Even businesses that use time and attendance software may feel wary of automating related processes. This is especially true when they feel like their operations are too complicated for a software program to complete automatically. Considering how similar many of these systems look, it’s an easy assumption to make.
Despite how it may appear on the surface, time and attendance systems are often very different from each other. Different companies—even within the same industry—often look to different information and data to analyze and confirm their business decisions. That requires time and attendance systems that are specifically tailored to each individual company’s needs.
Here are a couple examples of situations where a business or organization may think their needs are too complex for an automated time and attendance system, but we were able to tailor our solution to their needs.
Accommodate Both Full-time and Temporary Employees
This may be a lot more common than you’d think! There are many businesses that employ both full-time employees and temps for seasonal work. In fact, there’s very little customization we need to do to the Attendance on Demand™ software we use to simplify employee record-keeping and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. Plus, if you have seasonal temp employees that come back, getting them back on your payroll is easy-peasy.
Complex or Nuanced Attendance Policies
We’ve seen some pretty interesting attendance policies over the years! Bonuses for employees with perfect attendance. Donating to charities (for an approved, predetermined amount) to “buy back” an attendance point if they’re tardy. Chances are, if you have it, we’ve seen it.
While many attendance tracking softwares are capable of marking employees as on-time, tardy or absent, that’s often where it ends. It can involve complex back-end programming and customization to apply attendance classifications to accommodate unique internal company policies, but it’s well within our capabilities.
Accommodating Comp Time
Our governmental customers deal with this often. In lieu of overtime pay, comp time allows employees to save their extra worked hours as paid time off, to be used at a later time. The time is calculated based on a predetermined ratio. For example, one hour of overtime could equal 1.5 hours of comp time.
It sounds easy on the surface, but often governmental entities have a lot of nuance depending on departments, job positions, and how many hours constitutes “full time” for an employee. In some cases we’ve seen as many as three to four different comp rates within the same governmental organization. Instead of calculating each employee’s earned comp time, software customizations can calculate and store that information automatically as it happens.
Union & Non-union Workers
Not every industry has one, but labor unions have a long history of influencing work in the US. Usually if an organization has a union, most—if not all—employees are part of that union, but this isn’t always the case. In these circumstances, union and non-union workers at the same company may work for different rates or have different benefits.
As union agreements evolve, there can be dozens of differences for businesses to calculate depending on each employee’s participation or non-participation. Luckily, customizable time and attendance softwares are able to keep up. Once all the initial rules are integrated within the system, it’s relatively easy to tweak those rules as negotiations arise.
Medical Facility Coverage Budgets
This is most common for our medical field customers, especially skilled nursing facilities requiring the employer to meet highly specific staffing needs based on the patient load. With so many different types of medical personnel in the same facility, we’ve set up several medical facility clients with automated alerts if they’re overstaffed or understaffed for a shift.
We’ve tied their time and attendance systems into their medical tracking systems to see how many patients there are without accessing confidential medical data. Our system then cross-checks with state and federal medical staffing guidelines, calculating the correct staffing numbers for each personnel level. With an automated system, medical facilities can ensure they have the right people scheduled for the right shifts without extra budgetary strain or risking safety noncompliance.
Simplify by Automating Complexity
While every business is different with their own unique challenges, creative thinking paves the way for creative solutions. The right solution can reduce unnecessary workloads and allow administrative teams to leave repetitive, complex time and attendance tasks to trusted automated systems.
Have a complex time and attendance requirement you’d like help with? Sounds right up our alley. Give us a shout, we’d love to hear all about it.
