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Wolf Mobile's ECONZ
Timecard for Cell Phones Enables Compliance With Complex Labor Laws
June 28, 2007
ORANGE, Calif.,
June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- State and federal labor laws generally require accurate and tedious recordkeeping for all "non-exempt"
employees regarding a variety of work issues, including hours worked, mandated lunch periods and breaks taken by employees.
Employers can find it difficult, time-consuming and burdensome to comply with these laws and sometimes find themselves at
a disadvantage when responding to class action lawsuits and audits conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor and/or state
administrative law enforcement agencies. One Southern California company has addressed employer compliance needs by providing
a practical and accurate solution.
Wolf Mobile, formerly known as ECONZ Wireless, now offers its newly upgraded
ECONZ Timecard, a mobile phone application from which employees log time, attendance and job information via a mobile timesheet
directly from their wireless phones. With new location based services (LBS) capabilities, including Smart Fencing technology,
ECONZ Timecard also provides employers with legally mandated documentation that mobile employees are within or outside specific
locations when they log their work time and take lunches and break periods in accordance with the law.
The California
Supreme Court, in the case of Murphy v. Kenneth Cole, recently confirmed the existence of a three-year statute of limitations
regarding violations of California's wage-hour laws, making it important that employers with mobile work forces take steps
to ensure not only that the hours worked by their mobile employees are accurately recorded, but also that they can produce,
in any legal proceeding, actual records setting forth the hours worked by, and meal and rest periods taken by, such employees.
According to Santa Ana, Calif.-based Michael Procopio, a veteran attorney specializing in labor and employment
law, documenting rest and lunch periods, as well as actual hours worked by mobile employees, is a formidable challenge confronting
employers today.
Procopio states, "When it comes to recordkeeping, the burden is on employers to document
both the hours worked by their employees and the lunches or breaks taken by them."
Procopio adds that having
employees sign general waivers to release employers from paying for work done during meal or break times as well as during
overtime periods is not acceptable under the law.
"Employers throughout California -- and even those based
in other states who have employees performing work in the state -- are governed by California's wage-hour laws, which
are among the strictest in the country," says Procopio. He adds that both federal and state recordkeeping statutes have
required documentation of hours worked for many years, and these agencies have stepped up enforcement efforts.
Brent
Agar, Wolf Mobile CEO says, "With its time tracking and LBS capabilities, including Smart Fencing, our ECONZ Timecard
mobile phone solution makes it possible for employers of mobile workers to get into compliance or remain compliant and, therefore,
reduce or eliminate their liability."
Most employers have traditionally complied with legal requirements
using time clocks and sign-in/sign-out sheets. While these procedures have sufficed in situations where employees work at
fixed locations throughout the workday (for example, shop workers, assembly line workers or office workers where supervisors
monitored their whereabouts), they have failed in workplace settings involving mobile employees such as drivers, home healthcare
employees, service technicians, cable television installation workers, construction workers, etc.
Wolf Mobile's
ECONZ Timecard is a two-part Web-based software product that enables mobile professionals to log clock-in times, break times,
meal periods, job categories and clock-out times in addition to accessing past and present timesheet information, allowing
for automated time keeping and payroll transactions. ECONZ Timecard also helps administrators view the status and locations
of their mobile employees at any time for general supervision purposes, accurate budgeting and customer service issues.
ECONZ Timecard Smart Fencing technology makes it possible for workforce managers to set up location-based parameters
for work-related or break-related time periods. With the parameters in place, managers view and document in real time or after
the fact whether employees are where they need to be when clocking in and out.
Pricing and Availability
ECONZ Timecard is available as downloadable software now and is priced at $10.49 per field worker per month. It is conveniently
billed to the user's monthly wireless plan without contract requirements. For a FLASH demonstration of ECONZ Timecard,
go to http://timecard.econz.com/.
About Wolf Mobile
Wolf Mobile, formerly known as ECONZ Wireless,
owns exclusive worldwide rights to ECONZ Timecard and ECONZ Eservice. The company specializes in hosted wireless solutions
for the small-to-medium sized business (SMB) market including field service; dispatch/job management; and location based services
(LBS). Its wireless solutions connect mobile workers with their offices using simple Web interfaces and cell phone or Blackberry
based in-field applications. In this way Wolf Mobile applications are low-cost, accessible, simple to use and easy to set
up -- in short, ideal for the SMB market.
Source: Earthtimes.org
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