Founded over fifty years ago and since led by three generations of the Bender family, Blake Real Estate and Affiliated Companies is a first class organization, playing an integral part in the Washington DC area real estate community. With its strong presence in the office building development and management sectors, Blake’s “can do” attitude gets results for its clients through its full-service operation. They have in-depth knowledge and experience in commercial leasing, construction, development, property management and consulting. The Greater Washington DC area’s real estate market is complex and requires innovative thinking. As such, Blake considers its greatest asset to be its staff of experienced and creative real estate professionals. In order to allow them to better manage their number one asset, Blake chose the NE Time Systems solution (powered by NOVAtime).

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Prior to Blake’s partnership with NE Time Systems, Bill Clark, Director of Operations, explains that their paper based time and attendance methods involved many hours of manual effort to properly record and allocate time and cost. Now that Blake has implemented the NOVAtime solution, they have cut their total processing time by seventy percent, from approximately 100 hours per pay period down to 30 hours. Mr Clark explains that “every level of the process has been shortened and simplified.”

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Previously, editing and approving timecards involved physically moving paper between teams of people at nine separate locations for over 260 employees working thirty different job types on twenty different shifts. There was a constant risk for information to be lost and for the process to be delayed. Now, each punch is verified biometrically, is pushed to the appropriate employee’s timesheet, and is calculated automatically based upon the rules assigned to the employee.

 

This live timesheet data is immediately available to managers. Tardy and absence exceptions naturally draw their attention to timesheets that need to be reviewed. When the pay period ends, the manager approves their finalized timesheets. This is immediately visible to the payroll administrator who monitors a single overview page. Once this page reflects that all timesheets are approved, the payroll administrator performs the final review, and processes payroll.  According to Mr. Clark, this process now takes only 10-30 minutes.

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Leaving behind a paper-based system often involves a change in culture. Mr. Clark explains that at first “fifty percent of managers were resistant to the new system;” however, “once it was implemented and they processed a few payrolls, they loved it.” Managers now see the system as a valuable tool that saves them time while ensuring accuracy. Similarly, some employees were initially intimidated by using the biometric clocks. “Some took to it like fish to water,” but everyone got acclimated over the following weeks.

 

Since Blake previously had no easy way to access archived data, Mr. Clark appreciates “the ability to have verifiable history at your fingertips.” For instance, while preparing for an employee evaluation, they can quickly review a summary page to assess tardiness year-to-date or during a particular evaluation period. This live information is accessible without needing to run a report.

 

Regarding Blake’s partnership with NE Time Systems, Mr. Clark appreciates their ideas and flexibility, indicating that they are “so easy to work with” and are a “great partner.” Likewise, NE Time Systems is honored to have the opportunity to serve this top notch employer, increasing their capacity to serve their clients and their team.