Effective workforce management systems can help reduce the negative impact of shift work

The implementation of effective workforce management systems can help reduce some of the negative effects induced by shift work, which include significant damage to staff's ability to think and remember.

Staff doing regular shift work can suffer from a substantial decline in brain functions such as memory, speed of thought and wider cognitive ability, which could potentially have health and safety consequences, research carried out by scientists from Swansea University and Toulouse University has found.

The study tested brain functions of more than 3,200 employed and retired people in France and revealed that the brain power of people who had worked a shift pattern rotating between mornings, afternoons, and nights for more than 10 years had the same results as someone six and a half years older who had never worked shifts.

Dr Philip Tucker, professor of psychology at Swansea University, said: "The study shows the long term effects of shift work on the body clock are not only harmful to workers' physical health, but also affect their mental abilities. Such cognitive impairments may have consequences for the safety of shift workers and the society that they serve, as well as for shift workers' quality of life."

Efficient Time and Attendance and workforce management systems can help

Effectively managing employees that work on a rota or shift basis can prove to be a rather challenging task for many employers, and this is specifically where Tensor's WinTA.NET system can help them save a lot of time and money (including legal expenses for cases such as the one above).

Our complete smart card time and attendance and workforce management systems including European Working Time Regulations checking and reporting, ensuring that your company remains compliant with both regional and national legislation.

The system supports comprehensive user-definable Working Patterns, Rosters, and Shifts. By using a Tensor Smart Card and input device (keypad, barcode scanner etc), workers can book time against multi-tiered jobs to produce a fully costed analysis and breakdown of time spent on each job.

WinTA.NET can handle all frequently used methods of calculating employee hours, from simple determination of overtime by the number of daily hours worked, to the more complex payment of overtime hours adjusted when periodic targets are not met.

A number of basic rules control how hours are calculated. These include settings to separate "worked time" into:

— Different overtime rates.

— Handle night shift working.

— Inserting unpaid breaks when employees do not clock them.

Users can also insert breaks either between set times, and/or after a minimum number of hours have been worked. They can also easily set work patterns, which are a combination of daily rules that are either a repeating pattern of shifts or a list of alternative rules.

Here, WinTA.NET will predict the most appropriate shift depending on the time an employee clocks IN. Each type of pattern can be set up to override the normal pattern and use a specific shift on public holidays or shutdown days.

If you would like to find out more about the plethora of features and extensive functionality delivered by Tensor's top-range workforce management systems, just contact us or Book a Demo, we' wbe more than happy to answer all of your questions and queries.