Mechanical time clocks, like so many other aspects of the traditional workplace, are fast becoming a thing of the past. Punching cards only works well for on-site workers, and recording employee attendance on paper to be hand-keyed into a payroll system later has its pitfalls. If your company hasn’t switched to using an online time clock yet, it’s time you considered it.
Using an online time clock makes it easy to accommodate employees who work on customer sites, from home, or otherwise remotely. It helps cut down on the potential for human error in recording employee attendance, and can help your company stay in compliance with increasingly complex labor regulations.
Online time clocks can be used to manage the attendance of both hourly and salaried employees, and can even save you money.
1. Make Keeping Track of Remote Workers a Breeze
These days, more and more employees want to work remotely, whether it’s from home, from a customer’s location, or from a work site located in another state or country. Offering employees the option to work remotely helps you stay competitive in an environment where employees are more likely than ever to pick up and move to another company if they’re not happy with their current employer. There’s just one problem, and it’s this: remote workers can’t punch in to a stationary time clock located at the main office.
Online time clocks solve the problem of tracking employee attendance from afar. Employees can
punch in from their own PC or other mobile device. You can even use the online time clock to track the time employees spend by customer or project, in real time, so you can provide accurate invoices to customers, among other things.
2. Reduce the Potential for Human Error
According to Frontline Technologies blogger Allison Wert, online timekeeping is a more accurate and foolproof way to track employee attendance. There’s a lot that can go wrong with paper timekeeping, including:
- Timesheets or cards can get lost
- Employees may forget to punch in or out
- Employees may accidentally go into overtime
- Recordkeeping can be cumbersome
- It can challenging to match up hours worked with time missed
Tracking employee attendance through paper timesheets or a mechanical time clock means that someone somewhere has to enter employee hours into attendance software by hand, and there’s a lot of room for mistakes in that process. Online time clocks reduce or eliminate human errors.
3. Stay in Compliance With Complex Regulations
Employers today have to consider a growing number of employer regulations, including the ACA, the FMLA, and the FLSA. In order to stay in compliance with these and other regulations, you need to keep accurate records of employee attendance and overtime. An online time clock is the best way to do this. The last thing you want is to get caught not adhering to labor regulations, even if the oversight occurred by accident.
4. Save Money
Many employers resist switching to online time clocks because they seem like an unnecessary expense. But using an online time clock can actually save your business money. That’s because they:
- Reduce payroll errors that could result in overpayment
- Prevent unnecessary overtime
- Save paper
- Eliminate time wasted tracking down and approving timesheets
Online time clocks also save your company from having to pay fines associated with labor regulation noncompliance, and protect you from lawsuits related to the same.
5. Manage Salaried and Hourly Employee Attendance
Many employers feel that online time clocks — or time clocks in general — are only necessary for tracking the attendance of hourly employees. That makes sense; hourly employees get paid according to how much time they put into the company. But you can use an online time clock to manage salaried employees’ attendance, too.
Why do you need to keep track of your salaried employees’ attendance? You’ll want to make sure employees are working the hours they agreed to in their contracts, and you’ll want to reward those employees who may be putting in extra hours to help your company succeed. You’ll need to track hours for ACA compliance. You may even want to be able to see who is physically present in the building in case of an emergency.
If you’re looking for a better way to track employee attendance, consider switching to an online time clock. Online time clocks offer the flexibility a modern company needs, and streamline the process of tracking employee attendance for regulatory and payroll purposes. An online time clock could be the
best change you’ve ever made for your business.