Attendance and clocking: what works for my organization?

In some of my meetings with prospects and clients, my team and I are often asked what is the best way to manage attendance records and eliminate the need to manually compute overtime hours and overtime payment.

Many organizations today, especially those in the manufacturing and service industries, manage a significant pool of employees who are eligible for overtime pay. They too have employees who do not qualify for overtime pay, but as part of the company’s HR practices, ensuring employees’ punctuality for work is essential. On the other hand, we have smaller organizations that are predominantly made up of white collared workers and a small population of employees who are eligible for overtime pay. The list goes on as every company has its own set of challenges and there is definitely no “best way” to manage overtime and attendance records.

To start off, HR can ask a few questions to gauge their own needs.

1. How big is my OT payable population?
2. How do I want to capture daily attendance records in the future? Is my current method effective and if not, what can be my alternative solution?
3. Am I concerned about punctuality issues? Given that work-from-home is now very common, is it still necessary to monitor punctuality?
4. Do I have different attendance policies for different groups of employees?

These questions can help HR to decide what functions to invest in to automate attendance records capturing and computation of overtime hours, or simply, eliminate the use of hardcopy overtime forms. My advice is to understand your priorities and problem areas and invest in the right tool to help you function more effectively. Ultimately, what HR need are to simplify work processes, comply with statutory requirements and ensure prompt and accurate payments to employees.