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Having reliable rostering software, like goRoster, means that you know who is working in your business at any given time. It’s a great tool to help you manage your staff without having to be on site 24/7. What it doesn’t tell you, however, is whether staff members are actually working the hours they are rostered for.
That’s where a time and attendance system comes in handy. It digitally captures the exact times that staff start and end their shifts. You then know exactly how long your staff are working, and can pay them accordingly. These systems are becoming commonplace in businesses throughout the world, as digital technology continues to make them a cost-effective solution.
Implementing such a system can have a big impact on the day-to-day running of your business, so here are a few things you should consider before taking the plunge:
Accurate payroll
If you’re unhappy with the accuracy of your payroll, upgrading your time and attendance system could be your new best friend.
Modern time and attendance systems can calculate payroll to the nearest minute, helping you to avoid spending money on unproductive hours, or errors related to staff clocking in or out incorrectly.
Trends
Implementing a time and attendance system can help find trends that you may be unaware of when just looking at a roster.
Are staff being consistently sent home early because it’s too quiet, or regularly working overtime because it is too busy? Being able to record your staff’s actual hours against the roster helps to plan shifts for the coming weeks, months and years. You may need to rethink your opening hours, increase or decrease staff at certain hours, or change the shift plan altogether.
Integration
There’s no point upgrading your time and attendance system if it isn’t going to talk to your current roster software. Having to manually compare data between two unintegrated systems is difficult, time consuming and prone to errors, so make sure the new system you choose is compatible.
Integrity
As solid as your staff management processes may be, it is impossible to keep an eye on everything your staff are doing. The time and attendance system you choose needs to help seal loopholes that allow staff to bypass procedures. If, for example, staff are using swipe cards or pass words to clock in, these can easily shared with colleagues to use if they are running late. It’s an awful thought, and one that businesses with great staff never have to worry about, but it does happen.
Gotcha!
If you are considering implementing a time and attendance system to assist in catching out staff members that you believe to be shirking hours, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
You’re most likely already aware of your staff’s shortcomings, so a new system will only tell you – albeit in plain black and white – what you already know. And in our experience, it won’t change the behaviour of staff member X anyway.
This is an issue that needs to be handled by management, and is not a good reason to implement new technology.