The attendance management system is a key process in the HR department. Tracking the attendance of employees is crucial for the reliability and profitability of the company. To track employee work hours, companies use various methods ranging from traditional punch card systems, timesheets to a Biometric system. The main aim of this process is to keep track of employees’ work hours by daily recording their clock-in & clock-out time. Employees usually have to fill the timesheets after work hours or before leaving the office for that particular day. Manual filling of timesheets can lead to various issues like timesheet tampering, inaccuracy, and errors, etc. An automated attendance management system can make things easy and prevent such issues.
What is an attendance management system?
The attendance management system is a process of managing employee attendance by tracking their actual working hours, time off, breaks, login & logout time. The role of the attendance system is to keep track of the attendance of employees including breaks and leaves. There are many types of attendance management systems but not all provide equal results. For the smooth functioning of the HR process, you need to look for an effective attendance management system.
Key features of an attendance management system
1. Time clock feature to reduce human errors
To maintain accurate log-in and log-out details of employees, you need to look for clocking-in and clock-out features in your attendance management system. It is an essential element that allows you to keep a record of the productive working hours of the employee.
2. Cloud-based attendance monitoring facility for remote working employee
It is an essential feature for monitoring the attendance of employees who prefer remote working facilities. With a flexible
cloud-based time tracking feature, employers can easily track the working hours of remotely working employees from anywhere. They can also enable GPS tracking for location monitoring.
3. Integration with payroll processing
For paycheck generation, you need to first gather some details like employee attendance, leaves taken and overtime payment, etc. The employees who work extra hours or overtime usually receive extra pay. But, doing this task manually is difficult and time-consuming. To simplify the task, integration with payroll processing is needed. Employers can easily maintain an accurate record of employee salary, bonus, and other details needed for paycheck generation. The tracked time details of employees are recorded into the system that is used for the automatic generation of paychecks.
4. Feature for generating tailored reports
Having a feature for tailored reports generation and analytics can help employers in finding detailed insights on employee work hours, performance, shift patterns, and other details. Employers can find analytics and reports such as activity reports, financial reports, and time-off reports that help in improving productivity.
5. Feature for policy and regulatory compliance
Employees are entitled to overtime pay, bonus, time-offs, and even vacations. It allows employers to make sure that employees get enough breaks and vacations to alleviate the stress of work-life. It is a necessary feature for an organization as it can avoid problems like wage theft allegations.
Different ways to keep track of attendance
1. Manual
It is a traditional way of taking attendance. We have to manually enter the work hours of each employee into payroll. This method has been outdated with the introduction of automated solutions.
2. Attendance import
The attendance of the employees is noted down in an excel sheet that is imported in bulk to the payroll.
3. Timesheets
Companies provide web-based services for timesheets that are integrated into the attendance system. Employees can enter their working hours, mention their time off period, vacation, or compensation off and holidays, etc.
4. Timeclock
This is an employee self-service module that allows employees to track their time while working from home, or from a different location. We can track the employee’s work location using GPS and an additional option selfie.
5. Biometric
With the advancement in technology, we can track attendance with the touch of a finger using a biometric scanner. It is easy to make it convenient for employees, but it doesn’t scan the finger if any moisture or dirt is present on the fingers.
