Even though we live in the 21st century, some companies and personnel departments are still troubled with the paper based attendance systems. A good quality electronic attendance system can save your organization a lot of money and time. There are many suppliers on the market with different attendance system solutions.
How to choose the most suitable attendance system for your organization? We present a list of 8 basic criteria to select an electronic attendance system:
1. Working on shifts and hours
If you are a business whose employees work on shifts and they are paid for them by the hour, choose a system that can handle such requests. Also make sure you choose a vendor that already has multiple clients with similar needs to your business.
2. Design and simplicity
If you are an office based company and your employees’ working hours are fixed, don’t complicate your life with an overly complex system and bet on design and simplicity. In addition, some vendors offer the ability to record attendance through a mobile application. This can be particularly interesting if you have many employees who are regularly on the road and away from the workplace.
3. A Cloud or your own server?
Both options have their advantages and disadvantages. Main advantages of Cloud solutions are that your business does not need to have any internal IT capacity, and you can easily cover geographically remote workplaces as this all works through a web browser or even a mobile application. On the other hand, you are increasing the cost of the system, as the price of a license is based on an amount of your cloud users.
4. Electronic approvals of abcenses
For employees, it is a great feeling when they do not have to go to the HR department to fill out an absence sheet manually and chase their team leader in order to sign it. Using electronic approvals, they can do everything through a few clicks and without leaving their desk. Approved absences are automatically recorded in the system, and HR managers no longer have to enter them manually.
5. Export to payroll system
Most of the electronic attendance system vendors can also provide a link to the payroll system. This option can save personnel a lot of time and also helps eliminate the risk of possible errors, as it is no longer necessary to enter the attendance manually.
The bigger the organization and the more complex attendance tracking, the greater the time savings. Of course, it is important that the vendor knows how to really set it up precisely for your company’s needs. Do not believe in the words of retailers, but check the quality of their references.
6. Price / performance ratio
The price of an electronic attendance system must always be compared with other criteria and you shouldn’t only look for the cheapest solution. The price is usually based on several criteria such as system implementation, license, terminals, export to payroll, technical support, system updates, etc.
However, the structure of the bid and the cost of each item is typically different for each vendor. Therefore, it is also important to compare in detail the short-term and long-term costs, as some offers may have higher input costs, but the costs for subsequent years may be lower.
7. Data protection and security
Attendance data of employees contain sensitive personal information and therefore it is necessary to ensure that the attendance system complies with the standards set by the GDPR Act. If your business has an IT and Legal departments, involve their representatives in the selection process to ensure that the attendance system really meets the standards.
8. Technical Support
Last but not least, the quality of technical support is also very important. Initially, the selected vendor needs to ensure a smooth and high-quality implementation of the new system, which includes data migration, system setup as well as employee and administrator training. After the implementation, the supplier should be able to respond promptly and without undue waiting to resolve any issues.
Need help or advice?
If you need advice or help with the process of selecting an attendance system, we will be happy if you can contact us at info@hrprofil.eu or 00421 911 045 839. Alternatively, you can view our section with attendance systems suppliers.
Written by Ivan Kuzma