Posted on 04-Aug-09 by The Timekeeper

Part One

Ya know, it occurs to me that I spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of having a good time and attendance tracking system in place, but maybe I don’t spend enough time talking about what makes for a good time and attendance system in the first place. I’m going to attempt to rectify that situation, starting right now…

You’ve got a number of choices for tracking time and attendance. You can:

1. Have people fill out a timesheet.
2. Use traditional punch clocks and time cards.
3. Install a software-based timekeeping or workforce management system.

Or, of course, you could simply guess at what hours people are working. This is, unfortunately, a method chosen by a distressing number of small businesses. They usually come to regret their choice when federal or state wage and hour investigators show up at their door, or when they get served with notice of a wage and hour lawsuit filed by a disgruntled employee (or ex-employee).

I really don’t want that to happen to you!

Can we all agree it’s better to accurately track employee time — at least for hourly and salaried non-exempt workers — rather than guessing and estimating? If you can’t see the benefits of that, I suggest you go back and read some of my horror stories of what happens when employers don’t correctly track and compensate employees for their time. If you still need convincing after that, though, I’m afraid you’re beyond my help…

Manual Timesheets — Better Than Nothing

Where a lot of businesses start (and, sadly, end) their timekeeping efforts is with manual timesheets. These can range from handwritten slips of paper to computer spreadsheets. Some versions ask employees to record all their start and stop times, while others simply ask for the total hours worked per day. What they have in common is that (generally) the employees themselves are responsible for recording their time.

While timesheets are better than nothing, they do present some problems:

• Timesheets are notoriously inaccurate, as they rely on employees reporting their own worked time. While most employees are honest and don’t intend to fudge on their time reports, it’s too easy to simply record a standard workday even when you came in a few minutes late, left a few minutes early or took an extra few minutes at lunch. And they leave the way wide open for abuse by the few “bad apples” out there.
• Timesheets can be difficult to decipher, especially when they’re hand-written. This can lead to wasted time as your payroll staff try to decipher illegible handwriting (or track down the employee to get their “translation” of what’s on the sheet).
• Timesheets require manual processing for payroll. Your payroll staff have to add up the hours worked and key the information by hand into the payroll system. This takes time and introduces a greater potential for human error to the process.

But They’re Not All Bad

Of course, as I mentioned above, timesheets are better than nothing. Some companies report a reduction in so-called “time theft” when they implement a timekeeping system (even simple timesheets) probably because employees become aware somebody might be paying attention to the times they arrive and depart. Timesheets are also a relatively easy and inexpensive timekeeping system to implement.

And for some businesses, a timesheet may be all they need. For instance, time slips can work well when your staff is made up of salaried exempt employees (for whom you don’t need to track hours, as they aren’t eligible for overtime pay) so you only need to track basic attendance versus time off days.

But for most businesses that have overtime-eligible employees, honestly, there are better, more efficient and effective ways of tracking employee time.

So in Part Two, let’s take a closer look at the next step in timekeeping: the traditional punch clock.

Related Posts

• The Venerable (and Still Viable) Punch Clock
• It Only Works If You Use It
• Too Small for Time and Attendance?
• How to Take a Punch

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