Practicing human resource management has evolved drastically over time. The world of business as we know it is changing as the world comes out of one of the most defining times for businesses, both small and large. The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that digital transformation is crucial to business development.
Accordingly, companies are finding ways to adapt. One type of HR software that companies should start deploying as the world shifts to automated and more productive setup is a cloud-based attendance management system. Time and attendance software is on track to becoming one of the most highly used HR management tools, poised to make up to $2.56 billion in revenues in 2024.
But what are attendance management software solutions and why are they beneficial for businesses?
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Why Attendance Management Matters
An attendance management system is software that helps track, monitor, and manage company attendance. For companies dealing with Contractual or distributed workforce, attendance management directly helps boost workforce productivity and plug attendance related leakages if any.
An attendance management tool can help an HR professional or business owner do any of the following:
- Manage team clock in and clock out
- Track leaves and absences
- Automate shift scheduling
- Payroll integration
- Analytics and reporting
- Attendance compliance automation
- Boost workforce productivity
- And so many more
So why would a company need an attendance management system for their team? Here are a few of the most convincing benefits of having an attendance management system for your team.
5 Benefits of Attendance Management System
1. More efficiency
Having an attendance management system is efficient for both your team and your managers. Countless HR managers spend several hours a week manually creating shift rosters, tracking absences and leaves, and managing worker attendance.
With attendance management solutions, you can automate and streamline activities like shift scheduling, absence tracking, and many more. Efficiency also improves for your employees as it will now become easier to apply for leaves, track their schedules, and report any attendance issues.
This works for both online and offline teams as cloud-based software can also be geotagged so that team members can only clock in when they’re in the vicinity of their office or place of work.
2. Less effort
With more efficiency comes lesser effort to maintain and comply with attendance management protocols. Imagine this scenario— HR people had to manually check Bundy clock punch in cards daily and then manually compute salaries.
Now, with an online employee attendance app, people can clock in on the cloud, and then managers can access analytics dashboards that summarize work hours and absences so admins will have an easier time calculating salaries.
Many attendance management applications integrate seamlessly with payroll software so HR departments can spend less time calculating salaries and more time disbursing them promptly. This use-case is one of the many ways team attendance tracking software helps teams.
It can also lessen the effort spent creating attendance reports for evaluations, shift scheduling, leave tracking, and many other aspects of attendance monitoring.
3. More results
Now that HR managers and business owners spend less time on administrative tasks related to attendance management, they can spend more time on high-level tasks that bring more results, like networking, product development, employee engagement activities, marketing, and so on.
We’re coming into a time when work culture will matter more than ever before. Human resource managers will have to spend more time and energy creating ways to build a strong work culture. Reserving their time for that can now be possible if they automate other parts of their HR tasks like attendance management so they can drive needed results for the team as a whole.
4. Happier staff
Higher workplace engagement brings about up to 41% less incidences of absenteeism and up to 21% more profit. So focusing on happiness in the workplace doesn’t just benefit the staff. It also benefits the company.
Attendance management software can also have a direct impact on employee happiness. For one, leaves will be honored faster given that these tools automate many of the notification and approval tasks involved in leave management.
When there is a single unified system, it is easy to manage massive records and there is no need for manual reconciliations.
5. Healthier staff
Companies should also start viewing employee engagement as a goal and not just a means to more profit too. So healthy staff is a great goal or benefit to achieve with attendance management. Overwork is one of the leading causes of workplace burnout, a phenomenon that costs the U.S. industry alone over $300 billion annually.
Businesses and managers have a responsibility of protecting their staff members’ workplace health, in both physiological and psychological terms. Attendance management is a part of that process—checking who among staff members are overworked and addressing accordingly by lessening their workload or giving them time off.
3 Considerations When Choosing A Time & Attendance Management System
Having an online attendance management system can bring all kinds of benefits to your team. So how does one select and set up an HR software for attendance management? Here are some considerations you should have when choosing the best leave management system for your team or company.
1. Automation
The first consideration to keep in mind with your time and attendance management system is the available automation it provides. You want something that has the most automation available. The goal of a software solution is to make your or your team’s lives easier.
Automations can do that by removing manual tasks and setting up alerts and notifications so you and your team can take your mind off the repetitive parts of human resource management and focus more on things like:
- Coaching
- Employee evaluations
- Team building
- Team development
- Hiring and recruitment
2. Features
The next thing you need to look out for is the features that are necessary for your context. Not all systems are built equally, and not all companies need the same kinds of features. Each HR software solution is unique and has other selling points. So you want to be sure that you’re doing all the research necessary to find out which solution fits your context best.
Make a list of tasks you want to automate in attendance management systems, turn it into a checklist, and start looking for solutions that provide those features. Here’s a list of features of HR software that you can check out to build that list.
Also, consider what kind of team setup you have. If you have an onsite team, for example, then you might need a biometric attendance management system.
3. Ease of Use
The last consideration in choosing your attendance management system is the ease of use. Is the software easy for your managers to access and use? Moreover, is it easier for the rest of the team to use? Select a system that has a user experience that fits your team best.
For teams with lesser tech-savvy members, you might want to choose an app that’s straightforward and has lesser functions. Every team will have its own set of preferences. You can also choose a solution that allows for more white labeling so that the software will match more with the company’s identity and give users a higher sense of ownership.
HR in the Future
Human resource management is undoubtedly changing. So HR practitioners should start adapting to these changes and looking more frequently into automation and digital solutions. As times change, that adaptability will allow you to stay relevant, competitive, and progressive as a professional and as an organization.
