If you're still having employees punch a time clock, you may find yourself being targeted by companies touting time and attendance software as the best thing since sliced bread. But if your system works, why change? Is time and attendance software a necessity in today's workforce? When thinking about converting to time and attendance software over older counterparts, consider these five reasons why software is a necessity in your workplace.
Accuracy
Keeping accurate time sheets is imperative to every business because it's one of the few places where you can't make a mistake. Pay for too few hours, and employees rightly complain. Pay for too many hours and you end up eating into your business capital. While time sheets and time clocks may work, they end up being riddled with errors because employees forget to punch in or out and managers forget unique employee situations that affected their attendance. Time and attendance software reduces the errors encountered with traditional methods by automating and simplifying how you record attendance.
Compliance
Labor laws are nothing to joke about. Violation can mean hefty fines and negative publicity but keeping up with the nuances of those laws can be tricky and keeping in compliance can be difficult. Time and attendance software can help ease the burden of keeping those laws in mind during scheduling where traditional timekeeping methods cannot. Software can alert managers when employees have worked too many overtime hours in a given week or when an employee isn't taking necessary breaks during their shifts. The significant benefit of labor law compliance can save businesses money and ensure employee protection.
Employee Satisfaction
One of the reasons businesses upgrade to time and attendance software has nothing to do with cost-savings or labor laws. Instead, it has to do with their employees. Time and attendance software makes it easy for employees to access their accrued time off, their schedule, and their hours. It ensures that employees have the information needed to make decisions such as when to take a vacation or whether they can leave early for an appointment. Time and attendance software empowers employees to take responsibility for their time and can help managers catch errors.
Flexibility
Attaining a work-life balance has long been a goal of employees and today's best workplaces are working with them to help achieve that goal. Whether it's flexible scheduling or telecommuting, time and attendance software can help managers ensure their employees are working the right hours without requiring constant monitoring. Software systems give managers the ability to set individualized schedules that ensure productivity while taking employee's personal preferences into account.
Fraud Prevention
While you hate to think of employees stealing from their company, a shocking amount do. In fact, up to five percent of payroll costs can come from buddy punching and time theft. A traditional punch card system makes it easy for employees to make sure a friend clocks in on time or gets clocked out at five despite leaving at three. Time and attendance systems make time theft harder to pull off with biometric time clocks or security numbers. The cost of time and attendance software can easily be offset by the savings found from eliminating time theft.
While spreadsheets and manual time clocks may get the job done, they aren't saving time or money. In fact, they may be contributing to lost profits, lost time and decreased morale in the workplace. Time and attendance software gives employees more flexibility and satisfaction while giving managers more information to effectively schedule their shifts.
