As an employer, I tried to reduce absenteeism of my workers in order to cut the company’s overhead. I am sure you all might have faced or presently facing the same problem. However, on a little research on my employees working pattern on the shop floor and the payroll sheets, I discovered some startling facts. It was observed, that a particular employee was absent on one specific day but it was not reflecting on the payroll, and as an employer, I am paying for the work not done at all. My organization was using card swiping and card punching system for attendance.
It was found that co-workers were swiping the cards or punching the cards of their colleagues. In other words, they were buddy punching. Another thing was also observed after brainstorming with the HR department that the employee incentives were not distributed properly. With buddy punching and lack of proper distribution of incentives the employee absenteeism increased and productivity decreased. These resulted in dipping revenue earnings for the company. As an employer, we all face these type of problems, and with proper tools, it can be quickly tackled.
Controlling Absenteeism
The first and foremost objective as an employer is to manage the employee absenteeism. By taking few positive corrective measures, we can effectively tackle the situation and turn the tables another way.
The first and foremost is to withdraw the age-old card swiping and punching system and install a biometric time clock that can only be accessed by the employees just putting their biometrics like fingerprint scanning, face detection or iris scanning. We all know, no two people have same biometric characteristics. So this totally cut down buddy punching type absenteeism. Nobody was able to give a proxy for anyone. The biometric time clock with the appropriate software recorded the actual clock in and out time and transferred the data to the central server of the office.
It was also calibrated to note down the overtime, the exact break time taken by the employee. The employees got cautious about the system in place and worked as per schedule. When the payroll was calculated it was done with ease by the accounts department as everything was crystal clear and smooth. The employees were also happy getting paid for the exact time they worked.
The second thing is to cut down absenteeism of the field staffs.
For them, as an employer, you can go for mobile-based GPS enabled apps of attendance. The field employs can no longer be present on the field yet absent in the real sense. You can track their real-time activities through the app, and all the information’s are stored in the central server of the office, and they are paid accordingly.
If any organization takes these two steps, as I did, you can cut down your employee absenteeism to a maximum level except for the leaves they can make as per government rules and regulations. Of course, while taking these steps employee benefits are also to be looked upon with a humanitarian approach.
We know an incentive motivates any employee to be present in the workplace and work hard giving more production output. As an employer, we all should provide employee incentive as an appreciation for their work. This incentive also reduces employee absenteeism drastically as all feel a sense of attachment to the organization and work with more enthusiasm. A happy employee tries not to take leave and comes to the workplace regularly.
Calculations of overtime & payments thereof are very critical. Installing the biometric time clock with software that can calculate the overtime with precision is always preferred as the employees get paid for every second of overtime they had done. So are the site staffs, who often work without any schedule considering the nature of their work in the field. When the employees see that they are correctly paid, they work sincerely and do not make it a point to be absent.
There are more other sophisticated methods too, like the cloud computing. But the mobile-based GPS enabled app or the biometric time and attendance clock along with proper software like Indextimeclock.com works very well. We can surely reduce absenteeism of our workforce by introducing these modern technologies in our workplace. The primary objective is to cut off buddy punching and mobilizing the workforce in a productive environment.
When the employee sees that nobody can give proxy on their behalf, their absenteeism from the workplace shall definitely decrease. The art is how judiciously we control and regulate the rate of absenteeism amongst our employees taking some of the technological tools. We all want to earn money, be it employer or employee but a positive approach to the work is always welcome. Take the above measures and see.
