One of the most challenging parts of owning a business is keeping track of payroll. A recent study found that over 54% of the American workforce is affected by payroll errors annually. If your employees are constantly dealing with payroll errors, it is only a matter of time before they become frustrated.
When trying to keep your payroll accurate, the main thing you need to figure out is how to keep track of the hours your employees work. The following is information about the importance of tracking employee hours and how to make this task easier.
Practical Advantages of Tracking Employee Hours
Some business owners think that tracking employee hours is optional. In reality, tracking the number of hours an employee works is not only beneficial for them, it can also benefit your business. Tracking employee hours has a number of practical advantages which we will cover below.
Track How Employees Are Spending Their Time
As the owner of a small business, your main concern should be keeping your employees productive. The only way you can discover productivity issues and get out ahead of them is by adequately tracking the hours your employees spend on the clock. If you know how long a person worked and what they did while at work, you can assess whether or not they are truly being productive.
If you start to notice a pattern of behavior where a person spends tons of time on the clock but is getting very little done, you need to address this behavior immediately. By keeping productivity levels high, you can justify the growing cost of your employee payroll.
Accurate Payroll Numbers Are Crucial
Keeping modern employees happy and engaged is vital when trying to keep them loyal and productive. When people receive paychecks that don’t accurately reflect the number of hours they have worked, they tend to get extremely frustrated. Guesstimating the number of hours your team is working is a recipe for disaster.
The last thing you want is to lose a valued team member because of this mistake. Rather than allowing this problem to lead to a manpower shortage, you have to make tracking the number of hours your employees work a priority.
Make Sure Your Business is Adhering to Labor Laws
There are a number of laws that dictate the amount of time a person needs to work before getting overtime pay. If you are not keeping up with the number of hours employees are working, you run the risk of breaking these laws. Dealing with steep fines or employee lawsuits due to non-payment for overtime can be disastrous for your business.
Rather than continuing to make mistakes regarding the tracking of employee hours, you need to take action immediately. Below we will discuss methods you can use to track employee hours accurately.
Using Payroll Software is a Wise Move
Staying on the cutting edge of technology is a great way to keep your business competitive. When it comes to keeping up with the hours your employees work, you need to find technology solutions. There are a number of payroll software programs on the market designed to help you track employee hours, manage taxes and print physical paychecks.
Before you choose a program to use for this important task, you need to do some thorough research. You can visit MatcHR if you want to find out more about this type of software and what it can do for your business.
Kiosk Time Clocks Can Come in Handy
If you have employees coming in and out of your building at various times each day, keeping up with their hours can be difficult. Rather than taking on the burden of keeping up with this information by yourself, you need to think about getting your team involved. Many of the time clock software programs on the market allow you to use an app to track when employees clock in and clock out.
A tablet-based kiosk with this software will provide your employees with the ability to track the hours they work. Putting your kiosk in a central location that is easy for your team members to access is crucial. You need to make sure that the tablet-based kiosk you implement is updated routinely to avoid reliability and functionality issues in the future.
Use Web Browser Plug-Ins
The methods you use to document employee hours will depend heavily on the type of work your team does on a given day. For instance, if your employees mainly work on the computer during business hours, you need to think about using web browser plug-ins. With these plug-ins, your team can clock in as soon as they sit down at their computers each day.
Many of the plug-ins designed to track employee hours can also provide you with a breakdown of the URLs your team members are visiting. If employees are staying on social media websites all day, productivity levels will start to decline. Being provided with a breakdown of how employees are spending their day online can help you address problems quickly before productivity issues start to surface.
GPS Tracking Can Be Used For Mobile Employees
Do you have a number of employees who work in the field? Tracking the number of hours these employees work can be difficult due to the fact that they are moving around from job to job regularly. One of the best options for business owners in this position is using either GPS tracking or Geofencing software.
With this software, you can see where your mobile employees are and what time they arrive at a new job. Not only will GPS help you track employees, it can also be used in the event of an emergency to locate a team member quickly.
GPS software also helps you maximize the efficiency of service calls because you can see who is closest to the call before dispatching a mobile employee. As you see, there are a number of ways to track employee hours. By using one of the options covered here, you can put payroll problems behind you for good.
