When I started my first job, I remember signing in my attendance in the office’s ‘Attendance’ register and then signing out when I left in the evenings. At best, it showed that organizations had to trust their employees to enter correct attendance details. But at its worst, attendance registers were the bane of organizational productivity. Since data was entered manually, unscrupulous employees could find a thousand ways to fool the system and at times you ended up paying ghost employees. Thus, effecting your overall Business.
However, as they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions. Attendance management software have come a long way –from filling registers to punching apps that do no leave any room for chicanery. The stumbling block, unfortunately, is the end-users; employees who are used to the traditional time and attendance management methods are reluctant to switch to upgraded technology and continue to use legacy Time and Attendance management systems.
If your legacy systems are bringing down business productivity and credibility of the HR system, it’s time to start exploring an automated Time and Attendance software solution. But before you start, please consider these four things in mind:
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“One size doesn’t’ fit all”
Different organizations have different set of needs based on the type of business and workforce. For industries like Quick Service Restaurant, banking or insurance, where most of the employees are on the field, a Cloud based attendance management software coupled with an app works perfectly. But if your workforce is based in a factory, then a biometric system or kiosk will work well since your employees will need to punch-in at a specific time.
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The “WOW” appeal !
Any attendance management software that empowers employees to manage their time and times off through self service and removes dependency on their manager or HR is the best solution. The software should be simple to use and implement and provide anytime anywhere access. Such a system which makes time management hassle-free can even convince the ‘sticky’ users to move away from legacy attendance systems.
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Unification is the key !
Workforce management requires multiple systems to work in tandem, so any system which operates in isolation is worthless. The Leave and Attendance management software that you opt for must specifically have the capability to get easily integrated with the existing systems, especially Payroll & Compensation processing , since payroll relies heavily on Attendance data.
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Right Data at Right Time
A good attendance management software gives you right-time reporting and data visibility. By having a unified reporting system, not only can you shave off significant time in the entire process, you can experience improvement in business productivity and enable better decision making.
Tracking employees’ time and time offs, is a complex and tedious task but is equally important. An integrated attendance management software should strive to take off the extra burden from HR’s and manager’s shoulders and at the same time, provide employees a superlative user experience. Unification is going to be a norm in the future workplaces, and leave and time attendance systems which help create an integrated workforce management experience would definitely have an edge.