Booking On and Off (for Accurate Time and Attendance Tracking)

How to solve for employees who aren’t booking on and off for shifts.

We often hear from prospective clients that one of their biggest pain points is actually ensuring field-based and hourly employees are properly booking on and off of shifts. To gain insight into how to help solve this business challenge, we spoke with two members of TEAM Software’s expert professional services team, Shanna Siford and Shannon Robertson.

“Accurate time and attendance tracking is arguably one of the most important core functions of your business,” said Shanna, who works as an implementation support engineer. “It informs payroll, ensures accurate customer billing, and helps you anticipate coverage needs as you schedule into the future. Because so much relies on accuracy of timekeeping data, it’s really crucial to make sure you’re doing everything you can for your workforce to get it right.”

Shannon, who works as a business consultant for TEAM, agrees. “It doesn’t take much for time and attendance to get off track. When it does, there can be serious repercussions in error-driven costs. One of the easiest ways for discrepancies and inaccuracies to occur in timekeeping is when hourly workers incorrectly clock in and out from shift, or forget to do it all together.”

Shanna and Shannon emphasize that while solutions to this challenge require consistent effort on the part of an employer, these recommendations can positively impact proper procedures for booking on and off.

1. Collaborate.

We know supervisors and managers have a lot on their plate already. Still, supervisors have day-to-day contact with hourly employees that your back office likely doesn’t, so collaborating with them on process enforcement can be a great place to start.

“Help your supervisors reinforce proper time and attendance processes by providing training, helping them spot exceptions in workforce schedules, and empowering them to escalate the issue into disciplinary action, if necessary,” said Shanna.

2. Automate.

A time and attendance solution geared at making booking and and off easy (with tools that support one-click clock-in/out or automatically record when workers start a shift when they log into a mobile app, for example) can help alleviate some of that burden. In some instances, you can even configure automatic reminders for field workers within minutes of scheduled shift-start or end if clocking in and out has slipped their mind.

3. Communicate.

“Clearly communicate to employees that improper clock in and out practices have serious consequences, like delay of paychecks, time card fraud, reduction of scheduled hours in the future, or employee termination,” Shannon explained. “Often if the consequences are clearly communicated, efforts to correct processes improve.”

Include the importance of clocking in and out correctly in your onboarding materials, standard operating procedures and employee self-service portal documentation. If possible, include it as a reminder in job instructions, and incorporate time and attendance metrics into annual reviews.

4. Incentivize.

Sometimes, a simple incentive strategy can be the key to seeing positive results. Consider offering incentives like awards or gift cards for perfect punches per pay period, and publicize the award winners on company bulletins and portals.

If you’re looking for a time and attendance software solution that can help you streamline employees’ clocking in and out, let’s schedule a call.