Easing Employees Into Time Tracking

If your employees are unaccustomed to clocking in and out, delivering the news that your company will begin officially tracking their time may be met with mixed emotions. It’s not uncommon for employees to express concern about being required to clock in and out. Usually, these fears are unfounded, and the sooner they know that, the better.

In reality, time tracking provides employees with numerous benefits and actually works in their interest. It’s important to de-escalate the concerns employees express as quickly as possible by establishing the facts about time tracking.

Explain the limits of time tracking

Advanced technology now allows for tracking employee time at any worksite, whether it be in the field or in the office. This is typically accomplished through the installation of a smartphone application equipped with built-in GPS tracking. Understandably, once an employee learns that they are expected to work under a system that discloses their GPS location, apprehensions can arise. However, it’s important to explain the limits of this technology.

For instance, the FingerCheck Mobile App only captures the GPS location of a site where a punch is made. The employee is not tracked throughout the day, and their locations are not tracked — only the site of the punch is captured. Additionally, employees are only expected to clock in and out when they start and stop work. This is in the interest of keeping accurate records and paying employees what they are due.

Express the need for implementing a professional system

To ensure you’re running a business that is fully compliant with the law, it’s just good sense to enforce a policy of clocking in and out. As an employer, federal law requires you to keep accurate records of time worked. If you fail to do this, the consequences may be dire.

Not only will time tracking to protect your business in the case of a wage and hour lawsuit or DOL investigation, but it also benefits your employees by providing them with an infallible system that records their time worked. No time approximations, no checking in with their supervisor to make sure their hours are being counted correctly, no guesswork involved. This can help settle disputes about time worked and creates a reliable and accountable company culture.

Address privacy concerns

Separating fact from fiction is key in de-escalating privacy concerns. In the spirit of being proactive, do some prep work before breaking the news to your employees. Familiarize yourself with how the system works, asking as many questions as necessary in order to get a firm grasp on how your employees will be using the system, and the extent to which employees will be required to provide personal information.  For instance, FingerCheck’s biometric time clocks are equipped with fingerprint technology. When employees learn that they will be required to enroll their fingerprint to clock in and out, suspicions arise.

However, our biometric scanners never store fingerprint images; instead, they create unique binary code for each fingerprint based on the employee’s pattern of ridges and valleys. This binary code is impossible to duplicate, decrypt, or reconvert to an image, and since fingerprints aren’t actually saved, they can never be shared with law enforcement or government agencies. Learning how your technology operates and communicating the security benchmarks in place to restrict intrusion can help to diminish privacy concerns.

Explain that not much will change

Clocking in and out isn’t difficult, but it requires forming a new habit. Instruct employees to begin clocking in and out when they start and stop work, and go over their methods for doing so. FingerCheck provides several easy and intuitive ways employees can clock in and out, including online, using a biometric time clock, their smartphone, and even Twitter and Text.

The focus of work should still be work, so clocking in and out should be a minimal part of their daily routine. Reassure your employees that the habit will soon enough become engrained, and only take a second. The payoff of using an automated time and attendance system is that they’ll never be gypped of pay due to accurate timesheets.  Unless your time and attendance system seriously infringes on your employee’s right to personal privacy, most employee concerns can be alleviated very easily, and employees will see the benefits of clocking in and out.