Jim Courtwood
Author of the Time & Attendance Consultant's Guide Series
A quality time and attendance system will almost certainly benefit your company.
This 10-part series, extracted from the Time & Attendance Consultant's Introductory Guide, will cover all aspects of selecting an appropriate time clock and getting the best from your purchase. These are the reasons why you may be considering buying a time clock:-
i) Statutory requirements. Almost without exception, your company will be required by law to keep records of the attendance times of the employees. Aside from the requirement to keep wage records for employees, it may be an occupational health and safety requirement to keep daily records of employee attendance for procedures such as fire evacuation. Local regulations may impose very harsh penalties for employers who do not have a system in place for identifying which employees (and visitors) are on their premises.
ii) Manual time sheets are being falsified. Employees may arrive for work late and depart early, but they still complete the time sheets with the nominal start and finish times. This is often referred to as “Time Theft”. Time theft can also occur by employee “Buddy Punching” for their co-workers who may be late on the day or leave earlier than their nominal finish time. This can be a significant cost to employers, either by a direct loss in productivity or overpayment of wages and salaries.
iii) Manual timesheets are labour intensive to complete or process. Timesheets take time to complete and time to process. Moving to an electronic time clock dramatically reduces the time required for an employee to complete the timesheet and, depending on the system used, can dramatically reduce the payroll preparation time.
iv) Modernising your business. Many companies prefer to use more modern processes within their business and enjoy the benefit of system improvement.
v) Environmental or Resource issues. Electronic alternatives to manual time sheets use considerably fewer resources. Your company may have an environmental policy that includes a waste reduction strategy.
vi) Image. Your company may want to present a more professional image to visitors, clients or employees, and the use of modern office equipment and information technologies are part of this image. These are all valid reasons to employ a more efficient method of recording employee times.
If you believe that your business could benefit from exercising some control in these areas. In that case, you will almost certainly benefit from the purchase of a time clock or a time and attendance system, particularly if you use this guide to manage the purchase and implementation process.
You can subscribe to the Time & Attendance Consultant's Guide and receive the complete guide at no cost in an easility digestable weekly email.
Jim Courtwood
Time & Attendance Consultant
jimc@timeandattendance.com.au
1300 553 254
0437 772 977