We live in a tech-oriented world where almost everything we do is influenced by technology. The use of technology in employee management is nothing new and is ever-increasing as novel technological tools are introduced. Besides having regulations for limiting working hours, giving breaks between work, and awarding compensation for extra hours, team managers find it difficult to manage the time employees need to put in while at the workplace.
Employee management tools are the choice for most business owners as it makes the audit process much simpler. Read on as we share everything on employee attendance including the current technologies used to manage attendance. We’ll also talk about its effects on businesses and how tech has helped reshape these management systems to achieve fruitful outcomes.
Attendance and Tech
Maintaining a streamlined workflow and providing an efficient environment is necessary for the growth of a business. The reason for implementing these management systems is to keep a track of their time such as working hours, schedules, and the off-time taken due to personal reasons. Before technology provided us with business management systems, it was nearly impossible to collect individual employee data in detail.
In the past, businesses used attendance sheets to keep records of their employees. This made it difficult to ensure the employee’s compliance with their duties. Smart business owners emphasize readjusting their internal resources first to increase profitability before looking into other resources.
Software for employee management is reported to increase the work efficiency and productivity of a workplace tenfold. Businesses dealing with a lot of employees have unique requirements when it comes to managing attendance. Fortunately, this attendance management software can easily be tweaked according to the requirements. This software can either be installed on local servers or cloud servers.
Furthermore, the attendance management software solutions of today are far more than an attendance log. They provide valuable insights like making automated schedules and in-depth analytics of the employees’ productivity. Business owners use this information to figure out discrepancies in the workflow and take the necessary actions to achieve fruitful outcomes and make changes to Attendance Management Systems
Let’s dig in a bit deeper to figure out why there was a need to develop these attendance systems, and the changes made to resolve the issues.
Attendance Punching
One conventional way to mark employee attendance was by using punch cards. To mark attendance, you have to mark these punch cards by punching a hole in the card. This card punching system might work well for small businesses. In companies with a lot of employees, it becomes difficult to keep track. Attendance punching cards can be shared with anyone to help them with proxy attendance. The issue of proxy attendance became particularly problematic, especially in industries with a massive workforce.
To tackle this issue, biometric systems were introduced which required the employees to scan their thumb impressions on a scanner for verification and marking their attendance.
Human Error
It is easier to tamper with a manual attendance sheet. Employees can tamper with these manual attendance systems to increase the total hours they have worked. Manipulating attendance records can let employees get more salary, but it affects the business in terms of lost financial resources. To resolve this issue, technologies like biometric verification were introduced.
With a biometric verification system in place, issues like these can be quickly resolved, leading to better employee attendance and saving the financial resources of the business. Recently, technologies like facial recognition have also been introduced to further verify employee attendance and make things easier. There are several other technologies including the ones mentioned above that we will be discussing later on.
Processing Time
Imagine a queue of hundreds of workers waiting for their turn to punch their attendance cards or fill out the attendance sheet manually. Big businesses and industries need a faster solution, which is made possible through technology. As mentioned earlier, biometric systems, facial recognition, RFID, and many more technologies are utilized to save time and resources.
We have now explored the reasons why there was a need for attendance management systems. Let’s see how these technological tools can help in resolving attendance issues of employees
Employee Retention
Attendance management systems keep track of employee attendance, as well as their working hours, and offer insights that reveal their work performance. When an employee is absent from work, the system sends automated messages to inform employees and their team leaders of an absentee.
The software used is now sophisticated enough to provide employees the liberty to make their schedules or make changes to the already assigned schedule. Doing this allows workers to select the work hours they would most likely be comfortable working. Attendance software can recognize when an employee sends in a message advising of their intended absence from work. They recognize the message and send it to the manager for further processing.
Scheduling
Not every business has the same working hours for every employee. To keep track of these varying hours, attendance management software works wonders. For example, an organization supporting employment for people with disabilities provides its services 24 hours a day. It’s up to the employee to select the hours that are feasible for them and the system will schedule their work accordingly.
Attendance software often includes scheduling or you can utilize a stand-alone scheduling software. When an employee puts in their working hours, the system finds matches based on their preferences like date, time, location, etc so they can work according to their schedule. The system also recognizes any available shifts they could work on through email.
Late arrival to work or missing work hours is also logged in by the system and sent to the employer. Requesting shifts is easier through these attendance management systems as employees can send manual online requests for shifts or auto-schedule the work using the system, The auto-scheduled work can also be reviewed and changed by the employee, making it an amazing tool to add to the workplace.
Utilizing Mobile Connectivity
Sophisticated attendance software is on the rise. Using mobile connectivity, an employee can use their smartphone to process time-off requests. The request is immediately sent to the HR team, who can either approve the time-off or deny it. However, these systems come at an expensive price tag, which might be feasible for big companies but not for small businesses.
There are simpler and cost-effective options for attendance tracking software out there. So a little research can go a long way when choosing an attendance system. Industry-leading developers at TeamSense emphasize understanding your business requirements first when looking for management software with tools to address these requirements, and then making a decision to get the best results. Almost every attendance tracking system provider offers a demo to have a hands-on look. Consider requesting a demo to take a look at their user interface. See how you would operate the system, and make sure the employee part of the system is simple for employees to operate.
Increased Control and Compliance
Attendance management systems have made it a breeze for employers to better audit work hours and maintain a detailed log. This log can be reviewed by the employer or the HR team to find out whether there is any sick leave or off-time. According to the law, businesses are required to pay employees for their sick leave. However, there is a limited number of sick leave that is paid. Employees who take more sick time than they are entitled to can be picked up through attendance tracking systems and the extra leave is counted as unpaid sick leave.
These systems are great when it comes to compliance. As mentioned above, unpaid sick leaves will be recorded when employees have already used the number of days allocated to them. When paying salaries, the HR department can look at the number of unpaid sick leaves and deduct the money for the days they were absent, fulfilling legal compliance measures.
Improved Transparency
Attendance tracking systems improve transparency for both business owners and employees. The employee data generated through these systems lets business owners analyze trends, look at historical data, find discrepancies, and execute the necessary changes to achieve better results, Similarly, employees can take a look at their performance, attendance, and off-time so they can better manage the areas that need improvement.
Characteristics of Attendance Management System
Efficient attendance management systems have the following characteristics, making them an ideal tech tool to incorporate into the workplace.
Remote Work Monitoring
Businesses of today don’t limit their employees to brick-and-mortar offices. Instead, employees are often given the liberty to work from anywhere. Cloud-based attendance management software can be used to log the work hours of employees as long as they are connected to the cloud. Performance monitoring of employees can also be done through these cloud-based systems. Besides providing management services, cloud-based systems are also cost-effective and don’t require maintenance or installation of software to be used.
Online Attendance
Punch cards and manual attendance can be eliminated by implementing a web-based attendance tracking service. Several web-based attendance tracking services produce effective results.
Compliance With Policy
A reliable attendance management software ensures the operations comply with the policies. An attendance tracking system keeps track of overtime hours, assists in on-time payments, and guarantees vacations according to the set compliance policies. Everything is kept error-free and allows workplaces to improve their work processes to comply more with the policies.
Leave Requests
Requests for off-time and leave should be processed quickly. An efficient attendance management system can resolve the issue by allowing employees to send online requests which are logged by the system and redirected to the HR team to make a decision.
Integration
It is essential for attendance tracking software to integrate seamlessly with other technological tools. This allows for a better workflow and does not lead to discrepancies in business operations.
Technologies Used in Attendance Management
Attendance tracking and management systems have evolved from simple attendance logging software to sophisticated systems capable of improving productivity and workflow. Here are some technologies used in attendance tracking.
Barcodes and RFID
Workplace identity cards are printed with unique barcodes for each employee, allowing them access to the premises and to clock in for work. The barcode is placed in front of a scanner connected to the computer that reads the barcode and marks the employee’s attendance. RFID technology is quite similar to barcode technology in terms of the process.
Instead of having barcodes printed, RFID tech uses RFID chips. These chips can be embedded in workplace identity cards to do similar work. The RFID has a wide range so employees don’t need to put their RFID chips directly in front of the receiver. RFID technology decreases the time taken to log in for attendance significantly.
Fingerprint and Facial Recognition
Companies and businesses are increasingly using biometric technology to keep track of employees’ work hours and attendance. The thumb impressions of employees are already stored in the system. So by placing the thumb on a fingerprint scanner, the employee will get access to the work premises and be logged in for work.
Facial recognition is another biometric verification technology that is used as a way to mark attendance and working hours. You might need to first train the system by feeding images of your employees so the system can cross-match them later on. While using a single technology can be sufficient for some businesses, implementing multiple technologies may be a better decision for others.
For example, installing an RFID receiver and issuing RFID chips to factory workers will make the attendance process faster while saving time. A fingerprint scanner can be installed in the HR department where a comparatively lower number of employees log in for work.
For many businesses, keeping track of attendance and using time management strategies cannot be ignored. Attendance software has indeed decreased the time taken to manage attendance, improved the accuracy of the data entered, and provided real-time access to data while helping businesses comply with the rules and regulations set by the authorities. We hope you found the presented information useful so you can better manage attendance issues in your business.