Many businesses have a seasonal rush – that one window in which they have to pull in most of their profits for the entire year. For a fireworks store it’s the 4th of July. The season is upon us now for pool management companies-Memorial Day to Labor Day. We have designed and built specific features into our online timekeeping system that help swim management companies maximize the safety of their pool guests, employees, and profits. Read on, get your feet wet, and see how we can help you too.
The Must-Haves For Your Pool Management Company
Not trying to be melodramatic, but lives depend on your lifeguards showing up to work. This leads to 3 absolute must-haves for your pool management company:
- No-show alerts/notifications when lifeguards are late. Set a lifeguard’s schedule with a no-show alert and create future recurrences for it. Then we will send text/email alerts to the supervisors and staff if the lifeguard is late.
- Proof that lifeguards are at the pool sites when clocking in and out. This is a no-joke essential for your pool management company. Lives aren’t being guarded if your lifeguards can get away with clocking in/out from Starbucks. We have developed multiple ways to verify location: 1) We report the caller ID of all clock-in/out calls. 2) You can block CIDs that aren’t your pool sites. 3) Our exclusive Linked Phone feature links a pool site CID to the job site. The bottom line is that if your guard calls from another phone, he/she won’t be able to clock in. 4) Clock-ins with our mobile app have Smart Tracks™ technology to report if your lifeguards are on the job site or not when clocking in/out. We take the location issue very seriously because we know how important is it to you.
- Verification that lifeguards aren’t clocking in and out for each other. If Johnny can call to clock in for Jill, you are paying Jill not to work and worse yet, your pool site is being attended to by one less person than you’ve deemed necessary to safeguard the lives of your pool guests. It’s not very smart of Johnny, either who could get in a real bind and need Jill’s help. If you have suspicions about a couple of employees who work together off-site, use check-in alerts to monitor them. When you are alerted that they have both checked into a job, call one on his cell and ask him to put the other on the line. It’s a great deterrent to buddy-punching.
Keep Your Profits From Sinking In The Deep End
Your pool management company has basically 4 months to make money, so that means you have to be extra diligent to control your largest expense-labor costs. The 3 must-haves above not only protect your business against liabilities but also help prevent time theft and capture accurate time for payroll. We have other ways to help you monitor, manage and limit your labor costs.
- Lock it down. Most of your lifeguards are high school and college kids who like to hang out. This means early clock-ins and late clock-outs, maybe more of the latter than the former, but the extra minutes will absolutely torpedo your job budgets, especially if the minutes cumulate into overtime. Our 20 years of experience with swim management companies has taught us that your company uses a scheduling system, even if it’s a spreadsheet, and that scheduled hours are fairly standard. Our scheduling system is integrated with our exclusive Shift Lock ™ technology. Shift Lock was tailored to businesses that do not allow employees to clock in early (or clock out late) to a scheduled shift. Employees are informed that they are not to start work early, and their time cards will reflect the scheduled shift times. Now labor hours match your budget. It’s a beautiful thing.
- Communication is key. Pythagoras said, “Be silent or say something better than silence.” For those times that you do have something important to say to your lifeguards, we make it simple and foolproof. With call clock-ins, lifeguards are required to listen to the voice message and respond in some way before they are allowed to clock in/out. For lifeguards using the app, in-app messages can be sent as required reads before clocking in/out. If you need to ask your lifeguard to come in an hour early the next day, our voice and in-app message systems are great ways to be heard when it matters. No more, “Oh, I didn’t get your message.”
- Reports on everything. Do you want a report on all lifeguards who were late or a no-show over the last week, last month? No problem. How about a report comparing scheduled hours to actual hours by job? Can do. Total labor hours by employee for each month of the year and total for the year (with a total of ALL employee labor hours)? Got it. We even have it for you for last year and the year before that and the year before that… A weekly labor total by job and employee showing hours and dollars with overtime by the job? Yep (along with a total of all jobs as well). Who forgot to clock out? You bet. These are just a few reports we have. Our clients love our reporting.
‘Tis the season. Memorial Day is almost here! If your pool management company is soon to be swimming in a sea of unreliable handwritten time cards that are absolutely no help in managing your remote, hourly lifeguards, please sign up now for a free 30 day trial. We designed our online time card system for you 🙂
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