It has been more than a century since the first employee time clock was utilized. Back in the 1890s, using a time clock in factories served two purposes. The punched time cards enabled owners of the factories to keep a track of the time and hence the effort put by the employees. On the other side, it kept the workers from being cheated, as it would keep a record of the number of hours they worked and used this documentation to take their rightful wages from their employers.
Tracking Employee Productivity
Of course, times have changed and there has been an evolution of not only the technology but also in the attitude towards work and professional lives of people. From mechanical punching cards to microprocessor punching cards to the modern biometric attendance tracking systems, employee time tracking and workforce management has come a long way. Back in the good old days, the work environment and the methodology started being increasingly regimented, thus the measurement of the number of hours spent in the office become critical.
Modern Attendance Software
The modern office setup, especially after the technology and dotcom boom in the nineties, places more emphasis on tasks rather than time. The last few years has seen the integration of HR management software with attendance systems, leave management systems and ultimately the payroll systems. Earlier, when the punch card system was there, the biggest loophole was proxy attendance, when one employee used to register attendance for another employee. Biometric attendance systems, to a certain extent, have taken care of that.
HRMS & Time Tracking
The modern-day workplace stresses more on flexibility, and most companies these days offer their employees flexible work timings. Another aspect of the modern-day work environment is the working from home option, as many individuals prefer to balance their work and home life this way. Attendance and leaves are directly related to payroll, and this makes it important for organizations to carefully track and document such information. For startups and SMEs too, it is quite important to track their employees’ attendance and time. HR management software these days offer various options, from integrating the software with the external systems or built-in log in systems.
At sumHR too, after delighting our customers with the intuitive Leave Management System, we are now working on an Attendance Management system that will free our customers from their worries. As the solution is cloud-based, there will not be any hassles about installation or download of time tracking software (more on sumHR Attendance Management in a later blog post).
So what are your views on attendance software, time tracking software, and biometric attendance? Use the comments section below to share your thoughts.
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