Recording Time-keeping – Reasons why its an excellent idea!

When it comes to attendance, most nurseries concentrate on systems that monitor the attendance of children in order to comply with their registration. The subject of recording the attendance of staff is often more relaxed. However, there are lots of reasons why employers would want to have a robust system to measure timekeeping, here are just a few:

1. Fire Regulations are important and if you can’t prove whether someone is in the building or not, would a fire officer have to go back into your building to search for someone?
2. Lateness often comes before absenteeism. Identify someone whose timekeeping has slipped and you may be able to prevent someone having an attendance problem.
3. If someone is late their colleagues will often be negatively impacted because of the lateness, if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it. If you aren’t addressing lateness others may think you are at best incompetent and at worst guilty of favouritism.
4. Poor timekeeping isn’t just a first thing in the morning problem. Individuals can be late back from breaks; lunch etc.
5. Clocking In systems aren’t just for factories. The staff want you to ensure they are paid accurately and a clocking in machine can give everyone confidence that this will happen. We have also seen ipod docking systems with staff carrying their personal QR code with their id.
6. We all know that time-sheets can get lost and are open to fraud. Saying that no time-sheet is asking for someone to claim for hours they haven’t worked.
7. A mains clock or even a digital clock you maintain by the signing in book is better than nothing.
8. When presented with a time-sheet and a clock, the majority of folk will be honest and put their correct time, no system and honesty falls through the floor!
9. If you measure timekeeping it can be used in a redundancy criteria, if you don’t measure timekeeping someone with poor timekeeping may survive a redundancy exercise and someone with good timekeeping may not.
10. Talking to someone about their timekeeping may reveal a capability issue that can be addressed through flexible working, or another arrangement.  No system, no conversation.
11. Without talking facts the employer is left talking feelings, I feel you are often late is not heard in the same way as you were late on Monday by 5 minutes.

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