Posted on 26-Apr-10 by The Timekeeper

I came across a headline recently that reminded me: employee scheduling is good, but it doesn’t replace good old-fashioned time and attendance tracking.

Let’s say, just for instance, that you scheduled Chris, an overtime-eligible employee, to work eight hours on Wednesday. Early that morning, you get a call: Chris is sick and won’t be in. As a result, Chris doesn’t get paid for that day.

I can hear a bunch of y’all from here. “Well, duh!” you say. “Of course I’m not paying Chris for not working.”

Commendable! Except that many of you do, every day.

Pay for Not Working

Okay, maybe you don’t pay people an entire day’s pay when they don’t show up at all. But a distressing number of business owners take what seems to be the easy way out for time and attendance tracking every day — and end up paying people for time they didn’t work.

Let me ‘splain.

At many companies, both part-time and full-time employees have standard work schedules. You’re supposed to be there from 8:00am until 5:00pm, or from 3:30pm until midnight, or from 12:30pm until 4:30pm, or whatever. So far, so good.

A problem arises, though, when the business simply assumes each employee arrives on time and departs on time unless the business is informed otherwise.

I can hear you again… “But we would never just assume that! We have our employees fill out timesheets!” Except that’s exactly the consequence of using hand-written timesheets — you assume people are working to their schedule unless either they tell you otherwise, or you catch them in the act. And if you don’t even have hand-written timesheets, you’re completely flying blind.

Seriously — how many hand-written timesheets have you seen where an employee actually records they arrived at (say) 8:03am, or departed at 4:53pm, versus how many you’ve seen where they claim they arrived promptly at 8:00 and stayed all the way until 5:00, each and every day? For those of you who don’t have timesheets, how often have employees let you know they arrived three minutes late, or that they took an extra five minutes for lunch that day?

I’m told the American Payroll Association estimates as much as 10 minutes per day per employee is “lost” due to late arrivals, long breaks and early departures. Over the course of a year that equates out to over a week per employee — time you’re paying for, but your employees aren’t working.

The issue can cut the other way, too. You may have some overtime-eligible employees who are staying over five, ten or 15 minutes extra every day to take care of last-minute issues and wrap up their work. These people are working unpaid overtime — which (even if they don’t mind and are doing so willingly out of a sense of company loyalty) can turn into a big issue for you in the event of a wage and hour audit.

Time and Attendance Matters

The solution, of course, is to have in place a robust, accurate time and attendance tracking solution. What’s best to use depends on your business environment and needs. A fancy computer-based time and attendance system with sleek biometric terminals might be just the thing for an office setting, but frankly most such systems wouldn’t last a month in a cement factory before the dust clogged up the sensitive electronics.

Fortunately, nowadays you have a choice. From heavy-duty traditional employee punch clocks — you know, the kind where you insert a timecard and the clock prints the time on the card — to the aforementioned computer-based systems with their snazzy badge or biometric terminals, there’s a time and attendance solution for just about everybody.

• Need a solution to stand up to harsh environmental conditions (cold, heat, grease, etc.)? a heavy-duty mechanical time clock can take almost anything you can dish out. Prefer a traditional punch clock and timecard solution, but need more versatility? There are all sorts of electronic clocks to choose from, including some that can double as document stamps and even some that will automatically total your employees’ time worked.
• Want to save some big money (and lots of time) on payroll processing? Get a software-based time and attendance system that automatically totals time and exports to your payroll processing software or service. Most of these systems offer options for badge or biometric terminals or other data collection methods, as well. For instance, if you’re concerned about buddy punching, you might want to consider a time and attendance solution with biometric terminals.
• Need maximum flexibility in your solution because you have remote workers, multiple locations or a seasonally-fluctuating workforce? Want the time and money savings of a software solution, but concerned you don’t have the IT resources to install and maintain one? A subscription to an on-demand web-based time and attendance service might be just what you need. Many of these also offer a variety of clock-in options, including web punch, badge and biometric terminals, telephony options and other alternatives.

The point is, there really are solutions that can work for you, no matter what your situation might be. There’s really almost no excuse for NOT having a time and attendance tracking solution in place.

Remember, your work schedule is just a plan. You want to pay people based on what they actually work. And the only way you’ll know their actual work time is if you track it.

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