What Is Attendance Management?

Always trying to keep track of, how long staff work, whether staff works on time and a lot more?

Do you want to know everything about your employees, from how long they work each day to whether or not they’re on time?

You are not the only one!

This will not only help you manage your employees more effectively and efficiently, but it will also give you peace of mind that everything is working well. You’ll be able to observe exactly what’s going on and make informed decisions appropriately, ensuring that everyone in your organisation is doing their job to the best of their ability.

Employee attendance management is the task of monitoring and recording employees’ time and attendance by tracking the number of hours and working days.

HR departments check attendance data such as staff attendance, punctuality, and shift schedules. Time and attendance can be traced back to the industrial age when factory employees were paid based on the number of hours worked. It’s all about production and efficiency. As a result, human resources must regularly monitor attendance discipline.

Why do you need Attendance Management?

Organisations have seen everything from workplace laziness to working long hours to increase earnings. And a lot more! To make sure everything is tracked and recorded efficiently, HRs need to set up a proper attendance management process.

Blurb: Employee attendance directly impacts productivity. And measuring and tracking productivity helps companies to build a competitive edge.

Today’s organisation’s have multiple work models and diverse employee expectations:

• Flexible work models: People follow hybrid working, remote working, gig working, contract working, global working etc.
• Diverse and distributed workforce: Time and attendance data is distributed across time zones, geographies, office locations, etc.
• Absenteeism, time indiscipline, and inadequate time-accounting hamper work outcomes: The complexity of time and attendance management affects the organisation’s productivity and efficiency.

As a result, manual attendance management cannot do justice. Organisation’s need a one-stop software solution to manage employee attendance.

Blurb: Employee attendance management can directly impact the company’s profitability, reliability and reputation.

What is the importance of Attendance Management?

Attendance management helps streamline tracking productivity, automate payroll processes, manage tasks and workflow, and communicate with clients.

It helps with:

• Better workforce planning: Attendance data gives managers a good view of whether work is on track. They can delegate tasks better, and address workforce issues early on.

For example, a manufacturer may have a set shift and staff plan. The shift manager distributes employees based on their time and attendance records. The attendance management system will tell the shift manager if any employee does not arrive on time. Managers can delegate that task to others to keep the assembly line from being vacant.

The manager can later review the absent employee records. He knows whether the absence was genuine or disciplinary. As a result, he was able to take disciplinary action thanks to data-driven proof.

• Drive operational efficiency and productivity: Managers can improve the alignment of team outputs. They can ensure that staff is on track.
• Clear Performance Communication: Using T&E data, managers can have fruitful talks with employees about their performance. It makes KRAs and KPIs clear. When performance expectations are clear, employees tend to be more motivated.
• Statutory Adherence and Compliances: Organisations are governed by labour laws. These laws determine how many hours people should work basis their roles. With accurate T&E data, HR can track the time.
• Employee morale: T&E data can be used by managers to create activities to inspire employees.

For example, a sales contest may be launched. Employees that deliver extra sales value will be rewarded. Managers can track the GPS software installed in salespeople’s smartphones. They can find out who works where and for how long. It collects information from market trips, distributor sites, upcountry visits, on-the-road travel, and other sources.

This results in healthy competition. It inspires employees to give their best. Use data to help the deserving person win! The moral of the team might be affected by a single employee’s regular absence. As a result, a strong T&E policy and process are required.

• Teamwork and collaboration: Work is more interconnected, cross-functional, and cross-locational. This demands improved coordination, administration, and collaboration. One can track employee attendance as HR provides data-backed evidence in such cases.
• Cost control: Absences directly lead to increased overtime costs. Managers may need to call in replacements after regular working hours if one individual is not present. To compensate for production loss, they may even be required to work on holidays.

Employees may also commit time theft, by doing overtime so that they can earn more. Tracking and reporting attendance in real-time helps to solve such issues.

• Payroll: Attendance data is inputted into payroll calculations. The right data ensures the optimum delivery of pay practices. Hence, accurate T&E data helps avoid errors. It drives pay fairness and pay equity.
• Compliance Data-diligence: It helps in statutory compliance. Consider the following situation: you have a consultancy assignment. An employee is sent to the client’s location. The billing invoice does not match the employee inputs at the end of the month. The attendance management system can get data related to hours worked by consulting timesheets, leave rationalisation, and client-billing timestamps.

As a result, it is possible to easily match paid hours with the invoice. This data is communicated to the client. Because actual data was available, the confusion is cleared and the billing is cleared. The client relationship is enhanced, thanks to employee attendance data. Compliances are adhered to as well. T&E records can thus help build and retain trust.

• Security: Enable role-based access controls in the attendance management system. This will aid in secure functioning.

Blurb: A well-designed attendance management system measures, tracks, and reports employee time and attendance.

What is an Attendance management system?

An organisation’s platform or system which records the time employees work and the time they take off is known as an attendance management system.

It monitors attendance, time worked, breaks, paid time off taken, clock-ins and clock-outs, absenteeism, etc.

Types of Attendance Management Systems

It is important to select the right attendance management tools. Decide what’s best based on employee needs and business needs.

• Book-keeping and analogs: Employees used to record their time in and time out in a roster logbook or employee card. However, it is a manual method of keeping attendance records.
• Biometrics such as fingerprint, face and retina recognition: Biometric technology is fast and simple. Fingerprints have been used to track employee attendance in the office. Retina scanning and face recognition technologies can be used both online and offline. Web system log-ins can be used to track virtual work.
• Card swipe machines: Employees swipe magnetic cards or radio-frequency ID cards on a machine while clocking in and clocking out.
• Spreadsheets: Online timesheets are especially useful for clocking in time billed to clients.
• Website login: Employees log in to a website before starting work.
• Mobile tracking system: HR can track on-the-go employees easily and accurately through smartphone-linked mobile tracking.
• GPS: Geo-tagging is used on smartphones or GPS devices. It helps link employee locations with attendance records. Geo-tracking tracks remote-employee locations in real time. And geofencing creates a virtual fence around the employee.
• Calendar integration: Integrate an online calendar to track time utilisation.

Benefits of using an attendance management system

Employee absenteeism is a significant problem for most organisations.

The cost of absence goes beyond the cost of replacing the absent employee. An SHRM survey found that productivity loss ranged from 22.6% for scheduled absences to 36.6% for unscheduled absences in the United States.

An effective attendance management system can boost the productivity, efficiency, and profitability of a company. This requires it to be data-driven and business-centric.

Tips for choosing the right attendance management system

To design the attendance system, opt for a buy, build or a blended approach. Keep in mind the following factors:

1. Make data accurate and reliable: Do you lack reliable and accurate data? Data serves as the foundation for attendance management. Companies should invest in data capabilities and infrastructure to overcome such problems.
2. Build analytics and reporting capabilities: Train HRs and business managers to use the attendance system. Teach them how to use analytics to gain meaningful information. Build a data culture. It will help people to plan suitable interventions.
3. Automate elements: To reduce administrative work and costs, automate as much as you can. People can then focus on things that bring more value. Employee satisfaction may increase as a result of this.
4. Enable multi-platform access: Today’s employees have a lot of options for clocking in and out. Tablets, phones, and PCs are a few examples. Create a system that supports multiple platforms and devices.
5. Focus on UI and UX: Create a consumer-grade experience. Keep the user interface simple and intuitive. A seamless employee experience helps drive adoption.
6. Customize to the business: Do not plan a T&E system just because it is ‘trending’. First, understand what is best for the organization. Evaluate the nature of the business, employee demographics, geographies, working models, etc. Customize the design to suit these factors.
7. Build communication tools: One should be able to automatically send attendance reminders to employees and managers. Proactively convey attendance results to leadership. People will be able to take action instantly as a result of this.
8. Customer Support: Select a vendor who assures adequate customer support. Customer support must be available across all phases of the project. It will help address teething issues and ensure on-time completion.
9. Cost: Any new HR technology requires cost. ROI can make or breaks the project. Evaluate the value addition versus costs. This will ensure a sustainable solution.
10. Integration with HR systems: Employee attendance management involves many stakeholders such as leaders, managers, HR and employees. Attendance records go into other HR processes.

For example, ‘hours worked’ is used for payroll calculation. Productivity goes into performance management. Time off can help make learning and development plants. Make sure to integrate the T&E system with the HRIS. This will allows one view of employee data.  

Give employees access to a self-service module. Help them to access the records, manage their leaves, request regularizations, and understand disciplinary actions.

This shall empower people. It shall drive responsibility and ownership. And will ultimately embed discipline as a way of life.

Conclusion!

• In today’s result-only work environments, an attendance management system is not enough. Employees are free to come and leave as they like. They are fully responsible for the outcomes.
• Attendance management is more than just a technology and a procedure. A shift in thinking is important. Leaders and managers must accept and adapt to these new modes of operation. It entails cultural curation.
• HR must drive communication and conversations around attendance discipline. Draft a strong policy. Build employee support mechanisms. HR must continuously communicate the T&E impact to business stakeholders.

Keka HR can help to integrate productivity metrics into a comprehensive view. It will help HR align people’s outcomes with the business strategy.

This will drive the right employee behaviors. And will cultivate the desired organisational employee culture. The T&E system and process must be woven into the overall HR strategy. Only then can T&E add real business value.