Top 5 Reasons Small Businesses Move to Automated Timekeeping

Small business owners benefit with timekeeping
Avatar photo

WorkforceHub

HR tech that powers small businesses. Get in, get the job done and keep your business moving with an easy to use solution for time, HR and benefits.

Small businesses have been called the backbone of the economy making up 99.7% of US employer firms (according to SBA.gov).

But, what is the backbone of small business?

Customers?

Employees?

A good business plan?

Technology?

Would it surprise you to learn that “systems” are actually considered to be the backbone of small business success?

But,

What are systems?  

The Box Theory Group has defined a system as “a procedure, process, method, or course of action designed to achieve a specific result.”

Forbes stated that a “system is a method of solving a repeated business issue in a strategic and effortless way.” They make working smarter, not harder possible.

Small business owners understand the importance of systems. Check out how your small business can utilize systems to maximize the effectiveness of your human resource and payroll departments.

1. To Use A Timekeeping System For Recording Employee Hours Accurately

The process of tracking employee time can become quite a slow, inaccurate, and inefficient task. Employees record their hours, forgetting sometimes, guessing other times. After a day at work, employees often forget the exact times they showed up at work and round up other times. Once the timecards are complete, payroll starts inputting in the hours.

Missing time? Bad handwriting? Questions? Well, then your payroll employees must stop their tasks, call the employee, and obtain the missing information. Even the process of inputting in the employees’ hours takes time.

Now, consider how an automated timekeeping system can solve all these inefficiencies. First, employee hours are based on when they clock in and out. The system notifies an employee or manager when an employee forgets to clock in. The information integrates seamlessly with payroll software saving a small business an average of 4.5 hours in processing (for an employer with 20 employees).

2. Because Multiple Clock Options Help Small Businesses Choose the Best System For Each Situation

This means that each small business can choose the right system for them.

In other words, multiple time clocks make it possible to customize according to each SMB’s needs.

Employers can choose a customized web-portal that allows employees to log in on all workstations. This avoids lines at timekeeping stations.

Or, they can choose proxy card time clocks, or scanning time clocks, both of which make time theft and buddy punching a historic, instead of an ongoing, event.

And, small employers with remote employees can offer time tracking to those employees also.

Regardless of your business industry or size, there is an ideal timekeeping system for your business!

3. To Streamline Absence Management

When a small business utilizes an absence management system, data is immediately available. Traditional timekeeping makes it difficult to track patterns for late and absent employees.

An absence management system allows managers to see patterns in late or absent employees.

Review absences over a long period of time to discover regular offenders.

In addition, an absence management system stores data long term. This is vital for a myriad of reasons including enforcing absence policies, reporting data in employee disputes, and tracking this information for leave, including FMLA and other required leave of absences.

4. To Combine Absence Management With A Scheduling System To Solve For Unscheduled Absences

An absence management system that is combined with a scheduling system allows managers to quickly fill in for unexpected absences.

Check this out:

Mike just got a call that Carly won’t make it in for her shift today due to an emergency. Unfortunately, it’s only 2 hours before the shift is scheduled to start and today is forecasted to be a super busy day.

Fortunately, Mike gets onto his scheduling system to mark Carly as absent and the software automatically reviews all his other employees. Carly’s shift requires specific skills.

Based on various factors, such as, skill set, availability, and overtime tracking, the system recommends the employees that are best suited to fill in for Carly’s shift.

This means that Mike doesn’t spend the next 2 hours calling employees to get a substitute. It means that Bill, who requested extra hours for the week, shows up as available. It also means that Susan, who accepts every call to come in for an extra shift doesn’t get called. That’s because Susan’s hours would go into overtime in the middle of the shift.

Without an absence management and scheduling system, Mike would probably call Susan out of convenience sake. He wouldn’t realize until after the fact, that Susan is owed overtime pay.

Fortunately, instead, Bill gets the call and is pleased with the extra hours. Mike is pleased also. He pays Bill a full hourly wage, but not a premium pay and he is quickly back to working on the things he needs to get done. 

5. Because An Automated Timekeeping System Can Improve Health and Safety

An automated timekeeping system can have a profound effect on the health and safety of employees. Specific professions have time limitations on the maximum number of working hours in a shift. Additionally, employees may be required to have a specific number of hours off between shifts. This is applicable to specific jobs and to specific cities and states.

Examples of jobs that place shift restrictions are truck drivers and pilots. Truck drivers can drive a maximum of 11 hours after receiving at least 10 hours off duty. That time is reduced to 10 hours if the driver only has 8 hours off duty.

Furthermore, pilots must be provided at least 8 consecutive hours of rest in a rolling 24 hours period.

Other professions such as certain medical professions also have requirements around shift lengths and recovery periods.

Additionally, many cities and Oregon, require a minimum number of hours between the closing of one shift and the beginning of the next shift the employee is scheduled for.

Lastly, employees who take an adjusted schedule for FMLA or other types of leaves may have a restricted schedule. Without a system in place, it can be easy to miss these rules and regulations. This means fines, penalties and sometimes bad press for employees.

Fortunately, a timekeeping system automates the process of scheduling to ensure that all the guidelines, employee needs, and governing rules and regulations are followed.

6. To Use a Time Tracking System To Easily Comply with Regulation Requirements

Yes there are more than 5 reasons. There are even more than 6 reasons, but I’ll stop here:

Although briefly covered above, a timekeeping system helps your company to stay compliant. A good timekeeping system will help you with compliance with secure scheduling laws which require employers to receive and attempt to honor employee scheduling requests. Employees can submit requests.

Employers can set parameters to keep employees in the required hour limitations, rest requirements and more. In addition, all these records, including results, approvals, employee schedules and more are documented in the system.

This allows employers to defend themselves when challenged with non-compliance. Nearly all employment laws assume employer guilt unless the employer can disprove the claim.

Let SwipeClock Help

As a small business. you are most effective if you put in place the best systems for success. An automated scheduling and timekeeping system means that you don’t have to spend days and weeks managing payroll, time off, and employee schedules.

It also means that you can rest assured that your documents are being retained and won’t get lost or misplaced. It means notifications if an employee’s schedule is going to go against the guidelines required.

Plus, it also means that you can fairly distribute leave to employees and track it accurately. 

In other words,  small and medium-sized businesses have to also comply with Federal Overtime Laws, the Family Medical Leave Act and any other national or local laws that are enacted. SwipeClock provides a comprehensive array of workforce management and time tracking tools that can help businesses to more easily stay in compliance with local and national laws.

Records are effortlessly kept for years and accrual is automatically tracked and reported to employees according to the state and city laws. Additionally, with geo-timekeeping clocks, businesses can effortlessly track time worked in specific cities to ensure compliance.

Resources

SBA

Forbes

Written by Annemaria Duran. Last updated on April 3, 2018

Simplify HR management today.

Simplify HR management today.

Employee Time Clocks for Small Business: The All-Encompassing Guide

February 27, 2024
Posted in , ,

Updated February 28, 2024 Tracking employee time is a vital aspect of managing a workforce properly. But knowing which type of clock to use or how to maintain the essential data can be challenging, especially for small business owners who are handling a long list of other tasks. Check out our guide to types of…

Read More

7 Tips to Reduce Workplace Stress

January 4, 2024
Posted in , ,

Considering that the average American worker will spend over 90,000 hours at work during their lifetime, it makes sense that employment is a significant aspect of life. Work can feel like a barometer for other aspects of a personā€™s lifestyle, whether theyā€™re spending a lot of time commuting or handling extra tasks during shifts. But…

Read More
brand-workforce-shower

WorkforceHub takes care of business.

Weā€™ll show you how.

Request a Demo - Footer Form

Looking for help? Please click here.

brand - dots