News | Page 33

Time and Attendance North West can help employers who are affected by the changes in the law to the national minimum wage, which the Government have confirmed is being increased to £5.93 an hour in October. National minimum wage pay is calculated in a certain way. Many of the payments that you make to a worker will count towards their national minimum wage pay, but some won’t.

The North West (particularly Merseyside) traditionally suffers in a recession, and this trend has been heightened and exaggerated by the current worldwide economic crisis. Liverpool is fifth in the table of UK towns and cities with the fastest increasing jobless figures. The percentage of those employable people claiming JSA (jobseeker’s allowance) is 7 per cent. The housing slump has resulted in around 100 jobs axed at the Land Registry in Merseyside.

An astonishing statistic is that Liverpool social workers took a total of 78 years off sick in just a nine month period. A Freedom of Information request submitted to Liverpool council revealed that sickness among staff in social services amounted to 28,727 days off between January and September 2009.

One employer which takes first prize rewarding 100 per cent attendance is Merseyside Fire and Rescue, whose scheme has halved the sickness absence rate. Four years ago the service introduced an ‘absentee incentive scheme’. Occupational health manager Paul Blanchard-Flett pointed out that in 2003-2004, each employee was taking an average of 11.36 days off per year. By 2008-2009, this figure had plummeted to 5.5.

The North West region is too counting the cost of the post-credit crunch environment as all organisations and branches of government will have to trim resources and staff. Liverpool council is to axe 1,000 jobs over the next three years. Trades unions have warned staff the local authority is looking to shed a tenth of its 10,000 workforce.

A leading figure in business has slammed fizzy drink giant Coca-Cola for the labelling on one of its water products. Lord Digby Jones, who used to be the head of the CBI, said: "The last thing in the world we need is the younger generation thinking they don’t have to work."

Time and Attendance North West offers a reliable business solution for monitoring your employees’ clocking data. Accurately log and record information detailing fixed hours, shifts, flexi-time, overtime, holidays and sickness, job costing, and fire roll call. We offer a range of the highest quality biometric and smartcard readers, ensuring the identity of an employee. Thin enough to fit in a wallet, the smartcard is easily read giving controlled and efficient access around your business.

How difficult do you find it to manage your employees time and remove payroll errors and mistakes?

Running your business can be a difficult and complex operation. Keeping track of your staff, as your most valuable resource, through time and attendance systems can help by removing errors in time keeping, ensuring safety and providing optimal working conditions to maximise productivity.

From the employee’s point of view, an electronic clocking in procedure will actually make their jobs easier since they no longer have to manually keep track of their hours and attendance.