Employee tracking provides accurate logging of employee hours, giving smarter insights not only into projected labor costs but also into employee efficiency and productivity. Accurate employee hours allow employers to generate more accurate payroll numbers to ensure each employee gets paid according to the total hours rendered. Also, accurately tracking employee hours enable employers to comply to employment laws. But how can business owners accurately track employee hours?
In this article, you’ll learn the best ways to track employee hours online to help you make the best decision that will bring forth maximum benefits to your business and your employees.
What Does Employee Hours Online Tracking Means?
You can now accurately track employee hours using web-based online tools, apps, and software programs, such as a time duration calculator, GPS employee tracker, biometrics, and internet browser tracking.
These tools are often integrated with payroll and employee management tools to ensure that employees get paid on time. Investing in these tools provides promising financial benefits for businesses because of cost-effective scheduling decisions.
Ways to Track Employee Hours Online
Take a look at the best ways to track your employees’ hours online by reading below:
1. Spreadsheet Manual Entering of Employee Hours
There are still employers who prefer manually entering employee hours on spreadsheets, most especially small and medium-sized businesses. These companies are not yet ready to migrate to an online system or the cloud. While this method may work best for them, it usually requires workarounds when interacting with other businesses and government authorities.
2. Using Wall-Mounted Card Swipes
These are the updated version of punch card systems. Traditional time keeping involves punching timecards. With wall-mounted car swiping, employees use their IDs to clock in and out, and the data is automatically transferred to a computer so employee hours are calculated for payroll employee attendance.
3. GPS Tracking or Geofencing
Choose this employee tracking tool to get more accurate data as to the number of hours an employee works than you would get with a simple mobile application.
Here are the important things to know about GPS tracking or geofencing:
- Setting up a geofence around your job sites is made possible with GPS tracking.
- The mobile time clock application sends notifications to employees upon arrival on the job site to clock in and to clock out if they need to leave the job site.
- GPS tracking allows you to see where your field employees go during the day, verifying time on-site and en routes.
- GPS and geofencing employee tracking usually require an upgraded software version of mobile device. So, it’s important to weight the benefits and hardware and software costs before you settle using it.
These are more sophisticated means of tracking your employees’ activities during work hours than the previous options.
4. Browser Plug-in Tracking and URL Tracking
Employees who work heavily in front of computers, such as office workers and customer care representatives, can use this tool to track hours. Online timers and browser plug-ins are useful in determining total log time spent for a particular client or project.
Browser plugin and URL tracking bring plenty of benefits, including the following:
- Ensure that employees are getting paid doing their job and not visiting social networking or shopping sites to increase productivity in the workplace.
- Employers can restrict employees from browsing websites not related to the job or inappropriate content, such as pornographic sites, using the online tool’s URL-blocking feature.
- Employers can take screenshots during work hours to track employee activities too. These reports can be shared with employees to help them make smarter decisions as to how to effectively and efficiently use their work time.
This option is also easy to implement as it simply involves your employees adding a plugin to their computer, rather than you as the employer having to implement more personalized or physical means of tracking.
5. Investing in Cloud-Hosted Software
Today is the height of digital experience monitoring because of the current health crisis the world is facing. So, it’s the perfect time to migrate to cloud-based systems. Cloud-based employee tracking systems provide effective solutions to easily enter hours and quickly route time for approvals. With cloud-based systems, employee hours can be easily tracked to resolve regulatory issues and ensure accurate employee pay.
In the past, companies spend much on hardware costs just to obtain accurate attendance records. But labor costs were still high due to various system loopholes. With cloud-hosted software programs, employers gain peace of mind knowing that their labor expenses are worth paying because of accurate data tracking.
6. Biometrics
Large corporations use more advanced technologies, such as using retina and fingerprint scans, to keep their company secure. In addition to employee time tracking, biometric data have become essential requirement for companies needing to control access across different departments, buildings, and branches.
How to Choose the Right Employee Tracking System for You
When choosing the best employee tracking system for your company, here are some tips you can apply:
1. Determine Your Readiness
While you’re fully aware of the benefits of cloud-based employee hours tracking systems, your employees might not be ready to migrate yet. It is best to take introduce changes gradually by holding trials and demos.
2. Consider Your Budget
Budgeting is crucial when applying new technologies in your business because reliable software programs and applications usually come with expensive price tag. Before you start searching for the right system to track employee hours, you have to set your budget without compromising your production or operational budget.
3. Check the Features And Benefits
It is important to take into account the employee tracking system’s features and benefits to fully maximize its use. You might not need all the bells and whistles and just prefer a simple and easy-to-use system for your small or medium-sized business.
If you have a large company, it’s paramount to carry out more stringent features of tracking employee hours, given the large number of employees you have to manage. Take a look at the following important features and benefits of the best employee and productivity tracking systems available nowadays:
- Straightforward Cloud Migration: It involves automated data transfer and seamless system integration.
- Highly Secure: Encrypted and password protected employee tracking systems hosted by highly secured servers.
- User-Friendly Navigation Interface: Look for a system with easy-to-use menu, controls, and settings for office or field employee tracking.
Conclusion
You have just learned the different ways to track employee hours. If you’re still starting, you might want to use less complex and more affordable tracking system and then shift to a cloud and other advanced system later on. Choosing the right system for you includes preparing your employees for system changes, considering your budget, and taking into account the features and benefits they provide.