If you’re wondering whether you should invest in time and attendance software, consider this: A survey of more than 500 employees nationwide by Michael G. Kessler & Associates, Ltd, found that 87 percent of employees admitted to falsifying their time sheets. That’s a large percentage of employees stealing time from the company and being paid for hours that they did not work.
Employee theft of all kinds results in $200 billion in losses to U.S. businesses annually — with time and property theft being the most common ways employees rob their bosses.
What might not seem like a big deal — an employee showing up to work a few minutes late one day or spending 10 minutes on Facebook every morning, for example — can add up to hours and days of lost labor every year for businesses.
Some of the most common ways employees steal time include:
- Buddy punching
- Proxy attendance
- Late arrival
- Early departures
- Unauthorized overtime
- Taking long breaks
- Non-work-related computer use
- Socializing or making personal calls during work hours
Research by the University of Southern California and the University of Illinois found that paying employees a higher salary reduces the likelihood that they will steal from you, according to an article on cnbc.com.
But if your business has suffered from the economic downturn, giving everybody a raise to encourage honesty might not be an option.
Purchasing time and attendance software is a good solution for curbing employee time theft. Not only should your employees have trouble falsifying the time they’ve worked, but there will be less room for payroll errors and less time needed calculating old-fashioned time sheets. Some software providers estimate that using a time and attendance system can result in an 80 percent reduction in manual effort and a 3 percent savings in total payroll.
Time and attendance software allows you to collect time via badge readers, biometrics, computers or mobile devices (either a phone or mobile time clock); manage your time collection data; and easily process the collected time for payroll.
- Improve employee productivity by eliminating the need for timely calculations of overtime, shift differentials, rate calculations, etc. with automation.
- Track and restrict unnecessary overtime
- Eliminate the need to calculate time cards
- Better manage employee scheduling; whether it’s group, individual, rotational or demand-based scheduling
- Eliminate time card preparation, collection and storage
- Cut payroll processing time
- Reduce instances of tardiness
- Eliminate unauthorized hours
- Eliminate the need to calculate sick, vacation or compensation time accrural
- Identify and eliminate time abuses
- Track labor distribution by tracking time worked by location, department, branch, cost center job, position, project or any other metric
- Allow management to enforce work hours limits and improve employee safety
- Eliminate disputes over hours worked and pay
- Improve relations with employees, including eliminating favoritism
For many businesses today, especially small businesses, it is not a viable option to raise salaries in an attempt to convert time thieves into honest employees. Unfortunately, even if you do raise salaries, there is no guarantee that all forms of time theft will be eliminated. I’m a firm believer that an automated time clock with HR software is the best way to keep employees accountable. Biometric time clocks (fingerprint or face recognition) are available with cloud-based time attendance software that are both affordable and reliable. I installed a fingerprint time clock with time tracking software from uAttend.com in Feb 2012 and I have seen improvements in punctuality and overall productivity. Our main concern was buddy punching, but the recognition requirement on our clock now prevents workers from punching in and out for each other. It’s been a huge asset for us. There are many cost-effective solutions like this available that small businesses can afford, and they are a good long-term investment. A cloud-based system does not require downloads and implementation, or in-house setup costs. I recommend a time and attendance system for any small business, even if they have less than five employees. It’s easier than fighting over salaries.
Thanks so much for that info – it’s definitely valuable for those interested in time and attendance possibilities!
With the social networking sites, it is more difficult to control what employees do on their computers.
Very true – thought it seems like there is a lot of talk about social media policies and such, so it should be interesting to see how it will change that. Thanks for stopping by!