11 Dec 5 reasons to use biometric technology for employee time and attendance management
Time and attendance monitoring systems can save you and your business both time and money – but only when they are accurate and used properly. Some cumbersome systems such as clocking in and out, updating timesheets and manually registering are prone to a huge amount of human error. With these systems, you need to trust your employees to use them correctly and track their time accurately. They are also an ‘extra’ task for your staff to undertake alongside their usual workload – giving them something else to remember or, more often than not – forget, to do.
If you’re looking for a better way to track time and attendance in your workplace – whether that’s in an office, factory, construction site, hospital or care home, then harnessing biometric technologies is an excellent option to consider. In this blog, we run through five reasons why considering biometric technology for employee attendance and time management is a good idea.
1. Put an end to human error or manipulation
When you use biometrics as part of your access control, time tracking and attendance management systems, you eliminate the ability for results to be manipulated or incorrectly inputted.
ievo’s biometric readers can be used to limit access to a building using the unique fingerprint of a staff member. This means that as soon as the correct staff member gains access, that individual can automatically be clocked into work and their hours can be accurately tracked. Equally, once that staff member scans their fingerprint to leave the workplace, this will clock them out. Ultimately, by using biometrics (in this case, a fingerprint scanner) to track access, attendance and time, as well as being an extremely secure method of access control, it is virtually impossible for time tracking and attendance data to be inaccurate.
2. Easily calculate pay and overtime correctly
This brings us nicely onto our second benefit – being able to simplify the payroll process by calculating pay and overtime correctly. Being able to correctly pay workers for their hours and overtime (particularly when working with temporary, contract, locum and part-time staff) relies on accurate data.
Previously, you may have been happy to take the word of the manager or employee themselves to come to an agreement on payment for the day, week or month. But why leave it to chance when you can be certain as to the exact hours worked and pay owed.
By using biometric technologies such as ievo’s fingerprint readers, you can be sure that your payroll is correct. Our readers can be used to clock time and overtime to give you accurate data, as well as monitor and limit access to certain buildings and rooms at certain times. This means that you can ensure that your work premises are safe and secure at all hours. Better still, new employees can easily be added to the system with an hourly set wage and overtime value assigned to them – which is particularly useful for your payroll team when using contract staff, or if you have high staff turnover.
3. Spot patterns in punctuality and absenteeism, and take action
With conventional attendance and time tracking systems, it can be difficult to spot patterns in an employee’s tardiness or absenteeism. For example, a certain employee may typically be ‘ill’ on a Monday, or before a meeting with a certain client or staff member.
With some less efficient time tracking methods, it can be difficult to spot these patterns. However, when using biometric technologies the data is accurately tracked, making it far easier for a manager or superior to look at the data overall and spot any suspect or unusual patterns in behaviour. This allows action to be quickly taken to resolve any issues with the employee – such as addressing head on whether that employee has an issue with Monday mornings, or a particular client whose meetings they usually miss. This also helps with managing staff wellbeing and ensuring your workforce is happy in the workplace.
4. Improved safety and security
Of course, there are lots of options out there when it comes to time tracking and attendance software – so why use biometrics? Well, the answer lies not just in its superior efficiency, but in all the other benefits that come with using biometric technologies, such as improved safety and security on-site. For example, by using fingerprint readers to monitor time and attendance, you can also use this system to limit access to certain buildings or individual rooms. This means that your site can be safe and secure at all times, with only permitted staff present at any time.
This safety and security feature is particularly pertinent when using ievo readers, as our readers do not store the fingerprint data itself. Instead, our readers turn each fingerprint into a piece of data or code, which cannot be unravelled. This means that even if your data storage systems are hacked, your buildings will remain secure, as the data stored by ievo’s readers cannot be reverse engineered and used by any criminals or suspect individuals.
5. Perfect for both individual and multi-site businesses
Whether you own a one-site or multisite business, biometric readers can make things easier. Because our readers use part of an individual’s genetic makeup (i.e. the fingerprint), when granting access to the workspace each piece of data is unique to the individual. That means you don’t need team-level keys, codes or passcards that can be shared amongst the team or lost by human error. Instead, you can set access restrictions and working hours to teams, departments and workforces by multiple levels and across multiple sites.
This means that should you have a complex network of staff working across multiple sites, you can create a bespoke access and time tracking system at an individual member, team or site level. For example, if you have a team of 50 managers working up and down the country, you can set the access levels of that team across each building. This means that should a manager from Kent travel up to your site in Scotland for a sales meeting, then they will be able to gain access to the building using their fingerprint, which will grant them access to the appropriate rooms and spaces in order to conduct their work seamlessly. Likewise, staff members from a different department can be prohibited access to areas that they do not need to, or should not, enter.
If you’re on the lookout for an improved time and attendance management system, then get in touch with our team today. Our team of biometric experts will be able to offer you specialist advice on the best readers for your business, as well as on which wider security systems ievo readers can integrate with, such as Paxton and ZKAccess.