The 30-person team at Synder Engineering is expert in design, manufacturing, and problem-solving related to steel works. Projects range from multi-story stair assemblies and handrails to balcony frames and jail cells. It takes the whole organization functioning together to create an exceptional product and great work environment.
Saving Clients Money
Everyone at Snyder Engineering is involved in delivering value to customers. Work is project based, requiring efficient work processes for estimating, bids, project management, detailing, and fabrication of the finished output. The team collaborates with each client to cut costs and coordinate architects, engineers, framers, plumbers, and everyone else involved. The company is licensed in all 50 states.
A CASE STUDY
Streamlining Internal Processes
Because of the nature of its business, Snyder Engineering has always tracked employee time. Until recently, office employees entered their time manually on a computerized time sheet. Lunch was never noted.
Shop employees punched a time clock, because they do not work on computers and do not have access to record time as the office employees do. “Each pay period, we would turn in the time cards to our administrative assistant who then spent 3-4 hours entering the punch card time into an on-line conversion calculator to get from decimal to minutes,” explains Brett Koehler, Snyder Engineering HR & Accounts Manager.
Shop employees would also write notes on their time cards, requesting time off or indicating that they took a shorter or no lunch period. “Quite often, we had problems making out the request,” notes Koehler. “Switching to online timekeeping has saved us 2-4 hours each pay period and eliminated a task for our administrative assistant,” says Koehler. “The system pays for itself just in the hours saved changing analog time to digital time each pay period.” The company has a hardware clock and swipe cards for all employees.
Improved Production
Using a timekeeping system has also been better for production, because employees are taking shorter lunches and breaks. “Employees are allowed to cut their meal break short and get back on the clock,” explains Koehler. “Employees no longer estimate or round time, making it easy to pay for exactly the time worked.”
In the office, employees typically took a 30-minute lunch, deducting a half hour from total daily time when entering it at the end of each day. “It was honest, but the new timekeeping system allows flexibility,” notes Koehler. “We give employees latitude to take the time they want for lunch—15, 30 or 45 minutes.” All employees are required to get their mandatory hours per week keeping up with production. However, lunch is on them and most choose to take a shorter lunch, complete their work task, and leave earlier in the afternoon.
“We actually incurred more cost on the old time keeping system,” says Koehler. “We no longer pay for time not worked, and employees have more latitude for breaks. It has actually made us more efficient with less unaccounted time.”
Quantifying the Value
Koehler first learned about the potential advantages of timekeeping from his payroll processor. They introduced him to timekeeping at an annual seminar in late 2016. Koehler brought up the idea to the company owner, who subsequently became more aware of inefficiencies in their old system that were quite maddening. The company went on to become timekeeping users.
Vacation Policy Management
The payroll processor takes care of managing vacation accrual per employee per pay period. Currently, Snyder Engineering notifies them to take hours for salary employees and when to increase the accrual rate based on time with the company. Hourly office employees input a request that is then added to the schedule. Hourly shop employees simply let Koehler know when they want time off. Koehler is looking at automated accrual increases based on years of service.
Surprisingly Easy Reporting
It was a little surprising to Koehler how easy online timekeeping is to use, as well as all the different reports it can generate.
It took a little time to become familiar, he notes, but he finds it a very good, easy to learn system. “The pay period summary time reports along with the employee detail time reports are great,” Koehler says. They previously had to track this in a separate all-in-one Excel work sheet. “These reports save us countless hours throughout the year and it’s very, very accurate.”
If you have questions about how Zamp HR can implement an automated timekeeping solution for your organization to increase productivity and reduce workforce costs, contact one of our specialists.
