Giving the best to the employer confirms that employees also want to watch their organization prosper. However, not all employees can be dedicated, punctual, and determined to help their organizations grow. Therefore, the employers also use the attendance management system to appreciate their employees according to their time and potential to generate maximum results. They use employee monitoring software in the 21st century for employees’ attendance.
- Previously, the companies used numerous techniques, manual tools, and general applications for recording attendance. It confirms that the attendance management system has always been essential for centuries. However, with the introduction of productivity monitoring software, monitoring attendance using an authentic and accurate attendance management system has become convenient.
- In the following lines, we discuss attendance management in detail with the benefits a company can get while using employee activity monitoring software.
What Is Attendance Management?
Attendance management is mainly used to calculate the working hours of all the employees. Companies use different types of solutions to monitor attendance. Mainly, the following techniques are used to manage attendance:
- Writing the time-in and time-out of all the employees on paper
- Recording working hours on spreadsheets
- Using punch cards to record attendance
- Incorporating time tracking solutions
- Using the best EMS software
Why do companies need attendance management?
- Companies are required to record the attendance of all employees to calculate payrolls accurately under the law. The governments make some specific regulations for timekeeping. However, companies can use many techniques, methods, or tools for attendance management according to their requirements. The best solution in this regard is employee monitoring software. The business experts and top managers consider this monitoring the best for calculating total billable hours. They think it is the best solution to manage attendance accurately and efficiently. It becomes more suitable for those companies where the employees are paid hourly.
- Here, it is necessary to mention that choosing whatever the solution is, calculating the wages must be authentic. It would help if you also were informed about the hours more than the working hours to calculate overtime. So, you can appreciate your employees according to their performance.
1. Best for salaried employees
Using productivity monitoring software is also popular in those organizations where salaried employees are more than the daily wagers. The reason is that the managers can calculate their working and idle hours simultaneously. With that, the companies can also examine all the employees’ performance and productivity. If someone is away from his seat, the best free EMS software also calculates it to help you identify the employees who spend time in unproductive tasks and useless activities. Monitoring computer activities becomes more important when your employees use the internet for completing office tasks. With employee activity monitoring software, you learn about your employees’ websites during office hours.
2. To note the arrival and departure time
Making your employees punctual is essential to boost their productivity. Therefore, having information on your employees’ arrival and departure time from the office is not an ignorable task. Mostly, the companies use an attendance control system to manage employees’ attendance. However, buying employee monitoring software works in numerous ways, as you can control many other things related to employees’ performance with attendance management.
3. To calculate on and off days
So, having productivity monitoring software allows you to calculate on and off days during the month, monitor all late-comings, and appraise them according to their attendance. Generally, the companies have their vacation and sick policies, which you can include in employee activity monitoring software that can keep calculating everything and provide you a detailed report to help you make necessary actions.
What challenges can you face while managing attendance?
Generally, HR needs to calculate numerous things on the cut-off date to generate payrolls of all the employees. During this process, they gather all the information related to the timings and leaves, compile them for every employee, and collate and verify this information from specially designed sheets. It is a humongous task for the HR department because there may be a chance of mistakes and errors. The employees gather in the HR office to resolve the errors when it happens. Therefore, having a faulty attendance management system only increases the trouble for HR.
- Overall, with a manual or low-grade attendance management system, the management can face the following challenges:
- The attendance registers are difficult and time-consuming to manage effectively. Punch cards are equally tricky because calculating each employee’s work hours after including overtime can be taxing.
- The chances of human errors rise while using attendance spreadsheets. Additionally, maintenance of these spreadsheets monthly or weekly needs a lot of time and effort.
- Some companies love installing biometrics. However, this system is expensive, and small companies cannot bear these costs with peace of time. The reason is that regular maintenance, suitable hardware, servers, internal wiring, and IP networks are required to manage this system.
- Another issue is that some companies use multiple attendance systems. We have observed that this issue is generated in those companies where employees work at different locations. The HR finds it chaotic if it is centrally located. If other branches use different attendance management systems and processes, it creates chaos at the end of every month for HR when payrolls are calculated.
Types of attendance management systems
Here are some types that companies use to manage attendance:
1. Paper-based attendance management
- It is quite a standard system that small companies use. Generally, they use a notebook with rows and columns, and every employee fills it when he comes in and leaves the office. Sometimes, the companies take prints of these sheets after preparing a format on Microsoft Word or Excel. At the end of the month or week, the managers calculate the total timings and payrolls accordingly.
- Maybe the chances that there will be no significant mistakes in these timesheets. However, employees may try to write wrong timings that can be difficult to identify. Sometimes, papers are damaged or lost. In this scenario, all your efforts to record attendance can be wasted.
2. Bundy Clock
Installing time-calculating devices is another option. These clock-in-clock-out machines are installed at the entrance, and employees punch their timings when they come and go. For these machines, companies need to invest some money. With that, maintenance and setup costs are also there.
3. Spreadsheet
It is just like paper-based attendance management. The only difference is that these sheets are available on computers managed by HR. The employees mention their time-in and time-out, and HR calculates their payrolls after calculating their total hours. To calculate these hours, HR uses different formulas available in Microsoft Excel.
4. Time Tracker
- Until now, we have discussed some basic time management systems with no delicacy involved. However, using an online attendance management system is a new norm that many companies have accepted. Generally, this time tracker is a part of the best free EMS software. However, you can use employee monitoring software when you need advanced features.
- Using these automated systems means that the attendance will be recorded automatically when the employee opens his computer and shuts it down at the end of the shift. For that, you need to install this software or web app on every computer. If you have remote workers or your employees use their laptops, you convince them to install them on their computers as well. Once your employees click to initiate the process, the system calculates billable hours. The management can prepare reports for a specific individual or an entire team according to this information.
Top features of an employee monitoring software to manage attendance
Technology has changed the business world quite rapidly while discussing the last ten years. This change has become more prominent during and after the pandemic, and it was the time when many companies were forced to allow their workers to work from home. Managing the employees’ attendance can be a hectic task when you have different types of employees. With cloud-based productivity monitoring software, you can address it conveniently. The reason is that these solutions have some significant features related to attendance management.
Let us discuss some of them now!
1. Time tracking with clock-in and clock-out
It should help the employees not to enter anything. It means that an employee activity monitoring software needs to calculate the timings when they open their computers automatically. An installed EMS software can work for you effectively if it is equipped with the best attendance management feature.
2. Reporting should be a part of productivity monitoring software.
Not only is time tracking necessary, but your system must generate reports for all individuals and an entire team. It means that this solution needs to facilitate the human resource department to calculate payrolls conveniently. These reports should follow a unique file format like a CSV file should be generated when asking for an account.
3. Recording of leaves and absences
All companies allow their employees to go on leave or become absent for a few days. However, an absence should be marked if someone has used his quota, and salary deduction is the apparent result. An employee monitoring software should have a feature that calculates total leaves and remaining or available absences. If someone has availed all these leaves, the system should calculate the payrolls after deducting these holidays.
4. Manual edits should be available.
Sometimes, the employees or managers make a mistake while recording data. The system needs to allow the managers to manually edit these mistakes or errors. However, only a few individuals at the managerial level should be allowed. The system also needs to generate alert messages for all stakeholders to keep them informed of what has happened.
5. Advanced analytics
If an employee continuously gives hours less or more than assigned hours, the system should generate alerts for the managers. In this way, they can point out that particular individual and ask them about its reasons. With these features, the managers can prevent overtime abuse and an extra amount you may pay in case of no information.
In conclusion
Many attendance management systems are available in the market that may be independent or a part of an employee monitoring software. However, you need to choose a program that perfectly suits you and your organization. However, if you have planned to use an automated time tracker, you do not need to go only for it. The best practice here is to buy productivity monitoring software. The reason is that you can also track employees’ productivity, overall performance, the status of a specific project, and company progress with attendance management.
Author Bio
Tina J. Wagner Phillips is a 31-year-old She enjoys monitor computer activity free, Accounting, working on payroll, and bookkeeping. She has a degree in accounting, politics, and economics, obsessed with films and tank tops.
