Time and Attendance Systems

By Dylan Mazeika

Biometric time and attendance systems continue to gain in popularity within corporate organizations and public sector agencies for their ability to:

• Improve productivity
• Deliver payroll savings
• Decrease absenteeism
• Bolster employee safety and building security (with a companion security system in place)

But when it comes to integrating a biometric system into your organization, there are a number of common myths that travel up from employees and may even find their way into your management team. We're going to dispel them right here!

1. A biometric system makes it harder to calculate payroll and slows down the process as a whole.

False. While managers and supervisors may initially raise issues about the new system related to concerns that include payroll calculation, notions of inefficiency, and worries about the cost of acquisition or operation, many of these "disadvantages" actually become advantages after installation.

A biometric system monitors access to every room in which it's equipped. In doing so, the tracking of employees for time and payroll purposes is actually simplified when integrated with a payroll management system. In addition, the costs associated with acquisition and operation are easily waylaid by the increase in time tracking accuracy and the elimination of "buddy-punching" and other forms of falsified time reporting - all of which have a substantial dollar value that will often surpass that of the biometric system.

2. A biometric system invades employee privacy.

False. Biometric systems monitor attendance and time by recording unique human characteristics. The technology may capture and recognize fingerprints or hand prints, iris patterns, or even vein patterns. But biometric time and attendance systems do not record their characteristics as images. Instead, they are saved as mathematical representations and templates. This data cannot be used to reconstruct the original physical characteristics of an individual.

3. Biometric technologies are expensive.

False. This might have been true a few decades ago when you could only see biometric technologies in sci-fi movies. But today, such systems are affordable even to small businesses and medium enterprises. If you are a business owner with fewer than 50 employees, you can upgrade to a biometric attendance and time system for less than $2,000, with basic fingerprint models falling in the $300 to $500 range. Iris-access models are slightly more expensive, currently running in the neighborhood of $3,000 per control system.

4. Transition and implementation is labor intensive and takes a long time.

False. After setting up the system, you can enroll and train your employees on how the technology should be used. Many times, the seller you select can assist with this stage by performing a series of tests to ensure ease-of-use, including:

• Technology evaluation - evaluating the equipment itself
• Scenario evaluation - evaluating the use for specific cases
• Operational evaluation - evaluating the benefit delivered organization-wide

Addressing the different stages mentioned above will ensure, with a high degree of accuracy, exactly how the biometric system will perform.

5. Biometric scanners are only good for offices.

False. While fingerprint scanners are only recommended for clean environments, there are also hand readers and other technologies that can be readily used in humid, dusty, or dirty work environments.