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Let’s face it. Tracking employee time is probably not the first thing on your mind as an employer. You may be a new employer trying to figure out how to manage employees for the first time. Or you may be a long-time employer still tracking time on paper. And you may be hesitant to track employee time. I’m here to change your mind.
Here are some of the myths I’ve heard about employee time tracking and the real truths behind them.
1. You don’t need to track time
According to the United States Department of Labor, under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers are legally obligated to record the time an employee works. How that time is recorded though, is up to the employer.
Although we hope you know as an employer that you are required to record employee times in some fashion, the big myth here is that you don’t need to track exactly when an employee comes in to work and leaves work.
I’ve seen many employers or managers just requiring their employees to log however many total hours they worked that day or week without ever actually tracking when they clocked in and out.
The problem with this method is that memory can be a tricky thing. It’s easy for an employee to forget exactly how many minutes they worked in a day when they haven’t logged the exact time they came in, when they came in.
Not only that, it’s incredibly easy to purposefully steal time with this method. Though we hope most employees don’t have malicious intent when logging their hours, some may purposefully add time they didn’t work.
These mistakes and intended errors can cost you greatly when running payroll in the long run. It’s just much better to keep track of the time in the moment.
2. Tracking time takes too much time
Yes, it seems ironic that the phrase, “tracking time takes too much time,” exists. But many employers believe this to be true. Time tracking does in fact take a little bit of time out of each day.
However, the truth is, tracking time actually saves you time. Crazy, right? Here’s why.
Since you are legally obligated to record employee times in some fashion, you’re already going to need to spend some time doing that. If you don’t track time by having your employees clock in and out each day, you’ll have to make sure you or they record however much time they worked.
Not only does that lead to errors in the recorded times themselves, but it also takes more time to calculate everything manually.
You will also need to manually run payroll if you are not using a tool to calculate times, which takes even more time.
Last, unless you are diligent in keeping up with recording your employees’ times, you will probably need to spend time nagging at your employees to remind them to record their own times.
So you can see that using a tool to track employee time might be worth the small amount of time to find the right one, set it up, and learn how to use it.
3. Time tracking is about micromanagement and distrust
You may be thinking to yourself, “I should just trust my employees to record their times honestly, so I don’t need to micromanage them by tracking their time”. If you are, that’s completely understandable. No employer wants to be labeled as a distrustful micromanager.
But time tracking is far from being about micromanagement and distrust. It’s perfectly logical, not distrustful, to protect your company from possible time theft, or even just unintended mistakes.
However, there are a lot more reasons to track time than to make sure you’re not paying your employees more than you need to. It’s actually about making everyone’s jobs easier.
Think about it.
Imagine you do start tracking employee time. Instead of forcing your employees to try to remember exactly how long they worked each day of the pay period, you now trust them to simply clock in at the beginning of the day and clock out at the end of the day. It’s that easy.
And instead of having to micromanage your employees to make sure they do remember their time correctly, you can now let loose on the reigns a bit and allow them to remember to punch in and out without you telling them to. Then the rest is done for you. All you have to do is run the automatically calculated times through your payroll system at the end of the pay period.
So it’s less about distrust and more about an even better working experience for you and your employees.
4. Time tracking overworks your employees
There’s the idea that keeping track of each time your employees come into work or leave work will force them to overwork themselves. Your employees may think that they can’t take breaks or that they have to work longer because every minute is being counted.
That may in fact be how your employees first react to the idea of keeping track of their time.
But the truth of the matter is, whether their time is being tracked with punch ins and out or they are recording their total hours on a piece of paper at the end of the week, that time should be the same, right? If it’s not, perhaps you should consider the possibility of time theft.
But time theft aside, because we want to give your employees the benefit of the doubt, you need to communicate your intentions in tracking their time clearly.
If your employees know why you need to track their time, maybe they’ll be less worried about working more hours.
Besides, if anything, the act of clocking in and out is much easier than remembering, calculating, and recording exact times.
5. Your employees will resent time tracking
If you thought the above two myths were truths, it’s not surprising that you would believe your employees would resent time tracking. No employers wishes their employees to be unhappy with a part of their job. That only leads to high turnover rates, which can be very costly for a company.
Again, if you communicate clearly, though, your employees are probably going to feel just fine about clicking a button or two to clock in and out every day.
Besides, happy manager equals happy employee, right? 😉
But seriously, the easier you make recording employee time for you employees, the happier they will be about it. And if it makes your job easier, you most likely won’t hate it either.
6. Tracking employee time invades privacy
So, you’re worried that you’re digging into your employees’ personal lives by tracking the time they come into work and leave. You might worry that keeping track of their breaks is even worse, and they might be concerned about the privacy of their own personal lives.
But nowhere in time tracking are you required to know exactly where your employees are or what they’re doing outside of work. All you need to know is if they are working when they are supposed to and how long they worked so that you can pay them.
All that employee time tracking has to be is simply recording when your employees come into work and when they leave. As an employer, that’s something you need to know and is not an invasion of privacy.
7. You can track time efficiently using paper
If you haven’t read all the above myths yet, I would recommend doing so. Maybe you have and you still haven’t been convinced to use a better time tracking tool than paper. You could be thinking to yourself, “Well, I won’t have my employees remember their total times, but I can just have them clock in and out with a piece of paper.”
Now, that is an option, but let me convince you otherwise first.
First of all, letting your employees write down the time they came in or left still doesn’t eliminate the temptation of time theft. It’s just as easy to write down a different time than they actually came in or left.
Second, it’s much easier to lose a piece of paper than a virtual database. You don’t want to be scrambling to find a piece of paper on payroll day. It’s just time-wasting and stressful.
And last, calculating times manually is an absolute pain. It’s easy to make mistakes and it takes a lot more time than sitting back while a software does the work for you.
8. Time card software is too difficult to learn
So maybe you’re not quite as tech savvy as you’d like to be. You’re thinking to yourself, “There is no way I’m going to learn how to use another complicated software. I’m going to have to hire an IT rep to figure it out. It’s just too difficult”.
Well, this is where the answer could go either way. It really depends on which software you choose to go with. I would say, though, that most time card software programs are fairly intuitive and only require a bit of time to get used to.
Some employers may be concerned about the costs of training their employees on a new program. Here’s my answer: It’s worth it.
The employee side of time card software is usually very easy to learn, and whatever the cost is, it’s going to be more cost efficient for you to train them than face the consequences of human error or time theft.
The advice I have for you is to do your research before you choose a software. And after you choose, be patient with it. Don’t be afraid to call their support reps for help if you need it.
9. Time clock software is too expensive
The price of a time clock software can range from a couple hundred dollar one-time purchase to several hundred dollars a month. Some companies charge per employee per month, while some charge per computer one time only.
While there are so many options of time clock software programs, there are a couple things you need to consider before choosing one.
1. What do you need in a an employee time tracking software?
2. What’s your budget?
After you figure that out, you’ll come to find that there is probably at least one option for you that is not too expensive. Don’t be afraid to invest just a little bit of money to make yours and your employees’ jobs easier.
10. Time tracking only benefits employers
Yes, employee time tracking does benefit employers! Isn’t it wonderful? But guess what? Employee time tracking is not just for employers. Clocking in and out every day is not the extend of time tracking for employees.
Not only do employees get the relief of not needing to remember and calculate their times manually, they also get the stability of accurate data. For example, let’s say an employee works for 40 hours and 18 minutes one week. So they should receive 18 minutes of overtime pay. That’s easy enough to track with a time clock software.
But imagine that company is using paper time tracking to just record total hours at the end of the pay period, which is two weeks long. That employee could easily forget about those simple extra 18 minutes and miss out on getting paid for the overtime they worked.
Okay, so that may not be the best example, but you can see that when you use employee time clock software, employees just have more control over their own data. They are more likely to feel more confident in their pay because they have the data to show for it.
Final Remarks
Hopefully, you’re convinced of the importance of employee time tracking. I promise it’s not as scary as it seems, and it’s definitely worth it if you choose to go for it. If you’re in need of a great tool, try our awesome time clock software, TimeClick, for 14 days, free!