Feature insight - Time and attendance
Time to take advantage of T&A systems
Lisa Gillespie, Moorepay’s HR services director, outlines what these systems offer and why they are increasingly in use
T he author Ray Cummings once wrote that “time is nature’s way of stopping everything happening at once”. However, in contemporary work environments – where ever-more-powerful technology enables ever-more-frenetic multitasking – nature's way seems to have been skipped over and left for dead. Time is so important we have legislation going back as far as the 1800s governing how long people should work each day; and in 1998 modern work/time legislation came into force, with the Working Time Directive setting statutory minima for paid time away from work, maximum working weeks, and daily rest. And the way we track time has gone through a similar modernising process over the same period. We have come a long way from the old punchcard world of listening for the factory whistle, with a plethora of smart, intuitive time and attendance (T&A) systems available today. In 2015, a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development identified a somewhat startling truth: only 45% of staff now work from their employer’s core offices. It's a lot harder clocking your workforce in every morning when they're not trudging through the factory gates like a Lowry painting; and with over half the workforce off-site it's easy to understand how the power of T&A systems has become a key tool for managing staff in many organisations. With this trend for monitoring employee activity gathering pace, one key question that arises is whether the time of Big Brother is really now upon us. I ran workshops on flexible working at a number of recent events nationwide, and came across frequent strong, diametrically opposite opinions on the importance of time versus performance. Further, many human resources (HR) professionals raised concerns that the increasing sophistication of T&A systems, such as global positioning and
facial recognition, means employers may be encroaching on their data and privacy responsibilities. ...isn’t all about getting the maximum performance from So, how important is time versus performance to your business, and where do you draw the line? In truth, whether you hold the philosophical view that time is merely a concept and results are the real measure of success for your people, the use of T&A systems will steadily, remorselessly increase in modern workplaces. So employers do need to have clear policies on the use of monitoring systems and ensure these are not abused or used to micro-manage staff. The term ‘work-life balance’ has been around for many years, and increasingly organisations recognise that T&A systems provide valuable management information on how their people spend their working day. It isn’t uncommon for staff to feel pressured by the onslaught of emails, instant messages and other communications which can land simultaneously, so understanding the working lives of staff can go some way to managing their time better, reducing stress during busy periods and ensuring compensatory rest and other obligations are met. In fact, for some years now the measurement of time in many industries has been made mandatory to guarantee regulatory compliance – think drivers’ hours, junior doctors’ hours, community-based care etc. It isn’t all about getting the maximum every employee every minute...
performance from every employee every minute of every day. Whilst for most businesses time is still the means by which performance and productivity are measured, I challenge you to look at what truly matters in achieving your organisation’s goals. Some roles simply cannot be made to fit within a time framework because flexibility is more important than structured hours. And, coincidentally, when Moorepay started collating research for flexible working discussions at our recent events it was demonstrated again and again that flexibility is ranked higher than salary by millennials. If this is the case, you can harness the analytics of T&A systems to promote work- life balance, attract staff and get the best out of your people investment. Employers do need to understand the legislative framework set out under the Working Time Directive and their industry- specific rules and regulations (which are primarily based on the safety of workers and others): T&A systems have a place in our workplaces and in society to regulate working days and increase safety, not just optimise productivity. For large organisations, the analytics provided by such systems are powerful tools for HR and workforce planning. The current burden of European Union-based case law which has impacted the calculation of pay means these analytics are vital to monitoring and demonstrating compliance. Now, as we stride out into our post-Brexit world, we have a fantastic opportunity to look again at our legislative framework for managing time. The data available from T&A systems will be a valuable tool to understand the demands on our workforces and the needs of organisations, and can only help us find a better way of managing time, pay and work- life balance than the current mess of case law and outdated employment legislation. There are sure to be exciting times ahead (pun very much intended). n
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Issue 27 | February 2017
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
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