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Boosting Break Compliance and Operating Income With Shiftlab
Shiftlab, iQmetrix’s sibling company that offers an AI-driven workforce scheduling platform, shares how it had a brainstorming conversation with client Connectivity Source that led to a game-changing feature for managing break compliance.
In just a few weeks, Shiftlab responded by building a simple yet powerful toggle that went on to save this customer US$600,000 in the first six months of use. Let’s take a closer look at how this new feature came to life.
The Challenge: Solving FSLA Exposure and Compliance Issues
Connectivity Source, one of the largest T-Mobile authorized retailers, was dealing with limited documentation and considerable leadership efforts to mitigate FSLA (Fair Labor Standards Act) exposure. Additionally, they faced the challenges of employees returning from breaks early, forgetting to clock them in, or not taking breaks at all. This resulted in immediate financial losses, reduced coverage later in the day, as well as potential legal risks in various states.
The Solution: Empowering Employees, Streamlining Compliance
Instead of relying on constant intervention from leaders, the Shiftlab team sat down with Connectivity Source and proposed an innovative solution through the Shiftlab platform. By prompting employees when ending a break early or skipping a break altogether, the team could achieve the following objectives:
1. Enforce Compliance: Employees would be required to “Wait,” input their break time, or confirm that they are not adhering to the company’s break plans, ensuring 100% consent in every short break situation.
2. Simplify FSLA Reporting: The solution would provide consent reporting in any FSLA scenario that arises, eliminating the need for manual oversight and streamlining reporting processes.
3. Foster Awareness: By implementing this solution, employees would gain a deeper understanding of the importance of breaks and awareness of company policies. This “Measure what matters” approach would instill a culture of consent, resulting in longer breaks and reducing the likelihood of FSLA cases
Enhancing User Experience: Feedback and Streamlined Timecard Approval
During Shiftlab’s exploration with Connectivity Source, an additional opportunity presented itself. The team expressed the need for a prompt for retail staff when clocking out, showing an overview of their shift. The Shiftlab team took this feedback to heart and developed an efficient solution:
1. Shift Approval and Awareness: The prompt when clocking out enables employees to provide feedback and approve their timecards seamlessly, fostering constant shift approval and further reinforcing awareness and prevention measures.
2. Centralized Timecard Edits: Instead of relying on tickets, emails, or texts for timecard corrections, our streamlined approach suggests edits to managers, saving time and minimizing administrative hassles
The Outcome
In the first six months of using the new solution, Connectivity Source radically increased break compliance and realized an increased operating income of $600,000.
The successful outcome of this customer-driven feature highlights the power of collaboration and innovation in addressing critical workforce management challenges.
Aaron Pyle, CFO of Connectivity Source, said, “Shiftlab is the first scheduling and timeclock provider that combines a robust platform, rapid development and deployment of product improvements, with tangible, measurable, hard-dollar returns on investment. For a multi-location retail organization, Shiftlab’s ability to automate and streamline timecard management is invaluable.”
The Wider Rollout
Since its initial launch with Connectivity Source, Shiftlab has been able to deploy this solution to all of its customers, to help achieve 100% break compliance and enhance overall operational efficiency.
This new break compliance feature is just one of many added to the Shiftlab platform in an effort to help retailers automate compliance. With Shiftlab in place, retailers can:
- Automatically create and enforce mandatory and custom breaks
- Collect break attestations for missed breaks and employees returning early from break
- Employee verification of auto-punch outs with manager approval built-in
- Receive break and OT alerts for staff
- Run labor exception reports
- Give advance notice of schedules with mobile shift publishing
- Track timesheet data and changes
Shiftlab is the first scheduling and timeclock provider that combines a robust platform, rapid development and deployment of product improvements, with tangible, measurable, hard-dollar returns on investment. For a multi-location retail organization, Shiftlab’s ability to automate and streamline timecard management is invaluable.