may be an easily resolved misunderstanding about what their signature on this document means.

If that conversation doesn’t solve the problem, and you don’t want to terminate them, make it clear that failure to sign the handbook does not mean they’re exempt from the policies, procedures, or expectations it describes. They will be expected to follow the same rules and will be held to the same standards as their co-workers, regardless of whether they signed the acknowledgment.

If they still refuse to sign—even after understanding that their lack of a signature doesn’t get them out of following your policies—you’ll want to document that in some fashion.

For instance, ask them to write, “I refuse to sign” on the acknowledgment form and make your own note that you communicated that their refusal to sign didn’t mean they were exempt from your policies. If possible, call in another manager to serve as a witness to this conversation, and have them document what happened as well. 

The post The #realtalk roundup: May 2021 appeared first on Homebase.

We also included a few creative ways to find the perfect candidates for your temporary summer roles, as well as the financial benefits of hiring “targeted individuals or groups that consistently face significant employment barriers. 

How to hire summer employees

Summer is on the way, which means a peak in business for many industries. And with more work to accomplish, hiring summer employees will help ensure your bottom line reaps the rewards.

A guide to legally hiring minors

There are both federal and state laws you need to follow in order to stay compliant and avoid serious fines and penalties.

Everything to know about hiring interns

Implementing a valuable internship program at your small business can benefit both your business and your community—and the good news is you don’t need a vast set of resources to make it happen. 

The financial benefits of hiring targeted individuals 

Aside from creating an inclusive workplace environment, there are financial benefits to hiring workers who would otherwise have a hard time finding employment.

In case you missed it:

We recently hosted an employment law webinar covering at-will employment, unlawful harassment, and more. If you’d like to check it out before hiring more employees, you can view the slides here. You can also click here to watch the webinar recording. 

The post The #realtalk roundup: April 19, 2021 appeared first on Homebase.

• Type: Quick Service Restaurant
• Location: Lakewood, CO
• Employees: 10
• Food Provider: US Foods

Background

After years of working in the home security field (think burglar and fire alarms), Larry Green wanted off the corporate ladder and onto a new frontier: chicken wings.  But when a fancy New York chef was looking to sell his popular pie shop, Larry’s focus turned from hot wings to hot pies.  

Although not a trained baker or even a pie consumer himself, Larry took over the business ten days before their busiest time of year (Thanksgiving), and has been baking popular pies like Caramel Apple, Vermont Maple Pumpkin, and Old Fashioned Pecan for over eighteen years now.  

While selling up to 2,000 pies a week has been a challenge, what Larry finds the most challenging is handling labor and compliance.  

The problem

Larry dreaded coming in on Monday morning, for he knew what was ahead of him: ten to twelve hours of developing, changing, and posting the employee schedule that he created in Excel.  

Trying to figure out how to make everyone happy, making sure he didn’t forget any time-off requests,  and not scheduling too many “Clopens” (assigning the same person to a close shift right before an open shift), was causing Larry headaches each time he made the schedule.  

Larry first tried to move to technology through a product called Sling, but found that their interface was clunky, and that their customer service was slow and their terminology hard to understand. When Larry met Homebase at a US Foods: Food Fanatics Live show, he found a solution that worked for him and his employees.  

How Homebase helped

Two things have changed since Larry started using Homebase.  First, the time it takes for him to build a schedule has gone from twelve hours to thirty minutes.  And second, Larry now “looks forward to building the schedule on Monday mornings.”  

Before Homebase, Larry was stuck managing an endless sea of text messages, emails, and random slips of paper to handle availability and time off changes.  This was causing Larry to have to make changes to the schedule after it had been published, causing more time and headaches to go into this task.

With Homebase, employees manage their time off and availability in the Homebase app and Larry immediately gets notified, and his schedule builder gets updated.  

Before Homebase, Larry was scheduling his key employees into overtime, and sometimes forgetting to give them a day off. With Homebase, Larry gets an automatic tabulation of hours worked per week, so he does not schedule anyone into overtime.  

And with a handy weekly and monthly view of the schedule, he’s able to keep better track of days off so he makes sure his employees have more time with their families.  

Larry says, “my employees are young, and technology comes easier to them than some of us old farts.”  But with Homebase’s easy to use features, Larry was able to make the switch quickly.  His only complaint, “I wish I had found this sooner!”

“If you have someone who is on the fence about switching to Homebase, have them call me.  If I can help another small business save 10 hours per week, I am happy help.”  And Larry, we are happy to have you as a Homebase customer!

The post Customer story: Granny Scott’s Pie Shop appeared first on Homebase.

Construction companies and general contractors rely on construction project management software, punch lists, bid management apps, and other task management tools to operate. However, one of the most important aspects of running a construction firm can often get overlooked. How do you manage all of your employees? 

There are a lot of factors that go into finding the best employee management software solution for your construction professionals. Homebase is here to help. Our reliable, easy-to-use software offers many features that construction companies love. Here are five ways Homebase can help you manage your workers, no matter which job site they’re at for the day. 

1. Easy communication 

Construction companies love the Homebase free messaging app thanks to the ease of use and ability to message every employee at once. By using the Homebase app to communicate, you can: 

• Message every employee working a certain shift in just a couple clicks
• Communicate with individual employees about project planning changes, updates on the job, or any other important information
• Know who has read your messages with real time updates
• Instantly share our Manager Log feature with your management team to track issues 
• Know who has seen their new schedules as soon as they open them 

Even better, your employees can use the messaging app themselves to communicate with each other without having to collect every team member’s phone number. The ability to connect so easily on a company-wide level makes managing project tasks incredibly easy.  

Ready to communicate easier with your team? Sign up for free today!

2. Mobile GPS clock in capability

Construction workers shouldn’t have to waste time coming into your office to clock in for the day’s shift. With the mobile GPS time clock, employees can clock in and out from their phone, no matter what job site they’re at. The app then shares GPS coordinates and a timestamp with you. 

Plus, if it looks like an employee may have forgotten to clock out, Homebase will shoot them a reminder that they need to do so, and they’ll be able to correct their mistake right there on their own device. 

The best part of the mobile time clock is that it gives you peace of mind that your staff is at the right job when their shift starts—without having to show up yourself. It also means your employees have more time in the morning to get started on their day-to-day activities. 

3.  Shift notes 

Speaking of day-to-day activities, if you’re not on the job site every day, how are you supposed to relay daily tasks and assignments to each employee? Are you going to print out Gantt charts for each worker? Luckily Homebase’s scheduling software comes equipped with shift notes, so you don’t have to. 

Shift notes work like this: You add in any information your team member needs to know for that day’s job when you build the schedule (or any other time). When your employee clocks in, they’ll get a notification with the message you included in the shift. This way everyone will be made aware of what you expect them to complete each day. 

Our construction customers rely on this tactic to relay information to their employees every day and consider it one of the most important features we offer. 

4. Financial management made simple 

Tired of the countless hours you spend on payroll for your employees each week? This is one of the biggest problems for business owners, but Homebase makes preparing to run payroll easier as well. Once you’re ready to go, you can export your free timesheet to the top payroll providers, including: 

• Quickbooks
• ADP
• Gusto
• Bank of America Merchant Services 
• Millennium Payroll Solutions
• Square Payroll
• Heartland
• Sure Payroll

The Homebase time tracking app can also help manage your labor costs. With Homebase timesheets you can total hours worked for each worker, calculate overtime, and even track breaks to stay compliant with federal, state, and local laws. 

Are some of your projects based on outside areas? Your Homebase dashboard will go as far as to give you the weather forecast so you can make better workforce decisions and maybe reschedule a job if it looks like it’s going to rain. 

Ready to make payroll a breeze? Sign up for free with Homebase today! 

5. Hiring and new hire document management 

Another feature that Homebase customers love is the capability to hire the best construction employees for your business. All you need is our one, easy-to-use tool to post an open position to all of the leading job sites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and Facebook. 

Getting started is as easy as choosing from one of our pre-written job descriptions. After you’ve crafted a job description that perfectly fits your needs, all it takes is one click to deliver it to all sites at once. 

Our applicant screener questions help you find the absolute best candidate for the job. You can even schedule an interview by messaging interested job seekers right from your Homebase app. 

Finally, Homebase helps you get your new employees prepared for day 1 on the job without wasting time on a tedious, old-fashioned onboarding process. You can email a new hire packet that comes equipped with all of the necessary documents your new hire needs to complete in order to stay compliant with U.S. and state laws. 

Once your new hire signs that paperwork, the signed documents are securely stored on Homebase’s system, and they’ll remain easily accessible for anyone who needs to view them. 

—————————————————————————————————-

Whether you are looking for an easy way to communicate, an efficient way to keep track of employees, or even a high-tech, simple strategy for hiring new employees, Homebase has you covered. The best part? Getting started is free! Sign up today to begin taking advantage of the great features Homebase offers for you and your construction professionals. 

The post Team management software for construction crews appeared first on Homebase.

Homebase can help you simplify time tracking for your janitorial/cleaning business. Here are four ways Homebase can make janitorial time tracking much easier.

Ready to make time tracking easier for your team? Sign up for free today!

1. Leave instructions for a job with shift notes

Every cleaning job is different, and it’s important to be able to leave specific instructions for your team to make sure they’re prepared for each job. With shift notes from Homebase, you can make sure your team knows what’s expected of them when they clock in for their shift. This will allow your team to work faster when they arrive on the job site and will save you money in labor costs!

2. Get notified if your team hasn’t clocked in when scheduled

With Homebase notifications, you can receive a text when a member of your team has not checked in to the job site they are supposed to be at. Delays for your cleaning crew can add up throughout the day, and it’s important for you to know how these delays are impacting your team’s schedule.

3. Let your crew clock in from the job site with mobile GPS clock-in

Mobile GPS clock in helps you verify that your team is clocking in at the right work location. With mobile GPS clock in, you can keep an eye on your team and make sure they are where they need to be. Plus you can see how long your team is spending at each job site.

4. Run payroll easily with our payroll integrations

Homebase integrates with all the top payroll providers. This makes it easy to go from tracking hours worked to getting your team paid. Making sure your team is in the right place at the right time is hard enough. Don’t spend more time than you need to on payroll.

Homebase is the modern time tracking solution built for janitorial and cleaning teams. Ready to make time tracking a breeze? Sign up for Homebase today!

The post Time tracking for janitorial and cleaning businesses appeared first on Homebase.