What Makes a Good Time and Attendance System?
Published: 09/01/2023
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In this article, we aim to assist business owners and managers in navigating the software market with ease. We often believe that more is better, which can be a costly trap for many companies. Our goal is to outline the fundamentals of a good time and attendance system to help you select the right solution.
Every market is saturated, so buyers are constantly seeking bargains. Software is just one example. Naturally, every user wants to pay less for a tool that offers greater functionality and helps them with more tasks. However, vendors are not oblivious to this. Quite often, they even leverage it to their advantage. Between two solutions of the same price, users are likely to choose the one with more features. This is exactly what developers rely on.
The truth is, most digital tools only have a few core features. However, vendors will try to impress you with a wider range by using deal psychology and pursuing profit. Sometimes, this can hide major flaws in the system as well. In today’s article, we want to address this issue specifically concerning time and attendance software. We will discuss what the core functionality of a good solution is and how to avoid paying more while getting less.
Most time and attendance systems offer a variety of packages. However, here are 7 features you should look out for:
Real-time employee management
Attendance and absence management platform
Time tracking
Pay and bill assistance
Customised reporting
Flexibility-supporting modules
7. Employee self-service features
Naturally, every software vendor tries to stand out, so most will fill their tools with numerous features. It may sound appealing in theory, but if the fundamentals listed above are not in place, your needs won't be satisfied. Much of the extra functionality is built around the core 7. Naturally, unless the foundation is solid, the extra features won't meet the standard. So, let’s explore them in more detail.
As the name suggests, the time and attendance system should cover these two areas. However, both are fairly broad terms with different meanings depending on the context. To prevent confusion, we will set out the expectations you should have for each. After all, you want a tool that performs its main functions perfectly.
If your business is losing money and you can’t quite identify where it’s going, we have a suspicion. Companies lose billions annually due to absenteeism, a term that covers work absence without a valid reason. It’s a broad term for issues like false sick days, chronic lateness, no-shows, and other attendance problems. An occasional ‘sickie’ might not cost your business thousands, but the real issue with absenteeism is that it is systematic. This is how it racks up significant costs. The reason it often goes unnoticed is that, although it occurs in patterns, these are often extremely difficult to recognise.
Don’t feel overjoyed if you were able to identify an absenteeism behaviour in your staff just by reading our explanation. This indicates that their behaviour has been ongoing for some time and has already cost you a lot. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to recognise a pattern. That’s when time and attendance systems come to your aid. They keep a record of your employees’ attendance and present it in a visual format each time you access them. This way, the patterns stand out almost immediately, helping you address them before they cause harm. Identifying absenteeism is the first step towards investigating its causes. And, trust us when we say, it is never blatant tardiness.
Time is money. Ultimately, companies and employees are paid for the time they spend on tasks rather than the deliverables. This is why it’s crucial to stay informed about how your teams allocate their time and the specific amount of it. Poor management of work time can cause various issues, from missed deadlines to exceeding budgets. No business wants to face these problems.
That’s why the core function of a time and attendance system is all about recording time. Moreover, it not only monitors how long certain tasks take but also assigns the relevant price to each hour. This is especially useful when you offer different rates depending on the task, pay separately for overtime, or charges vary based on location, time, or day of the week. In other words, the best time and attendance tools can be easily customised to suit your unique needs. No business is the same, so there is ultimately no one-size-fits-all solution. It is in the platform’s developers' best interests to offer maximum flexibility and customisation. This way, the software becomes accessible and valuable to a wider range of clients. For you, this also indicates that the vendor is not an amateur, making them more trustworthy.
Don’t be fooled by the name. While a good time and attendance system must deliver a high level of its primary function, it shouldn’t be limited by it. Very often, companies make the mistake of not thinking outside the box when it comes to software. Ideally, you want a tool that can be used across different parts of the business. We promise - they exist and don’t cost a fortune.
While you would normally associate time and attendance tracking with project management, it’s more versatile. And no, we don’t mean just for shift workers using the tool as well. The reality is that a good time and attendance system can become a valuable asset to areas of your business you wouldn’t think could utilise it at all. In the previous section, we briefly mentioned a particular feature related to time recording — being able to allocate different prices to time values based on various factors. This especially would be a significant time saver for payroll. Not to mention, if integrated with your accounting software, it could reduce a lot of administrative work for them too.
Regarding human resources, they would certainly benefit from having visibility of the team’s attendance. Additionally, attendance platforms typically include holiday management features. If your HR team handles annual, sick, or parental leave, they will find the system helpful. Forget all about checking team availability, calculating carryovers, and emailing back and forth. All they need are a couple of mouse clicks to approve or reject leave requests. To determine if leave can be granted, a quick glance at the employee’s availability status is all that’s required.
Next, let’s discuss a slightly different aspect that a good tool can help with. As a society, we have long since normalised working ourselves to the bone. Long hours, overtime, going the extra mile—this is all expected of workers. But it shouldn’t be. Those unspoken and often unrealistic expectations are the main cause of burnout. That condition can later lead to more serious issues: absenteeism, declining performance, hostility towards colleagues, etc. Overall, the workaholic approach often produces the opposite of what’s intended.
While burnout workaholics will continue pushing themselves beyond their limits, they will accumulate less work. The quality of their deliverables will also decline. It is only a matter of time before they snap and quit entirely — often with an expensive (to you) explosion. The best way to address this issue is to prevent it early on. Similar to absenteeism, it can only be recognised through patterns before the signature behaviour begins to manifest. Without reiterating our entire pitch, having a centralised attendance system helps you identify it as soon as possible. As previously described, these systems include a holiday management module, making it easy to spot workers who haven’t been off in a while. Although you can always enforce time off, we suggest having a conversation first. There may be something bothering them, and you might be able to help.
Having many tools that don’t communicate is of little use. Ultimately, it wastes your time as you navigate and manually transfer information between them. In other words, they don’t serve their full purpose. That’s why it’s important to centralise your solutions rather than using them separately.
The key to team alignment is connecting team members rather than letting them work independently. Your digital tools should be treated the same way. In fact, when you centralise your software, it becomes much easier to align your teams because they will suddenly have access to each other’s data and progress. This creates greater visibility across all departments. Naturally, this leads to smoother workflows, quicker handovers, and overall better communication.
This all sounds great in theory. But you might be wondering how realistic this is to achieve. Let us reassure you - not only is it realistic, but also very easy. Most modern technology is cloud-based. It not only makes it easily accessible for users from anywhere in the world, but also linkable to other solutions. The very SaaS model is built on the idea of users creating diverse digital toolboxes through integrations of tools from different vendors to reach their goals. Since no business is the same, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why SaaS technology is thriving. It offers every business the chance to have a unique tech stack, fully customised to their needs. From each individual tool to the entire set of integrated tools, this approach makes sure you're not just stuck with what you have but can choose what you need to succeed.
When pursuing software deals, time and attendance systems are already in the lead. Simply put, it’s one product that offers multiple functions. When selected wisely, its ability to enhance your overall business performance grows in a remarkable way.The key is to look beyond lengthy feature lists and instead concentrate on the core functionality. Very often, extensive benefit packages are designed to conceal gaps in the foundation.Sadly, this often becomes clear only after you have committed to the tool.
This does not mean that additional features offered by different vendors are bad. Often, they expand the core functionality and, depending on your needs, can be very useful. However, this should be a secondary consideration when choosing the right tool. Even with only the basic features, the software will be beneficial across various parts of the business. And if you want to increase its capabilities, this can always be achieved through integrations. This approach will also help you centralise and coordinate your team's efforts.
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