One morning, an employee walked in to work and signed the attendance sheet. This employee worked five hours that day, which was less than the daily target. The employee initially put 5 hours in the time-tracking sheet and then, after some thought, changed the 5 to a 6.

A few days later, the payroll team was going through the employee time sheets. They came across this specific sheet which had a record of 6 hours written with a bit of overwriting. The team was short on time and already exhausted, so they did not bother to cross-verify the details from the employee. They processed the employee’s payroll, including six hours for that day and was, therefore, erroneous. The employer lost money by paying for an extra hour that was not accounted for. 

Well, that’s just one of the ways that things might go wrong when you are using traditional methods of tracking time. In reality, paper-based processes of tracking time and attendance may hurt your business on many levels.

If you think the problem is with THAT employee who entered incorrect hours or THAT payroll team member who did not cross-verify, you’re not entirely correct. The problem, partly, is that their employer gave them a outdated system to work with.

If you still use paper to track time and attendance, it’s time to stop. Move away from manual time and attendance tracking to an automated attendance management system.

Do you need one good reason to invest in an attendance management system? We have outlined seven:

Capture accurate time and attendance data: Traditional methods of tracking time (pen-and-paper, punched cards or timesheets) are prone to human errors. Additionally, employees can intentionally misrepresent data and put incorrect numbers. The real problem starts when inaccurate data costs money to the employer.

A good attendance management system eliminates the risk of erroneous or compromised data; it tracks the correct numbers against work hours and productivity.

Increase employee flexibility: Historically, employees may have felt like they weren't trusted by their management and like a "big brother" system is there to keep an eye on them. However, modern day time and attendance systems are typically very well received by employees. Recording of accurate worked hours allow companies to often loosen their fixed working hour requirements. Employees can be asked to fulfill their contracted work hours as normal but the employee can do so when it suits them, within reason. This doesn't work in all work environments but is becoming more common in "white-collar" professional workplaces with salaried employees.

Make payroll effective: In a traditional setting, processing the payroll is an exhausting job. It requires going through all the bits and pieces of paper and doing manual calculations. The team also handles the complexity of tracking and adding extra hours and even overtime. Errors are bound to happen.  

An attendance management system gives the final numbers per employee that the payroll team can straightaway process. As a result, the payroll team enjoys a smooth month-end. They can now use the additional time at hand elsewhere.

Increase employee satisfaction: Jake is an efficient worker. He abides by the company laws and logs what he works and works what he logs. His colleague Alex, though, sometimes comes in late, takes a long lunch, and leaves early. Still, Alex logs in hours for the entire day. This demotivates Jake. This demotivation is likely to accumulate over a period and affect Jake’s performance.

Alternatively, an automated time tracking system will keep Jake motivated. He knows that his hard work will pay off when everyone is assessed similarly. 

Prevent lawsuits: Government legislation and industry awards mandate that workers be paid appropriately for the time they spend on the job. As a result, employers need accurate work hours data per employee that can be retrieved when required. If a legal situation arises, the employer should be able to reference the necessary records quickly.

A traditional, paper-based system does not let you find this accurate information. As a result, given the errors that might creep in because of manual tracking, a traditional system can result in fines and sanctions.

Prevent time theft and “buddy clocking”: Let’s face it. It might be unpleasant to talk about, but time theft is a real problem. Time theft includes anything and everything that leads to employees clocking more time than their actuals. A common type of time theft is “buddy clocking,” where an employee clocks time for a friend who is late to work.

Time theft causes significant damage to the business. A suiatble attendance management system prevents any type of time theft by tracking real-time data.

Finally, reduce costs and expenditure: Would you like to find out how much a traditional time and attendance system is costing your business?

Everything discussed thus far has a direct effect on saving costs. An attendance management system helps prevent costs that result from inaccurate time reporting, buddy punching, absenteeism, tardiness, and overpayment.

Did you know that every time a new employee joins an organisation that follows a paper-based approach, it leads to additional costs?

This cost does not exist in the new world. An attendance management system is scalable to include any number of new employees.

Conclusion

While time and attendance seems like a small part of the business, they can cause major issues when not appropriately tackled. 

Several organisations realise that the traditional ways of doing time and attendance don’t work. Many of these organisations are going for an automated attendance management system.

What’s keeping you from trying it out?

Using an attendance management system like ClockOn Time and Attendance will help track your employees’ time and contribute to a more productive, efficient and happy workforce.

Remember that business growth does not always come from venturing out into new territories and expanding on the outside. It also comes from making the internal systems strong and reliable. 

If you first need to see how an automated system might benefit you, how about booking a demo or starting for free?

There is never a bad time to adopt good practice.

About the Author: Aki Merced is the Content Manager at Handle.com, where they build software that helps contractors, subcontractors, and material suppliers with late payments through preliminary notice and lien filing automation. Handle.com also provides funding for construction businesses in the form of invoice factoring, material supply trade credit, and mechanics lien purchasing.