Time tracking is the foundation of all shift-based businesses. Time tracking ensures your business has enough staff to function, employees are being paid properly, and that you remain compliant.
However, despite time tracking being so important, managers often need to correct 80% of employee timesheets. Imagine all the extra work and stress this creates.
Learn why every business needs accurate time tracking, and how time tracking reporting can support better business decisions and smarter growth.
7 benefits of accurate time tracking
Is employee time tracking effective? Absolutely! Time tracking isn’t just a required operational task, it’s an essential tool for growing a business, especially when the business has multiple locations.
1. Prevents burnout
When youoverschedule staff members, you run the risk of employee burnout. Burned-out employees won’t be as productive or motivated to do a good job due to mental and physical exhaustion. Accurate time tracking shows managers that some staff members have been working more than others, allowing them to balance the schedule before burnout occurs.
2. Creates accurate payroll
It may seem obvious, but it’s still worth mentioning that accurate time tracking prevents payroll errors. Having a consistently accurate payroll improves morale for all employees and allows HR and accounting personnel to focus on other important tasks.
3. Prevents over- and understaffing
Most shift-based businesses have to account for ever-changing schedules of both their staff and their customers. It’s difficult to always have the right amount of staff to run a business, but accurate time sheets show a pattern management can use to reduce over- and understaffing. They can use those patterns to create a labor forecast for future schedules.
4. Provides data transparency
Accurate and open time-tracking data has benefits for team members at all levels. Accessible time sheets allow staff to view their hours and have open conversations with their managers, or for managers to discuss performance with front-line workers. For decision-makers, a wealth of data supports strategy development for everything from rightsizing staff to fine-tuning training processes to expanding to new locations.
5. Encourages employee accountability
Accurate tracking provides management with an accountability tool when discussing employee performance. For example, it can show if an employee is consistently late or if a coworker is punching in on their behalf to make it seem like they arrived on time. Managers have solid proof of misbehavior and can take the right steps to correct that misbehavior.
6. Reduces managerial micromanagement
Having easy-to-use employee time-tracking systems empowers employees to take control of their timesheets. They won’t feel like their managers are always watching them, which can help enhance morale.
7. Demonstrates compliance
Labor laws require employers to provide proper breaks and pay for any overtime. Accurate time tracking helps managers monitor adherence to these regulations on a macro and micro level. They can examine an individual employee’s behavior or generate a report about possible discrepancies across the organization. This helps ensure businesses stay compliant with labor regulations.
Best practices for using time-tracking reporting data
Are you getting all those benefits from your time-tracking solution? Check yourself against this shortlist of best practices to quickly identify areas for improvement.
You should be using time and attendance data to:
Evaluate individual employee performance metrics like punctuality
Ensure compliance with overtime and breaks
Forecast labor and staffing needs
Allocate resources by shift and location
Identify busy seasons and plan ahead
Avoid over- and understaffing
Create fair and balanced schedules
Recommended:Tracking Employee Time and Attendance: 8 Best Practices to Implement
How to manage employee time and attendance more effectively
Improve employee time tracking by implementing technology and practices that everyone will use.
1. Publish schedules in advance
Releasing schedules a couple of weeks early allows staff to know when they’re scheduled so that they can plan accordingly. This will help reduce last-minute absences and allow plenty of time for staff members to get coverage when needed.
2. Upgrade your time-tracking system
If you can keep asking yourself “how to keep track of employee hours” and nothing is working, you may be using outdated ways to track time. Manual and outdated systems can lead to frustration for both you and your teams.
There are many tools and digital platforms that can help streamline not only your time-tracking process but also scheduling and payroll, too. A digital time and attendance platform like Deputy simplifies every aspect of time tracking.
Recommended:7 Benefits of Digital Time and Attendance Solutions in Shift Jobs
3. Use a mobile clock-in app
Did you know that only 25% of employees use a mobile app for time tracking? A mobile app that allows staff to punch in and out from their phones should be the standard at this point. A mobile time tracking app will lighten your manager’s task load since employees can more easily communicate their scheduling needs with each other and are less likely to forget to clock in.
4. Create a clear call-out policy
Ensure that all staff understand your expectations when it comes to call-outs. Creating a straightforward call-out policy means that employees are more likely to read and remember it. Of course, it can’t prevent last-minute absences, but establishing expectations from an employee’s first day can prevent misunderstandings.
5. Look at past data to understand the future
Identifying patterns within your time-tracking system is essential for your business’s long-term success. Labor forecasting allows you to anticipate future demand and prepare for busy seasons. Using past data, labor forecasting can predict increases in activity and recommend the appropriate staffing numbers needed to meet those demands.
Read our ebook: How to Cut Costs with Labor Forecasting
6. Check your time tracking regularly
Just because a time-tracking system is working well doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved. Don't forget to check your system regularly to ensure it remains accurate and relevant to your current business needs. You want to catch mistakes before they start piling up unnoticed.
Additional tools to use with time tracking for shift-based businesses
There are many tools at your disposal to enhance the information you receive from time tracking. Whether you’re in the hotel or healthcare industry, these additional information sources can provide a bigger picture of your business’s operations.
Point of sales systems (POS): Industries with a lot of sales, like the restaurant/fast food and retail industries, use POS systems to track sales, inventory, and customer behavior. The data gathered by these systems can reveal if there are too many employees during slow times or allow managers to place staff in other more productive areas of the business.
Front desk interactions: For industries like healthcare or hospitality, front desk operations can tell a manager or business owner a lot. Elements like the number of reservations, requested services, room amenities, and visitor profiles can provide a fuller picture of daily operations.
Specific location timesheets: If you’re unsure of how one location is fairing compared to others, compare the timesheets of various locations. This can provide a picture of which locations are flourishing and which ones need improvement.
AI scheduling: If management is feeling overwhelmed with scheduling, an AI scheduling tool can relieve them of their stress. AI will use past scheduling data to generate schedules based on availability and business needs. Managers can then tweak these as needed while skipping the step of starting from scratch.
Labor forecasting: Since we’ve already gone into depth about labor forecasting, we won’t repeat ourselves, but it’s definitely an important tool in your employee management toolbelt.
Recommended:Data-Driven Hotel Staffing: The Tools & Metrics You Need for Accurate Labour Forecasting
Keep time tracking organized with Deputy
Time tracking doesn’t have to be a confusing mess when you use the right tools. Deputy’s platform lets you take control of time tracking, scheduling, and compliance. Our platform also has a mobile app for employees and integrates with numerous other programs to connect payroll to timesheets.
