With their central role in payroll management, time and attendance systems remain one of the fundamental technologies for any efficient HR department. Angus Kidman looks at the most effective way to deploy such systems and talks to two companies that have successfully automated their time and attendance solutions
With their central role in payroll management, time and attendance systems remain one of the fundamental technologies for any efficient HR department. Angus Kidman looks at the most effective way to deploy such systems and talks to two companies that have successfully automated their time and attendance solutions
Q: Why did the engineer put a clock under his desk?
A: He wanted to work overtime.
That oft-circulated joke underscores an important point: time and attendance systems don’t always rate highly when HR executives are considering how to improve their contribution to the business bottom line. Yet for workers whose pay is directly tied to the number of hours they work, time and attendance platforms will be their biggest source of interaction with the company, and a huge potential source of grievances if systems don’t work effectively and workers are underpaid. At the other extreme, systems which aren’t securely managed may be ripe for exploitation and could result in inflated wage bills.
Like many other areas of HR management, time and attendance systems have been transformed by the introduction of core technologies such as portals, which make it possible for staff to securely submit their data in electronic form without the need for messy alternatives such as faxing or internal mail. Competition in this sector is fierce, with dozens of specialist vendors vying for business with larger HR software providers.
Yet the core time management elements are only one part of the problem. Any effective system will also need a range of backend enhancements such as automatic integration into payroll software in order to function effectively. As such, they will need engagement from HR managers, IT experts and top-level company management in order to be rolled out successfully.
Other trends can also complicate the time and attendance equation. The increasing use of outsourced providers for functions such as payroll management can make any implementation more complex, as data will need to be fed back into a system over which you may have no direct control. Software packages also need to provide sufficient flexibility to allow changes as awards and other working conditions are altered.
Building the initial business case for automating attendance systems can often be done in terms of overall cost. For instance, if a company has previously relied on manual data entry, an automated system could directly reduce staff costs. Eliminating errors (and the headcount needed to chase up and rectify them) can also form part of the cost justification, as can the elimination of expenditure on items such as stationery.
Justifying upgrades to an existing system can prove more complex, since many of these benefits will already have been realised. Of course, in some instances businesses may have little choice – vendors rarely support their products indefinitely, and the cost of upgrading the system can be compared to the business impact of a failure in the present package. Legislative requirements relating to payroll reporting and taxation may also force changes in company procedure that will necessitate an upgrade if the existing platform is not highly flexible.
The upgrade gamble
Aristocrat Technologies is Australia’s most visible and successful manufacturer of gambling hardware and software, having turned over $1,148 million in revenues in 2004. While its products are essential to gaming industry operators worldwide, Aristocrat didn’t want to take any chances when it came to upgrading its own time and attendance infrastructure.
The company has around 1300 employees, including 350 in its manufacturing division. A critical element in supervising the performance of those manufacturing employees is an efficient attendance management system.
“The biggest thing for us is to be able to accurately capture when people are onsite,” says Hal King, team leader payroll for Aristocrat Technologies. While the vast majority of those employees are full-time (unlike some manufacturing sectors where many staff can be casual), keeping track of hours worked is still vital.
“Punching the card isn’t always high on the list of priorities for some of our workers,” King says. Key issues he identified which the time and attendance system needs to track include staff who are arriving at work either excessively early or extremely late and workers performing unauthorised overtime.
As a company with a strong technology focus, Aristocrat has long recognised the importance of using technology to automate the process of time and attendance tracking, having installed Kronos’Timekeeper Central package. However, by 2003 it had become apparent that the system was in need of an upgrade.
“We had an earlier version of Kronos, but had fallen about eight versions behind,” King says. Aristocrat eventually determined it wanted to continue using the Kronos package, but was faced with a new problem: would it be easier to simply scrap the system entirely and install the latest version from scratch or perform an upgrade from the old version to the newest release? A third possibility was a staged upgrade through a number of versions to ensure that there were no problems in making that switch.
King says Kronos was most helpful and conducted a migration analysis with a lot of data. Eventually, Aristocrat decided that an upgrade would be possible, and rolled out the new platform in April 2004.
With the latest system, Aristocrat has eliminated many of the problems associated with the payroll process. Payroll submissions can now be approved by immediate supervisors and managers on desktop PCs before being routed to the payroll department, allowing anomalies and potential issues to be identified and resolved before the data is submitted. The result is a far more efficient payroll system and fewer errors.
King advises any company looking to implement a similar time and payroll solution to ensure that careful planning takes place before the actual rollout. “It’s critical that you have the team together and have a really solid plan for how you’re going to implement,” he says. “That way you can assign resources appropriately.”Planning proved vital to Aristocrat’s rollout, even though it was already familiar with the core technology.
King also recommends making maximum use of supplier knowledge and resources. “Make sure the vendor helps you to keep on top of things,” he says. “You don’t want any unexpected surprises.”
Animal trackers
The Queensland RSPCA’s core mission is to ensure the welfare of animals throughout the Sunshine State, but when it comes to payroll and time management, the organisation has an equally clear set of goals.
“We’re like any other business; we’ve got to make sure we’re compliant and that we’re making the best use of the resources we have,” says Mark Townend, CEO of RSPCA Queensland.
Time management is a particular challenge, with more than 160 paid staff spread over 16 different locations and performing a variety of activities. RSPCA Queensland’s previous system required staff to manually fill out forms, have them signed by a supervisor and then fax them to a central location, where data was entered into a payroll system.
That approach had enormous potential for errors in a range of areas, including fax pages that would go missing or be unreadable as well as potential data entry errors, Townend says. In some instances, getting signoff also required staff to fax their timesheets to other locations, causing further delays and potential problems.
Any technology upgrade would have to solve those core problems. RSPCA Queensland also wanted a solution that would allow it to track attendance data for volunteers, something that wasn’t possible without automation.
Brisbane-based provider Time & Access Systems provided the solution with its Genesis Pro software, installed by the RSPCA in 2003. Each location has a swipe card reader to ensure staff can only enter their own data, which is then automatically delivered to the payroll system, minimising costs and the potential for error.
Townend is happy with the system and believes it has proven very cost-effective, citing better and more timely access to payroll and staff performance information as the major benefit of the new infrastructure.
Such efficiency improvements didn’t come overnight, however. Townend warns any other business contemplating automating their time management systems not to underestimate the scale of the undertaking. “It’s complex, and it takes time to fine-tune everything,” he says.
Like King from Aristocrat, Townend says detailed planning is the key to successfully automating time management. “Do as much preparation as you can and work out exactly what you are hoping to achieve,” he says. That level of preparation will also make it easier to justify the investment in business terms and protect you from unexpected questions on the value of the implementation.
Townend also extols the virtues of in-depth training on platform capabilities before you start. “Get as much training as possible on the capabilities of the system, so you’re able to make full use of it,”he says.
