The Key Benefits of a Time Clock System

Benefits of using a time clock system in a small business

For small businesses, implementing the use of an automated time clock system can offer more clarity to both employees and managers. With the right system, there is more opportunity for monitoring your employees’ overall productivity and improving communications between employees and management. Below, we’ll look at how a time clock system can really achieve all of this for your small business.

Save your employees time

It is important to make your employees aware of the advantages of implementing time clock systems and how they should be used for betterment of their own performance. Be sure to explain the benefits of a time clock to employees in detail and answer any queries they may have, especially if this will be a new way of working for many. It is important to keep in mind that some may feel threatened by this management approach and may view it as overbearing. Starting with the direct benefits to the employees is therefore a sensible approach.

If your business has been previously using manual time sheets, you and your employees will find that moving to an electronic time clock system is a much faster and easier method that saves time and reduces costly errors.

Manual timesheets are part of the “unnecessary admin” that 22% of employees say they waste time on each week. Instead of burdening employees with the responsibility of remembering and logging their own hours, a time clock system allows working hours to be recorded automatically.

Save management effort and make payroll a breeze

This ensures that employees receive accurate pay for the time they have worked and with a log of this, it makes it easier for employers to monitor. The costs of “time theft” and “wage theft” to employers and employees are mitigated. Easily forgettable absences, like short trips out of the office, may not come to mind when an employee sits down on Friday to do their timesheet. But if a system has tracked this, then the correct level of compensation can be provided.

Findmyshift can even automatically populate payroll data and predictions using time clock and scheduled shift times. This allows managers to use your costs in real time and predict future expenses based on the shifts you have planned.

More accurate scheduling

If your business’s workload fluctuates on a daily basis, such as a restaurant which may have busy and quiet evenings, it’s not uncommon for employee shifts to finish at different times than scheduled. Manually keeping track of these times can be a hassle, especially when you’re fighting fires in the midst of a hectic evening! But with time clocks automatically recording when employees leave at the end of the shift, you may be able to spot trends in the data and adjust your expected shift times to match.

Let’s say you notice that the dinner shift employees are consistently leaving early mid-week. Perhaps you’re not getting the business you’d expect on these days and you can adjust those shifts to have an earlier finish time. Having greater clarity on when you’ll actually need your employees there will please both management and your workers themselves—no one wants to be hanging around with nothing to do or to get home far later than expected.

Monitor employee check-in behaviour

By using a time clock system, you will be able to monitor who has signed in and is present in your workplace, giving you a real-time headcount and preventing issues like “buddy punching”, where employees clock in on behalf of their absent colleagues. The frequency of buddy punching is nearly 20% and accounts for approximately 2% of payroll.

Being able to monitor issues with employee attendance and have the data to back up your claims will make discussion on the topic far calmer. It’s much easier to avoid being accusing if you have the exact times an employee has been clocking in or out as evidence or can show that they’ve been buddy punching.

Increase employee confidence by rewarding good and hard work

With the use of a simple time clock system, employees will have increased confidence that their hard work will be rewarded. There is the automatic acknowledgement of the system that tracks their hours worked, and managers can take this data to reward those who are going above and beyond. Furthermore, the system will be able to prevent any unfair practices, as outlined above, and employees who do play by the book will feel your workplace is just. If they have committed and worked hard, they know they will be rewarded fairly.

When talking with employees about any time clock system, make it clear that with these measures, good work will be acknowledged and rewarded. Employees will feel more reassured by the time clock system if they are eased into its use and sold on the long term benefits it will have for the company and those working hard for it.


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