Employee productivity is a major cause of concern for managers and business owners. The overall aim is to extract the best performance(1) from their workforce in contrast to their pay.
With advancements to technologies in the workplace, biometric attendance systems are one of the most commonly used techs in the corporate world.
Essentially, it helps companies keep a record of employee attendance via a single fingerprint scan, boosts the company’s security, and helps with efficient payroll.
But the question does arise, would the implementation of a biometric attendance system help employees be productive?
This calls for a “pros vs cons” analysis on the effects it does have on employee productivity.
In summary, the answer is yes. A biometric attendance system can help with employee productivity. However, there are cases where the employees would rather be demotivated as well.
How Biometric Attendance Systems Can Help with Employee Productivity
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It helps to maintain efficiency throughout the business and improve certain tedious operations.
A biometric attendance system provides HR professionals with an unparalleled ability to accurately capture real-time workforce data.
Incorporating a biometric attendance system to monitor employee attendance and time tracking enables organizations to minimize labor costs and maximize profits. This is because the whole data is recorded in an automated database, which requires near to zero human involvement.
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More motivation to work in the office.
The use of biometric attendance systems for managing employees has a direct impact on efficient payroll processing. You can easily view how many hours a particular employee has worked.
Due to the time-theft factor, most of the managers fail to identify which of the employees worked overtime. But a biometric attendance machine enables employers to maintain proper payroll records.
This makes employees more responsible for their actions and increases their motivation to be more productive because their work is now transparently viewed by their supervisors.
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Transparent employee accountability.
Another major benefit is the accountability of employees. All employees need to be accountable for their actions at the workplace.
By removing practices, such as buddy punching and time-theft, a biometric attendance machine provides organizations to attain a positive return for their investment(2) in the long run.
It also checks the time-trails of employees and holds them responsible for the different tasks allotted by managers.
Moreover, it becomes easy to identify an employee for their negligence to pre-defined time and attendance limits. They can be held accountable for taking extended or frequent breaks, unscheduled breaks, or other misuses of time.
With such a comprehensive attendance system in place, you can expect a significant rise in the productivity levels of employees.
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Discipline in the workforce.
A biometric attendance system can also ensure discipline in the organization, as it promotes timely entry, where there is no disparity within employees and all the operations are done in a disciplined manner.
It also saves money in a way that no staff is required to spend time monitoring the attendance or tracking time. The organization can focus more on core strategic functions and facilitate better decision-making in the long run.
This, again, indicates that employee productivity will increase through the installation of the system.
Cons of Having a Biometric Attendance System
The above pointers show the benefits related to managing time spent by employees. However, humans are not robots and there should be a certain level of flexibility and relaxation that employers give to employees, so they are encouraged to work at their own pace.
A biometric attendance system comes with strong deadlines and punctualities. This can sour the company culture and make employees feel resentful or demotivated.
This drop-in company morale can end up costing you more in lost productivity than you otherwise might get.
However, this depends more on the company’s policy on how they make use of the biometric attendance system.
This is why, in conclusion, the cost seems worth the spending when we look at the benefits like saving staff and convenience in the organization.
But it’s more relevant towards the businesses that require more monotonous task employees. This method will ensure their time spent daily and will aid the organization in fair pay.
To tackle the demotivators of the installation, the company policy needs to be flexible and resilient, such that the employees don’t feel stuck working like robots.
