The Benefits of an Electronic Attendance Management System
The 1960s changed the world in many ways, including a revolution in the practice of time management. In 1961, the late great Richard Matessich pioneered the computerised spreadsheet. This invention spelt the end of generations of physical attendance management. It made papers and punch cards obsolete, scheduling their doom in neat, digital boxes. Electronic Attendance Management Systems embody the prosperous descendants of Matessich’s innovation. They provide a variety of advantages over their organically flawed alternatives. Developments in the 60+ years of time and attendance system evolution revealed and expanded these benefits, streamlining businesses around the world.
Accuracy in Electronic Attendance Management Systems
Human judgement excels in subjective and analytical roles, such as forming relationships and deciding whether one system is better than another. However, the monotony of counting hours and calculating pay is a machine’s job, by any measure. With its call for repetition and accuracy, attendance management requires an electronic system to eliminate human error.
These errors aren’t always intentional. However, they often slip through the net. This happens more often when firms build their nets from stacks of paper and fading memories. Ultimately, people forget things, and they round hours up, and they bend the rules. Machines, however, don’t.
Error Cost and Time Cost
As we know, time is money. In a business setting, time corresponds to a specific amount of money, which electronic systems can accurately count. Errors in counting cost the company in the long-run, and they also cost time to fix the error itself. Electronic Attendance Management Systems keep payroll calculation swift and hassle-free.
Time Fraud
Punch cards and other physical time management systems also prove vulnerable to intentional tampering. ‘Time fraud’ or ‘buddy punching’ occurs when one employee or their accomplice manipulates their working hours for financial benefit. In creating an easily verifiable record of shifts and rotas, Electronic Attendance Management Systems deter this phenomenon, saving the company in wasted wages. Many electronic systems use biometric verification and remove time fraud altogether.
Simplicity in Electronic Attendance Management Systems
By digitising management systems, companies replace stationary with software. They replace wonky, scribbled calendars with the unbending black-and-white certainty of a spreadsheet. The immediate benefits alleviate figurative headaches and literal hand-cramps from working out workforce attendance. More than that, this electronic simplicity adds knock-on benefits down the line.
Cut Down Excess Checking-In
Electronic Attendance Management Systems build an accessible platform with rotas for all employees to see. This eliminates the need to check-in with managers about shifts and overtime, streamlining the business operations and sharpening each employee’s focus on the task at hand.
Compliance with Rules and Regulations
Larger companies, and smaller companies thinking big, employ disparate groups of people across regions and time zones. Even within one country, rules and regulations govern all aspect of an employee’s working behaviour.
As any employer knows, this includes holiday pay, maximum hours worked, gaps between shifts, and various types of paid leave. As companies grow, employing more people in more places, it becomes harder to keep track of these rules and how to follow them.
Electronic Attendance Management Systems guide companies to ensure that they are protecting their employees within the law. They also protect companies from sanctions and litigation by proving that everyone in the firm worked correctly.
Improving Employee Morale with Efficiency and Fairness
Electronic systems don’t make mistakes counting things up, and that’s not even the extent of their advantages. They also don’t show favouritism with rotas and holidays, and they don’t promise holidays and then forget them. These systems thereby uphold worker rights, while also benefitting employees with their efficiency and morale-boosting prowess. The European Court of Justice recently ruled that all firms must record their employee hours accurately to protect them, and Electronic Attendance Management Systems offer an effective means to do just that.
Technological Applications with Electronic Attendance Management Systems
In computerising attendance management, firms future-proof their operations and build a dynamic digital foundation for success.
Remote Working
As a cloud-based management solution, Electronic Attendance Management Systems become accessible from anywhere at any time. They expand a firm’s reach, providing employees with a dynamic work environment. As workers can check-in to work remotely, this improves a firm’s accessibility. Accessibility, in turn, fosters a flexible, productive company ethos. It can also strengthen health initiatives by supporting social distancing measures.
Cross-Platform Integration
Imagine if punch cards could verify employees, maintain security by keeping out intruders, and provide real-time information management. These properties, fantastical as they may seem, don’t capture the full scale of an Electronic Attendance Management System’s potential in an increasingly digitising workplace.
Modern systems integrate with security software, management analytics, and project forecasting. The resulting analytics become the currency of the information age, as firms streamline their workforces for their current and future goals.
Analytics and Project Management
Again, project forecasting provides firms with an invaluable tool in their arsenal. When faced with ambitious new tasks, Electronic Attendance Management Systems allow firms to arrive prepared. These systems allow firms specific insights beyond ‘this project will take a lot of time,’ or ‘we can afford this project.’
With an electronic system, firms can determine exactly who is available. They also know how much their hours will cost in a simple and reliable metric. The system also provides a firm with the knowledge that should a project struggle to meet its goals, the managers know who is responsible, and how to fix it.
Conclusions
Electronic Attendance Management Systems have come a long way since the first computerised spreadsheet in 1961. In a world where every employee has a computer in their pocket, such systems become more beneficial and essential. This radical shift in their purpose and potential also gestures to a broader point. As Electronic Attendance Managements systems have changed so much in a relatively short space of time, firms can only imagine how useful they will continue to become in the future. In conclusion, whether in 1961 or 2021, now is a great time to streamline a business with a time and attendance system.