When it comes to improving your organisation’s efficiency, reducing waste, and streamlining productivity, there’s no better way than upgrading your time and attendance system.
Yet time and attendance is often one of the last places many organisations consider when it comes to increasing profits and reducing costs. That’s because there are five common misconceptions most people have when it comes to time and attendance:
- The same functions as time and attendance software can be performed manually at far less costs
- Workers will resist new time and attendance software that intrudes on their privacy and causes them to do more work
- Time and attendance is only effective for businesses with fixed shifts worked by hourly employees
- Productivity can’t be measured in hours and minutes, but how productive people are when they are at work
- Because our business doesn’t pay overtime, there’s no need to track hours worked
All of these objections are very common among organisations who are used to handling time and attendance the same way they always have: With archaic, outdated systems that do little to streamline efficiency.
But new time and attendance software available from Advanced Systems crushes these objectives and shows you in real dollars and cents how your organisation can actually make a lot more money by spending a little on a time and attendance system.
If your organisation is considering implementing a time and attendance system, these are exactly the type of objections you are likely to face from both your line level employees and your management team. One of the best ways to get buy-in from the entire organisation is by anticipating objectives and having clear, concise and effective answers that overcome these objections before they can even be raised.
With that in mind, let’s address these common objections one at a time:
‘The same functions as time and attendance software can be performed manually at far less costs’
This statement is true: Using a time clock and punch cards or another type of manual time and attendance system on the face of it is cheaper than installing time and attendance software. But it doesn’t take into account what that software can do that an organisation currently using a manual system isn’t doing.
Automated time and attendance software gives your organisation more than just the time and dates when workers punched in and punched out. This data can be not only gathered, but collated, managed, and analysed to optimise productivity. For example, work schedules can be built so that they are integrated with sophisticated forecasting models that can accurately predict the busiest and slowest periods of your operations. Work hours can be automatically added or taken away based on such external influencers as seasonality, business patterns, and even weather.
Time and attendance software can also integrate such things as vacation time, sick time, paid time off, holidays, and other factors that can influence rate of pay, benefits, withholding, taxes, and other calculations that would have to be done manually under a manual time clock system.
‘Workers will resist new time and attendance software that intrudes on their privacy and causes them to do more work’
It’s natural for the people within your organisation to be resistant to changes. This stems from the basic human need for security and safety. When you throw an unknown factor into any situation – in this instance, how a time and attendance system is going to affect their work lives – people’s first reaction usually is to resist and even strike back.
But, as we already have seen, one of the best defences against this type of resistance is a good offence: Educating your organisation on the benefits of the system to both your business and themselves individually.
Privacy concerns and more work are the two biggest complaints often put forth when a new computerised time and attendance system is introduced. But they also are the two objections that are the easiest to overcome, as we shall see shortly.
‘Time and attendance is only effective for businesses with fixed shifts worked by hourly employees’
This complaint is not only untrue, it’s outdated. There are very few organisations left that rely exclusively on hourly employees working a set, pre-scheduled shift that doesn’t change.
Today’s competitive, web-centric business environment requires even the smallest organisations to be flexible and to look at unique and non-traditional ways to get the job done. This frequently includes flexible scheduling, job sharing, hiring outside contractors to perform some or all of the work, automation, and many other concepts that are increasingly familiar to 21st Century organisations.
If time and attendance systems were only for fixed, hourly employee sets, there wouldn’t be any time and attendance because this type of archaic model doesn’t really exist anymore.
The truth is that modern business organisations need the flexibility that time and attendance software provides in order to track, analyse and adapt their payroll and scheduling to reflect the new realities of the digital age.
‘Productivity can’t be measured in hours and minutes, but how productive people are when they are at work’
This objection could be filed under the category of “wishful thinking”. Unfortunately, workers generally demand to be paid for the hours that they work, rather than for the functions they perform. In fact, most manufacturing businesses and other industries would prefer to pay on a “per piece” model, but it’s simply not practical from an employee relations perspective.
The realities of the modern workplace require people to be paid according to a work schedule – whether it is hourly or salaried. Managers and employees alike need to know when workers are expected to work and how long they are to be on the job. The work schedule and payroll are an integral part of any successful organisation and rightfully so: They allow management to control its labour cost in relation to its operations.
Time and attendance software not only provides this operational ability, but also accounts for the growth of contracted and freelance labour. Unlike a manual timekeeping system, automated time and attendance lets organisations track their labour expense from hourly, salaried and contracted vendors simultaneously, giving decision makers the tools they need to make the best choices for their organisation’s success.
‘Because our business doesn’t pay overtime, there’s no need to track hours worked’
First of all, if you aren’t paying your employees overtime and they work longer than 40 hours in a given workweek, you may be breaking the law. Secondly, what kind of organisation doesn’t need to track hours worked?
Labour is one of the most inescapable expenses of any business. Unless yours is a one-person organisation, there’s a built-in need to have an accurate timekeeping system that can be integrated into systems that maximise the organisation’s productivity and profitability. And even with one-person operations, there’s still a need to compare labour to revenue.
Benefits of a Time and Attendance Software from Advance System
The first part of getting “buy in” from your organisation is anticipating objections and overcoming them before they can take hold. The second part is showing people within your organisation how the time and attendance can benefit the operation as a whole as well as each person individually.
Time and attendance software not only increases accuracy and reduces the administrative costs of managing a manual timekeeping and scheduling system, but it also streamlines your organisation’s workforce management processes so you can maximise profits and minimise labour costs.
It features the latest technologies, enabling organisations, not just through traditional time clocks and other labour recording devices, but also via Smartphone’s, Tablets, PCS and Laptops. Plus, managers can access the data they need to make the best decisions for the organisation instantly and from anywhere, without the need to manually compile complicated reports and sort through volumes of data to get the key indicators they need.
Instant access to such profit-eating issues as open shifts, too much overtime, understaffing, and more can be seen in real-time, improving management’s ability to respond and make the appropriate adjustments that improve the operational bottom line.
But that’s just the beginning.
Saves Time and Money
Timekeeping and scheduling software offers a high tech defence against fraudulent and inaccurate timekeeping. It uses biometric clocking terminals that make it impossible for an employee to clock in for somebody else. And it measures precisely when workers are clocking in and out for starting work, breaks, and leaving the premises. That means there is no margin for human error or for employees to manipulate their work times.
With such potential savings, many organisations can recover the cost of implementing Advance Systems time and attendance system in as little as a few months.
Fully Integrates Scheduling, Timekeeping and Payroll
In many large businesses, simply keeping track of employees’ time requires an entire department of its own. But the Systems time and attendance software
completely integrates all of the labour requirements of any organisation, from the creation of work schedules to employee timekeeping processes to payroll calculations.
This can significantly cut your administrative costs and time devoted to scheduling, timekeeping and payroll, freeing up your workers for tasks that better enhance the bottom line. It eliminates the need for working with time-sheets and time-cards. Instead, payroll can be calculated accurately and instantly with literally the push of a button – saving not only time and money but paper as well!
Best of all, with a time and attendance system, the onus of tracking time is moved from management to the employees themselves. The system’s self-service module allows workers to log in to see their holiday time, benefits, submit time off requests, request shift swaps, and perform an array of other tasks that formerly fell to managers and supervisors.
While managers are still given final approval over decisions that affect the business, they have more time to focus on more important matters that add to the organisation’s bottom line.
Automatically Enforces Attendance Policies
Successful organisations have policies in place which clearly outline the expectations for employees’ tardiness and absenteeism. But how these policies are enforced is a whole other issue. If the policy is not enforced uniformly across the board for every employee, a single worker who is penalised for violating the policy can justifiably fight their discipline, rendering the overall policy effectively useless.
Workforce software can automatically enforce your organisation’s time and attendance policy so that every employee is held the same standard. It takes subjectivity out of the equation so that all workers are treated alike, reinforcing the integrity of the system and protecting your organisation against complaints of unfair treatment and discrimination.
And if your policies are amended or changed, making the modifications to your time and attendance software can literally be done with the push of a button. A time and attendance system can put you in charge of your organisation, removing the ambiguity and doubt that can cripple some organisations.
Simple, Hands-Free Time and Attendance Software
There are no hidden surprises with a time and attendance software system from Advance Systems. It doesn’t require you to invest in more expensive hardware in order to run it or continually improve your software with costly upgrades.
It’s also completely customisable, so the system can work with any existing systems starting from the very first day. Plus, it’s completely intuitive and simple to use for managers and employees alike.
It features a clear, intuitive dashboard that allows managers to input work schedules, make any changes on the fly, and access the data they need instantly and accurately. It requires minimal training and can be operational within just a few days.
Plus, the customer support available from Advance Systems is among the best in the industry. All of the training assistance, you need to get your organisation on board is provided within the cost of your system. Advanced Systems provides the answers your organisation needs to overcome objections and convince your managers and workforce that the new time and attendance system benefits both the organisation as a whole and the individual employee.