How important are happy employees to a business? Recent surveys suggest that highly engaged teams are 29 percent more profitable, have 41 percent less absenteeism, and record 59 percent less turnover than those that are disengaged.
The most effective and affordable way for small businesses to promote communication with their workers is by using small business employee management software that has been customized with the features the business needs. A key to supporting retail employees is by integrating employee management with the business’s POS system.
So what does small business employee management software need in order to help your business succeed?
The Top 7 Features Your Small Business Employee Management Software Should Offer
The seven features of small business employee management software that are most likely to benefit retailers include:
- Employment Application Tracking, Hiring, and Onboarding
- Time and Attendance Tracking
- Flexible Employee Scheduling
- Benefits Management and Administration
- Payroll and Compensation Management
- Employee Performance Metrics (Reporting and Analytics)
- Mobility and 24/7 Access
Let’s take a closer look at what each of these features entails—and what benefits they provide.
#1. Employment Application Tracking, Hiring, and New-Employee Onboarding
Employee self-service, applicant tracking and onboarding, and social recruiting are all key features of human resource software. Among HR strategic functions are hiring, developing, and retaining top employees. However, the front end of hiring and training also involves workforce planning, regulatory compliance, payroll, and other accounting matters.
An important component of employee training for retailers is teaching good customer service practices.
- Employees should be passionate about the store’s products, which starts by being knowledgeable about them.
- Workers need to focus on one customer at a time and engage the customer from the initial greeting to completion of the sale.
- Employers should create a portable customer-service “cheat sheet” that new employees can keep with them. It may include a service checklist or information about products and policies.
Retailers also benefit from a POS system that can integrate all of the features that new employees will need to utilize in order to complete the tasks they’re responsible for.
#2. Time and Attendance Tracking
Today’s time-tracking systems are able to associate employees’ time with the specific projects, contracts, and invoices they’re working on. The systems connect to accounting software and shift-scheduling applications. They are able to track the intervals that workers spent on tasks rather than just the total amount of time they spent on them.
For many retailers, their POS systems provide all the time and attendance tracking features they need. The staff and appointment scheduling components can be adjusted by managers and staff, and many aspects of timesheet management are automated so the data can be used to generate reports on employee sales performance, just as one example.
#3. Flexible Employee Scheduling
A POS system with integrated employee scheduling makes it easier for workers and managers to access information about the hours employees have worked and the shifts they’re scheduled for.
- Schedules can be viewed on a mobile app or in a browser.
- Shift schedules can be generated and shifts assigned to workers automatically.
- Employee requests for time off and manager approvals of the requests can be completed from within the program.
- Managers are alerted automatically when employees are approaching overtime or nearing some other work-hour metric.
- Labor reports can be generated quickly and simply to show each employee’s hours worked, wages, schedules, and other information.
- A dashboard view lets managers see at a glance which employees are currently clocked in.
Quality POS systems can improve the accuracy of schedules and reduce the time required to update and adjust schedules.
#4. Benefits Management and Administration
One of the best ways to retain employees is by offering them a solid benefits package. However, keeping workers updated on the status of their benefits can be challenging for a small business. Modern POS systems provide the data management features and customized reports that clearly communicate each employee’s health insurance eligibility, pay rates, and the other benefits they qualify for based on their roles.
An advanced POS system lets employees:
- View their accrued vacation and past digital pay stubs
- Make changes to their direct deposit and retirement accounts
- Apply for and enroll in health benefits
- Track their progress toward goal-based benefits, such as sales quotas and order-accuracy levels.
Employees can also use the system to see how close they are to achieving personal goals, including qualifying for promotions and pay raises.
#5. Payroll and Compensation Management
The payroll management features of small business employee management software leverage cloud technology to deliver high-end payroll functions at an affordable price. The systems ensure that the company complies with all state and federal tax regulations, and they make it easy to calculate, file, and pay local, state, and federal taxes, including Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, and disability insurance.
Today’s POS systems automatically calculate employee wages and preparation of paychecks based on each worker’s pay rate and hours worked in the pay period. They support direct deposit of paychecks, various payment types and frequencies, bonuses, withholding, and garnishments.
#6. Employee Performance Metrics (Reporting and Analytics)
Few things motivate employees better than working toward and achieving performance goals. A POS system with integrated labor-management features combines sales, transaction, and other data with employee tracking to generate reports that compare the productivity and efficiency of various staff members. This allows companies to compare labor costs and sales at different times of the day and days of the week, for example. It also indicates the revenue generated by employees for each transaction they complete.
#7. Mobility and 24/7 Access
More than most other businesses, retailers know that they must adapt to fast-changing market and industry conditions or be left behind. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic tilted the world off its axis, consumers were driving the shift to mobile, 24/7/365 access to their favorite retail stores. Employees now require the same always-available access to their work schedules, benefits and payroll information, and other work-related resources.
By supporting remote access to this and other employee information, small businesses are able to increase workers’ productivity and reduce their stress levels. This allows staff to focus on the most important aspect of their jobs: meeting the needs of customers.
Streamlining Employee Management for Your Small Business
There’s no better way to bring smiles to an employee’s face than to eliminate the drudgery from their workdays. By automating many employee-management tasks, modern POS systems allow workers to spend more time working toward their personal goals and connecting with customers. And, as any good business owner knows, smiling employees (and top-quality service) make for satisfied, returning customers who will be happy to continue supporting your business’s stability and growth for years to come.
When you partner with talech for your retail technology needs, we devote our time to identifying your unique business challenges and providing an equally unique POS solution tailored perfectly to match your goals. Reach out to us today to sign up for a demo and to learn more about how we can help you manage your employees—and your business—more effectively than ever before.
