Employee Attendance Records - Managing The Herd |
| Written by employeesattendance.com | |
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Documentation of employee attendance record (EAR) is crucial in any organization. As the size of the organization grows manual maintenance of the EAR becomes difficult. Mechanical recording of such significant data is not only time consuming but also prone to errors. Increasing technological advancements and change in the work place habits has forced the professional companies to adopt electronic format of employee attendance record.
To begin with the earlier companies were comfortable in recording the valuable data in attendance log book. The manual entry of log in and log out time was only taken care off. The objective of the document was to note the number of absentees and late comers. Making a manual entry on the attendance report and employee time sheet made the employees more conscious about the timing and were embarrassed to mark in the late comers column. This process was tedious and costly as the labor cost to maintain the attendance record need to be considered. Wages are calculated on the basis of documents recorded in the attendance. One of the major problem faced by the HR managers in manual attendance log book was to record the information without any manipulation. The data was more liable to addition and deletion. There was no facility to check whether the employee has noted the accurate time or made a wrong entry. This system attendance log book was then replaced by the punch cards. Though initially it was well accepted by the employees the miscreants and late comers found out a way to escape. The easy way out was to tamper the punch cards. Another disadvantage was that even a minor scratch had drastic impact and impostors or the employees started punching for their friends. But now with the highly acclaimed Biometric technology the employees can enter only after swiping the cards that should match with the individual's fingerprints. This results in a drop in employees swiping in for each other as well as employees making excuses for being late. Some of the contents in an employee attendance record are the employees name, employment number, department, job title, leave with and without pay, sick leave, vacation leave, family leave, medical leave and maternity leave. It is statutory to preserve the employee attendance record for a minimum period of 6 years. The role of supervisor in cross checking the details of attendance record have virtually been reduced replaced by the latest software to track the employee attendance. This helps in continuous monitoring of the employee strength on a particular day in any department. Of course nothing can really replace the work of a good human resources department. No matter how good the attendance software is, a live person should check it. There are always going to be exceptions and special circumstances because people are human, right? |