Employee attendance is a term that is self-explanatory. It involves marking the presence of employees at work, tracking the hours they insert per day, and tracking their clocking-in and clocking-out times.
The Past
Ashok is a 40-something-year-old ex-entrepreneur looking to switch paths; he is about to be inaugurated in a significant leadership role in a new company. Even though he is not old enough to be considered ‘old,’ he is still ignorant and unknowing of the latest technologies that have been incorporated into company workflows to make certain factors easier to measure and track.
After weeks on the job, Ashok coordinated with his job role and the goals and objectives assigned to him. He could successfully utilize most of his entrepreneurial mindset and way of thinking to grasp everything around him, from the onboarding process to the frameworks, to everything that impacts his work role, and that is essential for him to understand.
Ashok could not understand one thing, however – which was attendance monitoring. Ashok came from a generation when you had to use punch clocks and time sheets to mark your own attendance. But since then, HRM systems have evolved, exceeding Ashok’s expectations. As he was not well aware of how organizations are using attendance management systems to monitor employee attendance, he was quite confused. Fortunately, he had his co-workers to help him understand the attendance tracking methods.
Different Methods of Attendance Management Systems
Several mechanisms exist that allow employers to track their employees’ attendance easily out of the options that already exist; the most important and popular ones are attendance management through apps, websites, and biometrics. These mechanisms, as different as they are, shine in their own ways.
Biometric Attendance Management
The usage of biometrics, while it isn’t necessarily new, it isn’t old. Biometrics is an onsite way of marking attendance and is extremely infallible compared to the other methods. It provides accurate information which isn’t faulty and can, like other methods, sync with a database to provide data that can show attendance over a large time period. It allows for authorized, physical, and efficient attendance marking. Out of all the methods, Ashok is the most likely to use this one.
Website Attendance Management
Using a website to mark your attendance for a professional job is the last thing Ashok thought he would witness in his lifetime. Despite being inferior to the app attendance management, using a website allows for an easier, more navigable UI and a better UX. Websites also work on every platform, no matter where you are. However, some features like location and the reminders that come with the app counterpart cause it to be slightly worse. Website attendance management also opens up opportunities for managers to mark attendance for their employees and can be seen in platforms such as Zimyo HR Software.
Mobile App Attendance Management
The utilization of an app to measure and track clock in and out times is one of the most efficient ways when it comes to attendance management. Applications exist in the market that comes with geotags, allowing for the location-based clock-in and clock-out times. One such product, Zimyo, offers the same geotag mechanism. With reminders and notations to tell you to clock in, it accurately displays the amount of time you spend working and is efficient. Ashok found this method the easiest because of the remote attendance system. Here are some other methods of mobile app attendance that Ashok learned about.
Geo-tagging Mobile Attendance:
It allows for attendance to be marked with location kept in mind. The employee can clock in and out regardless of where they are.
Geo-fencing attendance tracking:
It is similar to geo-tagging, but with a radius outside of which clocking in and out is not allowed, to allow employees to be present in a certain geographical area.
Selfie Attendance:
A unique system in which AI algorithms allow for selfies taken by employees to count towards their clock-in and out time, allowing for ease of access and quick attendance.​
The Present
Since Ashok was introduced to these systems, being able to track his employee’s attendance and understanding certain trends has become easy. For example, now Ashok can know when his employees are working remotely, and he can contact them to know why because of the geotagging technology. The mechanisms have made analyzing and marking attendance easier for Ashok, and using the same tools might just become easier for you, too.
