Our recent article on the value of time tracking offers advice on how to implement a time-tracking strategy that capitalizes on the practical and financial benefits of time and attendance software. Knowing that time tracking as a process reduces productivity leaks by up to 80% across a range of industries, you might ask which features to seek out in a software, and which tools address your business's most pressing needs.
What are the Core Benefits of Time and Attendance Software?
The benefits of implementing time and attendance software are two-fold: productivity-based (ensuring efficient/profitable projects) and accountability-based (ensuring hones operations and employee motivation to participate and grow).
Productivity-Based Benefits:
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- Eliminates outdated or disorganized physical timekeeping systems
- Increases company-wide and project-based profitability
- Simplifies and improves project management
- Dramatically improves productivity across project types
- Optimizes workflow and work distribution for employees and departments
- Helps your company use historical data to pinpoint, analyze and replicate success
Accountability-Based Benefits:
- Affirms company ethics
- Increases and rewards responsibility (incentivizes accuracy, and thoughtful time management)
- Ensures transparency and candid communication
- Improves work-life balance by helping employees shed habits like multitasking, procrastination, or uneven allocation of work hours.
Remember that an integral part of launching a time tracking process and choosing the ideal software is to determine your needs as a business. The goal is to identify both essential and ancillary needs that will complement and enhance the day-to-day operations of your business and industry.
Key Features to Consider in Your Time and Attendance Software Choice
Employee Latitude (or Limitations) – Regardless of the degree of autonomy, self-management, or access you’d like to apply within your company culture, you should locate software that offers a wide range of options in terms of employee access. For some businesses, granting full access to software features is a great choice. For other circumstances, you might prefer to have the managerial capacity to prevent employees from clocking in early. Consider the variety of instances within your company where/when you might want to curtail access.
Ensuring Access for Managers – In most cases, managers would prefer to have access to their employees’ timekeeping data and timecard information. This is particularly helpful in preventing unintentional reporting errors on the part of employees, and for supervisory reviews of employee productivity, time allocation, etc.
Full Integration Between Timekeeping and Payroll – This is a big one. When your system for timekeeping is fully integrated with payroll, you reduce all of the usual manual labor involved in prepping payroll. Instead, you enjoy the features of automatically generated pay period reports that can assist you in evaluating project budgets, monitoring overtime, and pinpointing inefficiencies in projects and in employee productivity. In general, this integration can provide valuable analytic data and reports about the work each employee has completed (related to specific projects, tasks, or periods of time).
Designating Task “Types” Across Projects – This feature allows you and your employees to select from predetermined categories of tasks without the time-consuming need to fill in information regarding each specific task completed. This can save you time and money in the long run and lessen employee frustration with the reporting process.
Ensuring Legal Compliance – Whichever time and attendance software you choose, make sure it is designed to comply with all regulations, including any that are specific to your industry.
Increase Productivity and Improve Company Culture with WorkForce PayHub
Our cloud-based Timekeeping Solution offers a host of innovative and high-priority features:
- Accurate Timekeeping from multiple sources: time clocks, mobile sources, and the web
- User-Defined Pay Rules that help you track and interpret true labor costs
- Exceptions Management features that keep you informed of early/late arrivals, missed punches, and other issues in real-time
- Schedule Implementation designed to help you align staffing and scheduling with your projects and operational goals
- Compliance Tools ensuring smooth timecard management and accurate payroll data
If you’re interested in learning more about these and other unique features of our Timekeeping Solution, contact us today or watch our demo video, which highlights the full range of resources, features, and expertise we can offer.
We’re eager to help you implement an accountability-based timekeeping system that rewards employee accountability, incentivizes accurate reporting, and improves work-life balance and cohesion among your staff.