How can you find the most accurate time and attendance tracking system for your business?

Assessing time tracking and attendance needs are the very first step. Businesses requiring screen monitoring might consider Hubstaff or Monitask, whereas businesses requiring simple time tracking functionality might consider Harvest or Clockify. Beyond the core features provided by various time tracking software, be sure to consider the integrations and API that your prospective solution offers. Without the ability to take your time tracking data and relate it to other data in your business, your time data will be left uncontextualized. Be sure your solution meets your business intelligence needs so you can unlock the insights you're missing, the very insights that may have driven you to look for a time tracking software to begin with.

I would never recommend tracking and monitoring your employees to such a degree. The middle managers overseeing their teams should be the ones overseeing their movements where necessary. I find something so problematic with tracking your employees' movements in this way; it's akin to putting an ankle monitor on them. If you don't trust your employees to the point where you need to monitor their every move, then you have a leadership, employee experience, and values problem, not an employee performance problem.

To find the most accurate time and attendance tracking system, assess your business needs, such as remote work capabilities or integration with payroll systems. Research different options, considering features like biometric verification, GPS tracking, and customizable reporting. Request demos and trial periods to test accuracy and usability. Read reviews and seek recommendations from similar businesses. Ensure the system complies with relevant regulations and offers reliable customer support. Choose a scalable solution that aligns with your budget and long-term business goals.

The answer varies so much across companies and across roles. For high-functioning, output oriented or high travel roles such as in consulting or sales heads this is quite hard to do and may not add much value. For service operations like call centre operations, this is an absolute must. Most offices will be in-between where you have some basic tracking. Having no tracking could create a slippery slope which is to be avoided. In my experience, manage-by-exception works better than manage-by-rule. Ie., identifying outliers who often skip work without leave or those who put in very short hours regularly and correcting the worst behaviour rather than every deviation.

Again depends on the use case. In service operations where man-hours matter, linking attendance and leave management as well as payroll is a must. There may be a step or two in the middle that is needed - with reminders, exception management, warnings, etc. Have seen great success with basic leaderboards that name/shame the best and worst to bring in an element of self-correction in case of bad behaviour.

Best answer is to link your attendance to your access control system. It's painless and no extra addition. We use spintly which allows you to tap your phone to enter rather than a separate card. Unfortunately, this ecosystem is quite as most are closed and don't easily link to leave management or payroll systems. Some app based answers also exist. The key here is to make this intuitive and respectful. Many solutions like taking pictures for attendance or tracking camera/ keystrokes is not seen as either and is likely to be rejected.