Tracking Employee Time And Attendance Can Be Challenging

By Author: mytimeforce
Total Articles: 18
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Whenever I do a presentation about tracking employees and the hours they work, I always start things off with a slide of the classic Flintstones opening sequence, with Fred Flintstone punching out of his job at the quarry. The mechanical punch card time clock is what many people still think of when it comes to ensuring attendance and tracking hours, but the reality is that such a system is virtually stone-age technology and not at all suited to most businesses these days.

In the past decade, I've increasingly dealt with situations where the company I work for has employees who work from home, travel or are even based at satellite locations in other countries. For a long time, this new reality was a source of frustration for the HR department and a point of irritation for senior management. How can we tell how many hours Bill is actually working when he's based out of a home office? managers would complain. Outside of tracking attendance, other tasks like scheduling vacations becomes more complex as companies expand and have to deal with what was once considered a nontraditional workforce. Fortunately, the same technology ...
... that made multinational operations and telecommuting possible can also be a lifesaver when it comes to tracking all of this information. Advanced software packages have been developed specifically to automate or simplify the complex task of measuring employee data like time and attendance, making it easier for managers to manage their employees, plan schedules and report on HR-related metrics. In my experience, companies quickly learn that implementing one of these systems will often pay for itself in short order.

So what about the old standby, the mechanical time clock? Does anyone still use these things? Well, as a matter of fact, these devices do still have a place in the workplace, particularly in the manufacturing sector where large numbers of employees need to be tracked. They don't quite look the same -or work the same- as those old mechanical versions, but the new models essentially do the same thing. Only now, instead of paper (or stone) punch cards, a modern time clock is integrated with employee attendance software packages and is capable of supporting advanced features like portability (for remote job sites), swipe cards, or even biometric sensing (to prevent employees from punching in for each other). Fred Flintstone would be impressed.

About The Author:

Iris Lawson is accredited Human Resources professional and HR Director with a multinational corporation. Tracking staff time and attendance is one of her key responsibilities and something that became increasingly challenging as the workplace changed to include offsite employees and staff telecommuting from their homes. Even in the manufacturing division, as costs were cut and the importance of accurate data emphasized, it became apparent that traditional time clocks were out of date and insufficient. Iris teaches HR-related courses and has written several articles on the subject of tracking employees in the modern work environment.