4 Tips for Tracking Employee Attendance Efficiently
Tracking your employees’ attendance is essential in any small business:
- It ensures you’re accurately paying your team for the time they worked.
- It allows you to recognize issues that could be harming productivity – like an employee who is regularly coming in late or someone who is working a lot of overtime.
Monitoring when your employees are at work and how many hours they’re working doesn’t have to be one more recordkeeping burden for you, though. Keep reading to learn four tips for tracking attendance efficiently.
1. Combine attendance tracking with payroll
If you require your employees to submit a spreadsheet or paper timesheet, you may be holding up the payroll process. You’ll have to go through each individual sheet, add up all the time they worked, and determine whether they used any paid time off (PTO). If you pay your workers hourly, you’ll also have to calculate their gross pay. And, if anyone turns in their timesheet late, you have to spend time tracking them down.
Instead, look for a payroll system that syncs with attendance tracking software. You’ll be able to quickly see how many hours each team member worked for the pay period or whether they often came in late or left early. You also won’t have to worry about tracking down timesheets or calculating overtime hours worked. If the program includes PTO tracking, you won’t have to figure out how much time off someone used manually.
Read also: Top 5 Advantages of Using Timesheet Software
2. Choose self-service
Empower your employees to take control of their attendance records by choosing a self-service tracking program. With self-service, your team will be able to review their time punches and request any changes to make sure everything is accurate.
They’ll also be able to ask for time off easily. Your staff members can check their remaining PTO balances anytime they like, instead of having to ask you or the HR manager. This feature is particularly useful if an employee is trying to plan a vacation or if they can’t come in because their child woke up sick.
Your employees might not be very excited about tracking their time and attendance. A self-service solution can help you get their buy-in faster because they’re in control of their information and requests.
Learn more about how self-service technology can benefit your small business.
3. Go mobile
If your employees work from home, out of multiple offices, or from client locations, choose an attendance tracking system that’s easy to take on the go. With a mobile app, your employees can clock in and out no matter where they’re working. Even if your employees don’t work from multiple locations, a mobile app can help them track their attendance more quickly. And you won’t have to worry about installing any equipment, like a wall-mounted time clock.
4. Limit access
Even if you trust your employees, you may want to ensure they’re only tracking their time from the office. This way, you know that no one tries to take advantage of you. In that case, choose a system that lets you limit time clock access. Generally, you have two options:
- restricting access by WiFi ensures your employees can only clock in and out only if their mobile device is connected to your company’s internet network
- limiting access by geolocation ensures that your employees can only clock in and out if they’re within a certain distance from your office
With Workful’s time tracking software, you can take advantage of all four tips in one easy-to-use system. Learn more about how Workful can you get back to growing your company
