A report by VitalityHealth found that overall, productivity is getting worse in the UK with employees losing 35.6 days of productive time in 2018 (compared to 23 days in 2014). But what can be done to increase business productivity?
Enter time and attendance (T&A) software. Not just for tracking employees coming and going, the right system can also help you take control of the countless elements that affect productivity. Let us show you how…
Track time spent on tasks
Time and attendance isn’t just about tracking when people clock in and out. With Mitrefinch’s software, you can also track how much time is spent on tasks. Not only will this help improve forecasting and budgeting for the future, as you’ll know exactly how long a task takes to complete, but it will also help you see where tasks are taking longer than they should. At which point action can be taken to improve the situation and get productivity back on track.
Tracking time spent on tasks is a useful way to get a baseline for productivity that you can then work with your employees to improve.
Embrace biometrics
Biometric time and attendance makes use of fingerprints to vastly improve record accuracy and eliminate buddy clocking. It means you can ditch paper timesheets and inefficient clocking processes, saving valuable time that can be put to better use on other tasks. It may sound like overkill, but with businesses reporting ‘£88m in losses from corporate employee fraud in 2017-18’ utilising biometrics could not only improve productivity but save you money by stopping some instances of employee fraud (such as claiming overtime that isn’t actually owed) as you’ll have an accurate record of all your employees.
Think about it, with biometrics there’s no chance that any one can clock in for another person like they can with other processes. Each employee physically must be present to clock in using details that can’t be replicated. This data can also be used with your payroll system so you can be sure that everyone is getting paid the right amount for the hours they’ve worked.
Get control of absenteeism
The right system can help you spot anomalies and trends in behaviour, such as late starts, early finishes, lengthy breaks and late finishes. You can then use this information to better equip managers and supervisors to have the right conversations with the employees in question as to why these behaviours are occurring. It could be that their childcare has failed that week and so the problem could have a simple solution, such as allowing that particular employee to work flexibly. It could also identify deeper issues such as stress and struggles with workload management. Or, it could simply be someone trying their luck.
By acting on these anomalies and trends you can let your workforce know that you’re looking after them and taking note of behaviour. Often, just knowing that something is actively being monitored can reduce the amount of people who try and take advantage of the system. This can improve absenteeism levels and so also boost productivity as people are working when they need to be.
Improve absence management
Holidays, unplanned (and planned) absences, it can all conspire to torpedo productivity in a work day. Not only that, but the admin around dealing with these issues can be lengthy and time consuming – pulling focus away from key tasks. But with an effective system some of the fallout can be mitigated.
T&A software allows you to automate absence requests making it simple to schedule and manage teams. Real-time reports can highlight potential staffing issues so managers can take steps to solve them.
By automating absence requests, it reduces the admin load as employees can manage their own absences and deal with anomaly flags without needing a lengthy discussion with their manager. Managers are also able to set limitations on how many people can request holiday on any given day to minimise the impact on staffing and, therefore, productivity.
Keep track of remote workers
As the old saying goes “out of sight, out of mind”. Never a state you want to apply to remote workers. With a T&A software, it’s simple to clock in and out wherever your employees are working so it’s easy to see any negative trends in absenteeism, not to mention helping payroll to ensure employees are paid correctly for the hours worked. These clockings can even include GPS tracking so you can identify if employees are where they’re supposed to be. It can also help managers ensure that remote workers are assigned jobs in the right area – improving productivity as employees aren’t having to find a site or complete a task that’s outside of their local area.
Save money and time
Automating these processes can save hours of admin time, meaning those poor people who were labouring over spreadsheets and various documentation are better able to focus on other tasks that need their attention. It’ll mean more work can be accomplished in a week – all because the admin load has been streamlined.
An extra bonus is the automation removes some of the potential for human error. With manual input and tracking, it’s easy for errors to slip in. Not ideal, especially when it comes to payroll. But utilising time and attendance software means that accurate attendance data is synced across so that you can trust that people are getting paid the right amount for the hours they’ve worked. Meaning your payroll team spend less time fixing errors and more time doing what they do best.
So, how can businesses increase productivity? Book your demo today or call us on 0330 726 0066 to find out more.
For more information on our time and attendance software or workforce management solutions, contact Mitrefinch today.
