It is (relatively) easy to track attendance in a corporate park or branch. How do you handle attendance tracking and compliance when you have dispersed outlets with varying staff strength of ten to fifty employees?
Even large brands have not found the perfect answer. They end up using a mix of methodologies like thumb-based/card-swipe systems in larger stores and some manual registers in smaller ones. Neither are fool-proof and the age-old problem persists even today.
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What are the top retail attendance challenges and their solution?
1. Hardware Installation: Installing a hardware for attendance at every single shop is not practical, especially when the staff strength is not large. Besides, retail chains are always in an expansion mode and installing hardware in all new stores is not a scalable idea.
Solution: Opt for a biometric attendance system that will benefit your retail store, and a solution like Truein face attendance does not require any hardware installation. How face recognition attendance system works? It works on any Android or iOS device.
It can also be configured to work from an employee’s own phone. It is scalable to as many stores as one may need, without any added upfront hardware cost.
2. Remote locations: A lot of retail stores are located in far-off locations, with limited internet access. Most attendance systems require the internet to function and may be redundant in smaller towns.
Solution: Always check if the system you shortlisted works in offline mode. Truein face attendance can work offline and sync data online when the internet comes available. That way, all stores can have a single attendance system. No exceptions!
3. Parallel systems: When attendance systems like the thumb or card don’t work at all times due to non-detection or errors, people start using parallel systems like manual registers. Smaller stores don’t have the infrastructure for maintenance and resort to alternatives. That makes the organization prone to proxies and leakages in the system which add hidden costs.
Solution: Try to use a system that does not allow people to slip through. A face attendance system like Truein works practically hundred percent of all times. Thumb not being recognised or the card getting damaged are not the kind of excuses you hear with face recognition. It simply works, no matter what!
4. Store wise reconciliation: With retail chains using multiple systems across multiple stores, it is often a task to bring it all together at the end of the month and calculate salaries. Not to forget, there are sick leaves, casual leaves, public holidays and other such complexities too. It takes many man hours to sync this data across stores and of course, it can never be foolproof.
Solution: An attendance system backed by solid software can link everything from holidays and leaves to shifts and compliances. Everything flows through just one comprehensive system so you can simply export the reports and disburse remunerations. No manual syncs! Truein makes it possible.
5. No visibility: It is not possible for HR or leadership teams to see what is happening at different outlets on a day-to-day basis. Attendance, compliances and all are left to local teams. Head office comes to know about the attendance percentages only at the end of the month when there is a manual sync. The system is not agile. It is difficult to ensure that rules are complied with.
Solution: It is important to choose a system that syncs data in real-time back to the head office or HR admins. Anybody can see analytics through the web dashboard or on their mobile. Truein brings this power and transparency.
5. Shift management: Retail stores often operate for twelve hours. They have staff working in rotation shifts. Often, separate morning, afternoon and general shift registers are maintained to manually track the shift allocation and attendance. Again, another manual entry which has to be synced and is prone to human error.
Solution: Have it all as part of the attendance system! Shift allocation is technically an extension of attendance and systems like Truein make it possible to link the two. One can allocate shifts in bulk to the entire staff via a simple spreadsheet upload or can do it individually for every staff member.
Retailers can heave a sigh of relief
Finally, there is an attendance system that works in every situation – offline, with shifts, with compliance rules and more. One click enables complete sync and export for next steps like salary disbursement.
Large retailers like PC Jewellers have trusted Truein and have rolled it out to their entire chain in no time – no hardware installation required, after all! When the pandemic posed more challenges to the already existing retail attendance woes, there was only one solution they could reliably depend on – face attendance with no hardware and a solid software.
