Employee tracking systems

Advancements in technology have meant that businesses have significantly improved the efficiency of numerous systems, one being employee tracking. More recently, multimedia kiosks have been used as part of the employee tracking process – as it offers several advantages over traditional “clock in” systems.

Employee punctuality and attendance can be an issue in some businesses so an interactive signing in system could help. There are number of methods that interactive signing in systems identify staff, finger prints, hand prints or facial recognition are the most popular.

Historically, matters such as punctuality and attendance were measured by paper based systems, where an individual would enter their attendance card which was hole punched with the time on the attached clock. The difficulty with a system such as this, is that it is slow; often employees would have to form a queue to clock in. The cards themselves were subject to damage which can lead to loss of information and inaccuracies, as well increased costs with replacement parts.

Multimedia clocking in systems include cloud based tracking. Which works by using digital clocking in terminals that use fingerprint and/or facial recognition software to accurately note which employee has clocked in. Cloud based tracking allows you to track employees across multiple sites from one central location, which means that it requires only one HR team to monitor the staff. These systems collect and process data in real time, eliminating the laborious manual listings. Many cloud based systems organise holidays, sickness and overtime in one smart program.

Following the clocking in patterns of employees, HR departments can accurately determine the workload that each individual/team undergoes which in turn can influence decisions such as workload planning, staff rotation and more.
There are additional benefits to multimedia clocking in systems, the main being additional security. As staff can only access sites with their biological prints; no unauthorised individuals can enter the premises. Additionally, no members of staff can fool management, by clocking each other in or out to gain hours.

This can all help HR departments, firstly by reducing the processing times required by manual systems; meaning more time is free to improve other aspects of the business. Inaccuracies of attendance and punctuality are severely reduced, almost eliminated. Finally, the costs of overheads are significantly reduced, no replacement cards are needed and there are no machines vulnerable to damage.

Overall, this will allow HR to perform more accurately, more efficiently and therefore the department and business will become more cost effective.

About the author:

Hashim Pervase is an expert in digital signage and multimedia displays, working closely with partners within the HR industry. Now part of Andesign Digital Signage, a firm who specialise in digital outdoor displays and multimedia kiosks to SME’s across the UK.