Employee time tracking became a challenging task for business owners during the unexpected and unprecedented pandemic situation in 2020. Therefore, it’s critical to be well-prepared with robust measures in place to protect the service and stay flexible enough to adapt as the circumstances change. Here are some tips and solutions on how to track time and manage remote teams to keep business running and following the CDC guidelines at the same time
How To Use Biometric Time Clocks during covid-19 ?
In the interest of Hygiene, if you are using Biometric Time Clocks from Mitrefinch, they can be retrofitted for proximity Contactless Clocking Terminals with an internal proximity reader. This can reduce the risk of infection transmission by allowing employees present a fob or card towards the reader.
Contactless Proximity Clocking
Biometric Clocking Terminal can be set up in various modes. The majority of Mitrefinch devices use Biometric Fingerprint Readers. In the event of requiring an alternative mode, Mitrefinch can retrofit an additional Proximity Reader to your existing clocking machine.
This will allow Contactless Clocking for all staff using pre-programmed clock cards or fobs assigned to each employee. Mitrefinch will pre-program the cards or fobs for your employees and deliver these when retrofitting the proximity readers on site for you.
You can easily give your staff that added protection and switch to Contactless Clocking.
How to Clean Biometric Clock Devices
In case you are still using biometric clock terminal on sites to record time and attendance of your employees , here are some tips on how to clean them safely.
All Mitrefinch lumidigm fingerprint sensors can be cleaned with a 70%+ IPA wipe as frequently as you require. When cleaning, the current recommendation is that you should wear disposable gloves when disinfecting surfaces (these should be discarded after use). Make sure to wipe the whole fingerprint scanner and the area surrounding it.
However please do not use gel hand sanitizers before using the sensor, as they can leave a residue on the surface and may reduce enrollment quality on the reader. Hands should instead be disinfected after using a fingerprint sensor. The current recommendation is to clean hands by washing them with soap and water for 20 seconds. If soap and water is not available, and the hands are not visibly dirty, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol can be used.
The rest of the unit may be cleaned with 70%+ wipes, telephone wipes or similar products suitable for use with electronics.
Terminals such as stainless steel keypads/clocks can also be cleaned with regular detergent, ideally power down them down first then rinse and dry.
Mitrefinch also recommends to refer to the current CDC guidelines
Remote Team Management and SMS Time Tracking
Given the magnitude and impact of the Coronavirus Epidemic and the need for Businesses to have their teams work remotely from home – Mitrefinch is offering Employee Self Service and SMS Punching Licenses to enable Companies to manage staff remotely.
Key Benefits of Employee Self Service
- Allows staff to punch in remotely and for employers to manage attendance.
- Reduce paperwork for employees and management, and assist in social distancing as employees won’t be filling out ‘Vacation Request’ forms and leaving them on their manager’s desks for approval, etc.
- Allow you to keep in touch and inform your staff of work updates via the free ‘Employee Notice Dashboard’
- Employees can easily control their own Time Management.
- Allows staff to view their schedules and planned shifts online and in real time.
- Allows staff to view their annual leave balances, therefore reducing questions to managers and HR.
- Allows staff to view their worked hours via their personal timecard.
- Allows staff to view documents online such as company policies, etc.
Learn More about ESS tool
Key Benefits of SMS punching
- Text punching for employees who have no portal page access.
- Managers can review timecards as normal based on these punches and can easily process payroll.
- Allow you to keep in touch and inform your staff of work updates via group messaging – meaning information gets to employees immediately without relying on email.
Learn More about SMS Clocking
