What is a Time & Attendance System and Why Should You Upgrade?
Time & Attendance systems have replaced rudimentary clocking in/out boxes used by companies to track the working hours and shift patterns of their employees.
What does a modern time & attendance system do and why should every business have one? You’ll soon learn the benefits and how the right time & attendance system can make your business operations more efficient.
Time & attendance systems have changed a lot since the original clock in/out card machines. Although the core purpose of even the most modern and advanced systems remains, to empower businesses by helping them track and manage staff attendance. However, thanks to advances in technology and cloud-based software, systems can now offer other important functionalities that have made them vital business assets.
The uses that a time & attendance system can offer your business are going to be dependant on your specific needs. The good news is that with modern solutions, there are really no limits as to what can be achieved with the right system.
What is a time & attendance system?
We’ve established that time & attendance systems can still be used to record when employees start and finish a shift. We also know that modern solutions have a lot more to offer – we’ll get to that shortly. When we think about what a time & attendance system is made of, many of the same core components apply. You need:
- Means of recording activity, like a clocking in/out box or attendance register. Nowadays electronic readers enable employees to register their arrival and departure from work using a fob, card, or biometrics such as their fingerprint – nowadays time & attendance systems can even feature iris or facial recognition as completely touchless solutions.
- Means to compile and analyse the data. It’s time to say goodbye to old-fashioned punch-cards and the burden of populating heavy spreadsheets. Comprehensive software is at the heart of most modern time & attendance systems, making them far more efficient and accurate. This saves your HR, operations, and management teams a lot of the heavy lifting they may have just put up with in the past.
Why install a time & attendance system or upgrade your existing one?
The introduction of dedicated software has revolutionised tracking time and attendance, just like other important business functions have benefitted from smarter systems. The key has been their ability to process and automate data with minimal to zero friction, which means that modern time & attendance systems support more functions that may be used for different areas of your business. They can now help you calculate and manage:
- attendance hours
- overtime
- sick days/absences
- holidays
- remote workers
- and proof of compliance with working time regulations – a big factor in freight and logistics industries, for example.
One use case could be that you want to identify patterns in sickness and absenteeism in your business – this is a pretty common use considering an estimated 141.4 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in the UK in 2018, the equivalent to 4.4 days per worker. All that data can be automatically recorded and stored on a cloud-server (which is the safest place for it), and easily downloaded to be used by your teams to run reports and provide accurate evidence in the event of any dispute.
The beauty of software-centred systems is that that they are generally easier to use and update, which make modern time & attendance systems more adaptable to your needs. With that said, we know how daunting any new system or software can be to your staff. That’s why we’re always happy to offer hands-on training as part of our service with any new installation.
For more businesses that require more complex building management or security systems, modern time & attendance systems can even be combined with other security systems like access control to provide full coverage in one easy-to-manage solution – all thanks to smart technology and versatile software!
What’s stopping you from implementing the perfect time & attendance system?
We’ve worked with businesses of all shapes and sizes to provide solutions for time and attendance that are;
- Safe
- Reliable
- Accurate
- Easy to use
However, we’ve also learned from experience that there are some common concerns our customers shared when they were thinking of implementing a new time & attendance system, which we’ll do our best to answer here.
Cost
A time & attendance system might be a necessary investment for your business, but we know that the best solutions should fit all your criteria including your budget. Thankfully, modern systems are available for businesses of all sizes and when you choose the right system, they’ll quickly pay for themselves. When weighing up the costs involved, consider how many hours your team currently spends on managing and monitoring these workflows – you may be surprised by how much you could save your business.
GDPR and Privacy
With the introduction of GDPR, how people’s personal data is stored and used can be a sensitive subject. Time & attendance is naturally going to be affected by this as they will be handling data just like any HR system you use. If you’re installing a time & attendance system in your business for the first time or upgrading to a new system, you may need to review your privacy policy for employees to include how their data is collected and used by these systems.
Rest assured; time & attendance are designed to be support data protection in your business.
Employee concerns
Aside from privacy of their data, you may worry your employees are concerned as to why you want to record and monitor their time and attendance, especially if you’re implementing a system for the first time. You obviously don’t want to give them the impression they are being closely watched or that you don’t trust them. Thankfully, that hasn’t been the case in our experience, and workforce acceptance of time & attendance systems is high.
