Time and Attendance Software, on it's own, is almost pointless! Or is it?

Simply recording who started and ended work at a specific time is great for creating a timesheet and paying your staff, but it really is missing a GREAT OPPORTUNITY!

By simply adding the ability to 'see' who is working when, what they are doing and when they will be doing it, you can start to work on capacity planning and scheduling. Without this, you are simply recording what you did, after the event.

In other words, to be effective, you need BOTH T&A Software and a Planning/Scheduling Tool. Ideally the two should talk to each other seamlessly, but at the very least they need to exchange data. You can then plan (long term capacity planning), schedule (short term allocation of resources to work, maybe based on skills/roles/locations, etc.) and then record actuals live.

You also want to be able to interact with your staff in advance of events, as well as collect data as it happens and use it after events for reporting, analysis, variance reports and, of course, timesheets.

T&A software can be very low cost nowadays, in fact we do a standalone version from ￡1 per month, but my experience (owning a 140 agent Call Centre for 18 years) shows the significant added value you can gain from linking T&A to Planning/Scheduling, in fact, I'd go so far as to say, I would never run the two as standalone functions. I'd rather use paper! Wow, I said it. Lol.

To find out why you should have T&A, go to www.chekr.co.uk

To find out more about Resource Planning & Scheduling, go to www.planningmadeeasy.co.uk