Rethink The Punch Clock

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Stephen Jagger

Square is talking about rethinking the receipt, Pete Smart wants to rethink the airline boarding pass – here at PayrollHero we have been working to rethink the punch clock.
Traditional punch clocks are bulky, easily manipulated, offline, paper based and enable time theft. We have met with countless business owners who have complained about the issues with their punch clocks and the desire for a new way to handle employee time and attendance.

We sat down a couple years ago and rethought the punch clock and how it should work. Of course we wanted something cloud based, that eliminated fraud and time theft and was easy to use. The biggest challenge we wanted to tackle was how employees perceived the device. Employees hate the punch clock. They don’t enjoy the process of clocking in and out for work. We understand the importance or accurate time and attendance but wanted to rethink how we could collect this information while making it an enjoyable process for employees.

Introducing the TeamClock (iOS) and MyTimeClock. We began with photos, and built a platform that lets employees clock in and out for work by taking a picture of themselves. We added IP address support as well as GPS location so that we can ensure that the right employee is in the right place at the right time.

The big benefit – employees love it!

We added props to the clock in screen, random background images, social sharing functionality and there is more coming. Check out PayrollHero.com for more details about how our time, attendance, scheduling and analytics platform works.

You can see PayrollHero’s TeamClock Web in action here at Krispy Kreme:

Post by Payroll Hero.

What is Buddy Punching?

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Stephen Jagger

According to the Urban Dictionary, buddy punching is “when a person at work clocks in (“punches in”) their friend when their friend is late to work.”

It is a common occurrence in many companies, organizations and even governments who use traditional punch clocks, passwords or pen and paper to track their employees time and attendance. An employee contacts another employee asking them to clock in for them as they are running behind.

While not a small cost to your business, buddy punching really ads up. Imagine an employee is 9 minutes late every day but has a colleague clock them in. 9 minutes a day, times 5 days a week times 52 weeks a year equals 2340 minutes which is 39 hours. Those 9 minutes a day add up to almost a full week off over a 1 year period. Now imagine you have this happening with 20, 50 or 500 employees. Those costs really add up.

How can you eliminate buddy punching?

PayrollHero’s selfie TeamClock uses your employees face as the metric for clocking in and out, eliminating buddy punching. Plus, PayrollHero can be locked down to specific IP addresses and is location aware on iOS devices adding another level of security.

Here is the iPad TeamClock in action at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf:

Post by Payroll Hero.

5 Ways Employees Could Be Scamming Your Time and Attendance System

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Stephen Jagger

Time and attendance fraud is a costly and often hidden aspect of almost every business. Over the years we have seen and heard about many ways employees have been abusing the system to squeeze out extra time. Image an employee that shows up 5 minutes late every day and leaves 4 minutes early. Those 9 minutes add up to 40 hours over a 1 year period. That is an extra paid week for unworked time. Here are 5 ways that employees could be scamming your time and attendance system;

1. Buddy Punching – if your company uses passwords, punch cards or the like for employee clock in/out then chances are you have some employees who clock in and or out for each other.

2. Inflated Hours – if you have a manager using a paper based (or excel) time and attendance solution chances are you have inflated hours in there. If an employee walks in a few minutes late, in many cases the manager will mark the employee as on time. It is a hard place for a manager to be, while they want hard working employees, they also want to be seen as “friendly” so their tracking might not be as accurate as an automated system is.

3. Ghost Employees – not specifically a time and attendance problem, but larger companies, government organizations, etc can have ghost employees within their organization. This can happen when an employee in the payroll department adds a family member, friend, etc to the payroll but that person does not actually work for the company.

4. Favouritism – when managers pick and choose who gets overtime or have the power to override attendance records there can be some leakage.

5. Inaccurate Data Entry – when an employee is tasked with coping over time and attendance data from time cards or time sheets simple human errors can find their way into attendance or worse, an unscrupulous employee could adjust the numbers on purpose.

These are just five examples of time and attendance fraud that goes on within companies. Have you heard of other examples?

If you want to learn more about how PayrollHero eliminates these issues, reach out to us for a one on one call with one of our sales engineers.

5 Ways To Clock In And Out of PayrollHero

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Stephen Jagger

There are 5 ways to have your employees clock in and out of PayrollHero. 3 for situations with multiple employees and 2 for employees using their own devices. Below are quick videos showcasing each one and here is a link to our knowledge-base.

TimeClock – PayrollHero’s TimeClock apps enable multiple employees to clock in and out from the same decide. The TimeClock replaces your bio-metrics or bundy clock to give you a quick and easy way to get real time data from your employees time and attendance.

PayrollHero iPhone TimeClock

PayrollHero iPad TimeClock

PayrollHero TimeClock Web

MyClock – The PayrollHero MyClock is designed to enable your employees to clock in and out from their personal iOS device or their computer at their desk. This option is perfect for office environments or businesses where employees sit down at their own work stations.

PayrollHero iPhone MyClock

PayrollHero MyClock Web

500,000+ Clock Pictures

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Stephen Jagger

We are pleased to announce that PayrollHero has processed over 500,000 PhotoBooth pictures. PayrollHero’s time and attendance module enables employees to clock in and out for work by taking a picture of themselves. PayrollHero then processes those pictures to ensure that the right employee is in the right place at the right time. Employees can clock in and out via the web, iPhone, iPad or iPod (Android coming soon).

Our PhotoBooth platform can be used by any company worldwide, independent of your payroll system and can generate an attendance report so that you have all of the data you need, right at your finger tips.

To learn more about PayrollHero or to chat further about how you can use our platform within your business, contact us by filling out the beta access form on our website.