How can business owners or supervisors increase employee accountability using time tracking software to capture actual hours employees worked? Especially with the multiple locations or remote work, it is hard to ensure that employees are clocking in and clocking out their hours properly. Managers need more streamlined and structured process to ensure nothing is being manipulated on punch clocks. Thanks to digital and mobile time tracking tools it is easier now to comply with labor law and union rules, save money and increase workforce productivity.
What is Employee Time Fraud?
According to a recent study, almost three out of every four businesses report payroll losses due to the common employee time fraud practice of “buddy punching.” This common practice (just one of several time fraud procedures), occurs when one employee clocks one of their peers in or out when they are not physically working. Buddy punching alone might be costing businesses across the country up to 3 percent of gross payroll, or $373 million of annual payroll losses.
While employers might consider time fraud as harmlessly “cutting corners,” statistics show that businesses can suffer from serious financial losses. Furthermore, as more and more businesses seek to hire remote employees, the risk of time fraud will only continue to increase without the implementation of firm time tracking policies.
Benefits of Utilizing Employee Time and Attendance Software
Employee time and attendance software can help to prevent outright time theft through creating a company culture based on transparency and accountability. Both employers and employees benefit from efficient and streamlined time and attendance policies backed up by resourceful and easy-to-use software.
From the perspective of employers, transparent time and attendance software can reduce financial losses, improve productivity levels, and motivate employees to stay on task. These tracking tools and software options also allow managers and other people higher up in the company to monitor the progress of certain workers on certain projects and deliverables.
For the workforce, time and attendance software reduces the risk of not getting paid for the time they work. Forgetting to clock in can result in lost wages, burdensome payroll paperwork, and other inopportune penalties. Also, innovative time and attendance software can allow certain employees to work remotely in a transparent fashion. Time tracking tools can also permit motivated employees to showcase their productivity, output, and efficiency in order to make their case for promotions and other perks.
Time and Attendance Software Solutions Offered by Mitrefinch
If your company is still using basic, mechanical time clocks to track employee attendance and absenteeism, upgrading to digitalized time and attendance software should certainly be high on your list of priorities. The investment in time and attendance software solutions offered by Mitrefinch will likely pay for themselves through reductions in financial losses from employee time fraud and increased productivity levels.
Some of the diverse time and attendance software solutions offered by Mitrefinch include:
- Web Based Clocking: This straightforward time tracking software allows managers and business owners to empower their employees through a completely web-based, self-service application. Employees can manage their own time and attendance from registered desktop computers (company-owned or personal) through logging time on the platform. This PC-Based Clocking System is designed to work as an employee self-service software, meaning that it is best used with top talent workers who are naturally motivated and need minimal managerial oversight.
- Biometric Time Clocking Terminal: The biometric time clocking terminal works best for businesses that rely on office, industry, or warehouse workers who are physically present during work hours. This software solution is ideal for eliminating time theft and buddy punching. The biometric scanners virtually ensure that workers will be paid for the time they are physically present in the building. The simple fingerprint scanning technology is minimally invasive, and the terminals can be placed at strategic areas around the business. For example, companies wanting to more closely monitor employee break time can easily place a biometric terminal at the entrance to the employee break or lunch room.
- Text Alert Clocking: We live in a mobile world, and the vast majority of people in the United States own and use a smart phone. Text alert clocking allows trusted employees to text message their attendance to a mobile phone number. The time and relevant data is then uploaded into the Mitrefinch system. This solution combines the advantages of real-time workforce visibility and oversight with increased employee satisfaction associated with the ease of managing their time.
- Land-line Phone Clocking: Not every business will have the financial stability to invest in new devices that are required for some of the time and attendance solutions outlined above. Land-line phone clocking, however, offers a cost-effective, quick, and easy solution that can improve time tracking procedures without requiring you to purchase any additional equipment or devices. With this option, employees use a regular landline phone and a 1-800 reverse billing number to clock in and out. It is a great, low-cost option for remote employees when managers want more real time control over employee attendance.
- Mobile Clocking: Businesses that have younger workforces who grew up as “digital natives” might consider investing in our mobile phone clocking app. Not only will this app please younger generations of workers who are used to the ease and efficiency of online solutions, but it also can increase employee productivity. With this completely self-service app, employees can clock in or out, clock on to specific projects, request vacation time or sick leave, and do other time-related tasks all from the comfort of their mobile device. Companies can also opt to include GPS coordinate tracking to make sure that employees are where they say they are during their assigned shifts.
- Biometric Desktop Reader: Lastly, the desktop readers offer a time and attendance solution that combines the full functionality of a biometric clocking terminal at a fraction of the cost. This is a great option for smaller businesses with fewer employees who are on a limited budget. The biometric desktop reader is installed to a company computer, connected to your business network, and is subsequently configured to reflect your shifts, wages, hours, departments, company policies, and individual employees.
Mitrefinch offers time and attendance software solutions that fit the needs and requirements of virtually every type of business. To get the most out of your employees, increase workplace transparency and accountability, comply with labor laws and legislation, and enhance your overall workplace productivity, employee time and attendance software should be an essential aspect of the digitalization of your company.
