The Best Way to Track Employee Attendance

Did you know employees, on average, steal around 4 to 6 hours a week from their employers?

Whether you’re monitoring employees who are coming in and out of your office, are working remotely, or travel around for work, it’s vital you’re taking the time to track their attendance. The workplace has changed alongside with how employee attendance and hours worked are tracked.

Think of this way, imagine someone supposedly coming into work for eight hours, but they’re only coming in for two. This is going to cost your business so much money for nothing, which is why it is so vital to set up some kind of tracking system. The bigger your business and the more employees you have, the more this way of working is essential.

Using an employee time clock software is the best way to do this since you’re able to accurately monitor and track the times people are working, all in a modern and computerized way. However, it’s important you make sure you are getting yourself an accurate time clock system that can keep up with the complexities of modern times. 

As easy as it would be, the traditional card punching station just doesn’t do the job you need it to do. Let’s take a look at some of the key features a modern and fully capable employee time clock would have to offer.

Comprehensive Employee Scheduling and Time Management

Using a modern time clock system, you allow employees to easily clock in and out of work using authorized devices, whether that’s a tablet, computer you have set up at reception or even using an app on their own smartphones. There are plenty of ways you can authorize the logins to properly track employee attendance. 

Back in the day, someone who was late for work could simply message a co-worker and get them to sign in on their behalf, making it seem like they’ve been in the entire time. This is known as ‘buddy punching’ and accounts for around 74% of all payroll expense losses. That’s huge. 

With modern solutions, you can use authenticators, such as fingerprint scanning and other biometric confirmations, mobile app sign-ins, and Group clock-ins.

Of course, it’s up to you, the employer, to choose exactly how you want your employees to clock in and out. Every business is different, and what works for one business might not work for you, so it’s about figuring out the best solution for your business. What matters is that you have a solution that provides you with all the tools you need to get it right and accurate.

Since everything is managed digitally, you can easily set up timetables and employee work schedules that both you and your employees can easily check and refer to at any time. This makes it incredibly difficult to miss when everyone is supposed to be working and what everyone is working on.

When you are time managing things like split-shifts, you’re restricting the number of people in a workplace due to social distancing measures, but being able to see a schedule so easily is a welcomed feature.

Accurate GPS Location Tracking

Now, you’re probably wondering that sure, employees can clock in using their phones if the time clock account is set up this way, so you know it’s them clocking in when they get to work, but surely, they could just clock in while they are sitting on the sofa? Sounds even easier to cheat the system, right?

Well, not entirely. Modern employee time clock solutions offer GPS tracking features that allow you to see the location of your employee while they check-in. So, if they check in from anywhere but your office or workplace, you will see exactly where they were when they punched in.

Not only does this help when people are clocking into your physical workplaces, but it also opens the door for remote working. Someone who is remote working at home can check in from home, and you’ll be able to see proof of this based on their attendance data.

To make sure someone signs in and doesn’t just leave straight away, employee time clocks will also offer geofencing features. This is a feature where you take a map of an area, let’s say a bird’s eye view of your office and workplace, and draw a virtual circle around your workplace. When someone crosses that line, aka leaves the premise, the app will detect this and will not allow them to clock out since they are not inside that geofenced area.

“Many solutions will also offer live GPS tracking, which is perfect if you are working with delivery drivers and those who travel for work, and you’ll be able to see an overall punch map, which shows every single location someone has signed in or out of your time clock system,” explains Nick Denning.

Manage Accurate Time Card Data

With all these tracking features available, it should be no surprise that the time card data you receive in the system's back-end is unmatched. You will have the literal clock-in times down to the minute, and you can edit the time cards to adjust an employee’s attendance if he or she forgot to punch the clock. So, if someone clocked in from the freeway a few miles away, but their location data displays they didn’t actually come into work until an hour later, you can easily see this and make the appropriate adjustments to their attendance sheet.

If set up, each individual employee time card will show PTO; any overtime people have down, how much holiday and sick time they have had, how much time they’ve had off for personal reasons, and of course, how many core hours they have worked.

Seamless Integration with Payroll Software

And finally, perhaps the best feature that brings it all together. Since a modern time clock solution will integrate perfectly into most accounting and payroll software applications, all your time card data can be instantly transferred into your payment solution and managed as accurately as possible.

More than 50% of U.S. workers have had a mistake with their paycheck and a time and attendance tracking software avoids this problem. 

This means you can guarantee that your staff is being paid for the exact number of hours they’ve worked, and there’s such a minimal risk of human error fudging the figures. All of this means you will get to see your exact spending on hours with the click of a button. Are you spending too much? Just adjust your employee schedule to suit. This is the joys you will have from using seamlessly integrated software.

Of course, all kinds of exports are supported, including timesheets exported to formats like CSV, Excel, PDF and direct API integrations with a variety of payroll providers, like QuickBooks, Gusto, and the sorts.

Never Lose Your Time and Attendance Data

In line with modern times, it’s important to note that all the data you take from your employees and your scheduling practices are stored on the cloud. This means you can access the data securely from anywhere in the world at any time, and there’s no central location where it’s stored.

This means if a computer crashes or an internal system you’re using breaks, you may have completely lost all your data. When you use this method, and your data is in the cloud, you simply never need to worry.

Tracking Employee Attendance Conclusion

As you can see, employee timekeeping and attendance tracking has come a long way over the last few years, and the solutions available have really kept up with modern times. As a modern business managing many employees, especially during a year like 2020, there’s never been a more important time to get onboard.