Employee attendance management plays a major role in any organization irrespective of its size. HR teams usually spend a substantial amount of time managing the attendance of their staff and often face challenges. Using an attendance management system helps avoid these issues and builds transparency among staff within a company.
Source: Kings Research
The global attendance monitoring system market was valued at $3.82 billion in 2022 and is likely to grow to $9.82 billion by 2030. It is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.05% between 2023-2030. Facial recognition software, a type of attendance management system, is estimated to grow to $19.3 billion by 2032.
What Exactly Is An Attendance Management System?
An attendance management system is a cloud-based HR tool that is used by organizations to automate their attendance management operations and also to monitor the working hours of employees. It enables the staff to mark their attendance using its web or mobile app or by integrating with the existing biometric attendance management to automatically sync with the attendance entries.
The latest attendance monitoring system is equipped with facial recognition technology which validates the identities of each employee when they check in or check out. All the attendance entries are then centralized in a single system that can be accessed by the HR team from anywhere and at any time.
Need a reliable solution for tracking remote worker attendance? Discover the power of our Attendance Management System today!
What Is The Significance of An Attendance Management System?
Tracking the attendance of employees manually using paper registers and digital spreadsheets has become obsolete. As hybrid modes of work have become more common there is greater flexibility and transparency at the workplace. So, adopting an attendance management system that automates the whole automatic tracking process can be very helpful.
It enables the staff to mark and store their attendance online, which is ideal for those who are working remotely. It can also work simultaneously with your leave and shift management system to minimize duplicate tasks, like converting absence into leaves for employees.
When Will You Need An Attendance Monitoring System?
If you are confused about whether it is the right time to invest in an attendance monitoring system, here are indications which confirm that your company needs one –
Attendance Is Being Tracked Manually
The use of physical registers or online spreadsheets will be useful if you have a small workforce. But, as you scale up your company’s business, your HR team will find it tough to keep track of the staff’s attendance and collect data for payroll processing.
Your employees will also find it inconvenient to manually sign registers daily. They expect their workplace to have a user-friendly attendance tracking system that can be effortlessly used.
Ensuring Compliance Seems A Daunting Task
When you lack a proper attendance monitoring system to track the attendance of your staff, the attendance related data might be scattered in various places and may not have been documented precisely.
This data needs to be documented with great care to ensure compliance with different labor policies, including those that companies provide for a specific number of days off and compensate employees for any type of overtime work. When audits are performed, you may find your HR team struggling to gather attendance data. You may have to pay a heavy fine for noncompliance.
Core Benefits of Using an Attendance Management System
Source: TAXAJ
Frequent Pay-Roll Errors
When each employee is tracked manually, there will be human errors in your attendance data. When this wrong data is used for payroll processing, you will be miscalculating the gross pay of all employees, which will have an impact on their morale and job satisfaction.
Since manual tracking of employees to process payroll takes a lot of time, your HR team has to calculate the working hours, overtime data of staff as well as time off manually. Therefore, you may fail to process the payroll on time.
What Features Should You Look For In An Attendance Management System?
As technology is changing with every passing day, you cannot depend on manual attendance marking. So, it’s time you get acquainted with automated attendance tracking. Here are 16 essential features of attendance tracking software –
1. Geo Coded Attendance Marking
Perfect geocoded attendance marking helps managers track location-based data accurately. Using GPS technology, this tool points to the location of employees once they clock in or clock out. It also shares insights regarding the location of staff with geographical coordinates. Using geo-coded attendance, you can
- Avoid proxy attendance
- Automate the attendance tracking process
- Ensure remote attendance marking
2. Automated Facial Recognition
An advanced attendance management system includes visual verification technology and smart facial recognition. Employees engaged in fieldwork on reaching their task sites can seamlessly snack their pictures and upload them on the executive app. Managers will receive the snapped picture which includes the last long-in time, place as well as date of the click.
So, they can find out their staff’s presence at the client site. This enables them to register the attendance of their staff perfectly. Organizations that have sent executives for fieldwork can use automated facial recognition as
- Eliminates the need for staff to recall passwords
- Prevents proxy attendance marking by unauthorized individuals
- It helps to report the precise time of arrival at the client’s side
- Helps to ensure remote attendance tracking
3. Linking of Flexible Attendance Tasks
Now, you can prevent the forgetfulness of field employees by linking their attendance with tasks. All this has been made possible by the feature of flexible attendance task linking. This feature also helps executives to either access or unlock their tasks once they arrive at the site and clock in for their attendance. Using this feature, managers can also ensure that
- Timely arrival of staff at the task site
- Precise and verified attendance marking
- Staff are physically present at the assigned site
4. Hassle-Free Clock In and Out
Which of these would you prefer: a time-taking attendance recording process or an effortless clock in and out? You are most likely to go for the second one. Opting for an attendance tracking system with geofenced capability would be a wise decision on your part. Field managers can use it to geofence an area where they want the field executives to take on tasks.
Once the executives reach the location, they can easily clock in and out with just a tap. Once they step out of the specified radius, they won’t be able to mark themselves in.
Source: Keka
5. Accurate Attendance Regularization
An attendance tracking software is incomplete without the presence of the feature of accurate attendance regularization. Using it, your staff can request their managers to regularize their working hours in circumstances when the shift was either swapped to a non-working day or the system failed to accept clock-in requests. The benefits of having an attendance management system incorporated with attendance regularization are mentioned below
- Accurate time records for payroll processing
- Improved flexibility in the workplace
- More fairness and transparency in employee’s attendance
Think of a situation when you receive alerts immediately after employees mark their attendance. This is the USP of the instant clock-in alerts in the attendance systems. Each time an employee marks his or her attendance, managers will receive a notification. They accept the workforce availability on a specific task without getting confused about paper timesheets and manual records.
6. Precise Attendance Records
By utilizing highly accurate attendance reports, managers can acquire details on the working hours and leaves of employees. At the same time, they will also get a comprehensive view of the strengths of the staff, analyze the task completion time, and evaluate the attendance patterns.
7. Seamless Payroll Integration
An attendance management system can be easily integrated with scalable payroll management software. It will enable the payroll system to auto-fetch the attendance data of staff, their leaves, working hours, overtime, and commission or bonus (if they are eligible) for calculating salary invoices for hassle-free payouts.
8. Automated Communication
Let’s assume that you utilize emails, Skype, and other tools of communication to manage the field workforce of your organization. Are you confident that it will bridge the communication gap between you and your staff? Therefore, onboard a platform that offers transparency and offers employees an opportunity to look at their present attendance and leave data and request quick alterations if required through in-office chats.
Source: Keka
9. Hassle-Free Shift Scheduling
Once you start using attendance tracking software, you won’t have to go through boring attendance registers to schedule shifts of your staff. An automatic attendance tracking system usually comes with a shift scheduling tool that enables you to schedule shifts based on the skills, capacity, bandwidth as well and availability of your staff. By incorporating the shift scheduling feature in your attendance system, you can
- Create daily as well as monthly shifts for field employees
- Let field technicians view their schedules in advance
- Assign urgent tasks to another executive (if the other is absent)
10. Well-Organized Policy Compliance
Managers often face a tough time following the policies and regulatory requirements of their companies. However, if you are using attendance tracking software, you will be able to define, configure, and also customize attendance policies.
The system sends notifications to managers about late arrivals, early leaving unauthorized absences, or any other violation of existing attendance policies. Managers will also be able to generate reports to keep track of attendance policies and identify attendance trends.
11. Strong Employee Self-Service
Opting for an employee self-service system helps to shift responsibility equally among all members of the team. For example, field personnel won’t have to depend on managers to record their work hours. They can do so on their own, alter their details, fill their timesheets, and also apply for leaves.
Doing so reduces the hassles of both finance and HR teams. They won’t have to communicate about everything with the staff. Rather, they can focus on high-priority tasks such as onboarding and financial management.
12. Highly Efficient Leave Management
Prioritize automated attendance management that works while keeping in mind the availed or remaining leaves of the staff. Using this functionality, you can verify the total leaves acquired by the staff so far, and ensure that the payroll is accurately processed for them. Moreover, you can also allow your field employees to cross-check theirleave balances, apply for leaves, and access the upcoming holidays.
13. Streamlined Biometric Attendance
Rather than use a biometric machine, have you ever thought about using a biometric-supported attendance app? All that your field executives will have to do is access their mobile phones and punch in using their fingertips to clock in and start the task.
It will help your field staff to avoid using ID badges, time cards, and also the need to go to the office. Moreover, your field manager can avoid issues like eligible buddy punching. Having a well-organized biometric system will help you to record the accurate attendance record of employees.
14. Effective Mobile and Cloud Support
You can rely on mobility and cloud support to manage your staff from any location. Your employees can log in to their attendance seamlessly and gain access to critical details while they are on the move. This helps to facilitate instant communication among managers and field workers. To ensure efficient collaboration and ensure smooth operations, and acquire insights related to your processes, you will need access to attendance tracking software to operate using any handheld device.
Source: ResourceGuru
15. Calendar Integration
An effective attendance management system can be easily synced with digital calendars such as Outlook. This will help everyone within your team know whether you are available or not. They are ideal for remote teams where you can check the attendance of a person by just checking the shared calendar.
16. Latest Analytics
The latest attendance monitoring system is equipped with an advanced analytics feature that offers visibility about each minute detail about the attendance patterns of your staff. As a result, you can get a clear idea of those employees who are working overtime. Such a practice will enable you to differentiate the productive employees from the unproductive ones by offering accurate attendance reports.
How Can Attendance Management Systems Be Used for Decision-Making?
Report data gathered from attendance records can be utilized by managers to enhance efficiency in labor management and accuracy in reports. Accurate data reports enable managers to make cost-effective decisions to either optimize the staff or find out the best practices that can be implemented if required.
If a company follows various methods for record maintenance like scanners, time clocks, web login/out, or scanners, there is flexibility and a high level of assurance as the management knows that nothing related to attendance will be missed out.
A digital attendance management system automates data by using time-tracking software which eliminates the risks of human error or duplication in errors. Rather, it offers managers the scope to authorize formal leave requests, if there are any, make hiring projections, and also schedule shifts.
Comprehensive data reports and analysis help companies to make sound decisions based on accurate, updated data.
How ROCKEYE Can Help You Create An Attendance Management System?
At ROCKEYE, we are proficient in developing attendance tracking software that incorporates features like image capture, punch clock, PTO monitoring, and scheduler within a user-friendly interface. It can help you to streamline attendance calculations and track your workforce’s productivity in real time.
The employee dashboard offers users quick access to tasks, announcements as well as personalized insights to boost productivity as well as employee engagement. Equipped with a Centralized Employee Listing, it offers instant access to employee details, roles as well as contact details to ensure better communication and collaboration.
FAQ
In this blog, we have discussed all aspects you need to look into to ensure that you make a wise decision while choosing an attendance management system. If you have more questions, you can refer to these questions.
1. Why Should An Attendance Monitoring System Be Integrated With A Payroll System?
Integrating attendance management and payroll systems ensures precise calculation of wages based on attendance data, minimizes manual errors, and streamlines payroll processing.
2. How Does Biometric Authentication Improve Attendance Tracking?
Biometric authentication checks issues like buddy punching and makes sure that only real employees can record their attendance. This enhances both security and efficiency.
3. Why Is Mobile Access Essential In An Attendance Management System?
Mobile access enables employees to clock in/out, request leave, and keep track of records from virtually anywhere, thereby increasing their flexibility and convenience.
4. How Do Real-Time Notifications Help In Attendance Management?
Real-time notifications alert both managers and employees about attendance-related events like missed punches, leave approvals, and clock-ins/outs. These notifications ensure action and communication are done on time.
5. Why Should A Company Invest In An Attendance Management System?
Attendance management helps to streamline tracking, enhances accuracy, and saves optimum time.
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