How Companies Are Tracking Employee Time Sheets

If you’re one of the thousands of employees who manage their time using timesheets, you’re probably aware of how arduous it can be to account for every minute of your workday. While time tracking may be tedious, timesheets are necessary for all organizations. Almost every profession and sector has valued labor in shifts, hours, and minutes since the creation of the clock. These metrics are made feasible through timesheets.

However, timesheets are no longer limited to recording clock-in and clock-out timings. Throughout time, they have evolved beyond these fundamental indicators to become a critical tool for organizations to track metrics and evaluate data.

Software for employee monitoring

Despite their inaccuracy and slowness, manual methods of tracking employee hours are far from the worst option. This undesirable distinction is bestowed on employee surveillance software. These technologies are intrusive monitoring systems predicated on suspicion and mistrust. They promote the belief that most workers are lazy and indifferent and need supervision to do their jobs. Some are even purpose-built to be invisible to workers from their computer’s list of running apps.

Employee monitoring software employs deceptive techniques to successfully monitor workers’ private activities, such as candid snapshots, mouse and keyboard tracking, and remote device access. It is done for companies to observe in secret if their workers are “working hard or hardly working,” as one software description puts it.

It is an egregious violation of trust and significantly damages employee faith in tracking. If you’re trying to foster an environment of openness, honesty, and psychological safety, monitoring employee hours using a technology that enables surveillance methods is one of the quickest ways to undermine it.

Apps for mobile devices

You may utilize mobile applications to monitor hourly workers’ clock-in and clock-out timings, as well as time spent on specific tasks for salaried or contract personnel. A mobile application is another typical feature included in most scheduling software.

Employees may use their cellphones to access a time clock or timer through a mobile app. If your staff work defined shifts, the app could remind them to check in and out of their shifts and take a break throughout their duty.

If your staff monitor time spent by project or customer, they may use their mobile device to log hours worked and allocate them to the relevant income stream.

Before using a mobile app to monitor employee hours as your primary approach, ensure that all workers have access to a smartphone. If they do not, develop another means for these workers to record their time.

Because work time monitoring applications handle everything automatically, all data is processed in real-time. It enables you to automatically determine the number of hours worked by an employee. If you need more hours to complete a job, you can determine who requires them.

Time clocks for desktops or kiosks

Numerous kinds of time clock software allow workers to clock in and out in various ways. Often, one of such solutions is a desktop or kiosk application.

You may use this software to establish a dedicated clock-in station where workers can enter their time. By designating distinct locations for workers to enter their time, you may expedite the process of time tracking. A desktop time clock is proven to be one of the most effective and simple ways for an employer to monitor their workers.

Typically, setting up this time clock is as simple as downloading an application and issuing workers ID numbers or PINs for clocking in and out. Additionally, these systems often enable you to export employee time data to your payroll solution, which simplifies paying workers.

Hardware is required to configure a PC or kiosk as a time clock station. When selecting this form of a time clock, be careful to take in the cost of a PC, tablet, or kiosk.

Apart from utilizing pen and paper in conjunction with a program like Excel to log employee hours, most of these features are accessible through time clock software. While more traditional ways of tracking employee hours are efficient, time clocks are more precise and need far less maintenance on your side.

These solutions often interface with or export to payroll software, ensuring that your workers are paid on time for the hours worked. And while we’re on the subject of money, investing in time clock software offers financial rewards.