According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers have to compensate their employees for any hours worked, even if they did not clock in or out. In addition to avoiding legal troubles, accurately tracking time helps your business analyze essential business expenses and prevent employees from getting in the habit of arriving late or not showing up for work altogether.
Here are a few best practices for implementing a strong clock-in-clock-out method in your business to best encourage accurate timesheets.
Best Practices
- Have a written policy for attendance tracking
- Help employees build good habits
- Discipline when necessary
Have a Written Policy for Attendance Tracking
Every business should have a written policy regarding clock in and clock out procedures. It should include how to clock in and out, what situations require clocking in and out (like lunch breaks), how to report and correct time clock mistakes, and the disciplinary actions for failing to clock in and out on time. Require your employees to read and sign the official policy, ensuring that your business is protected and your employees understand the expectations. Every time a change is made to the policy, administrators should review it with your team, ensuring that everyone is on the same page at all times.
Help Employees Build Good Habits
Some people just aren’t good at being on time if the environment is too relaxed. Here are a few tips to help all of your employees build better habits for not only arriving on time and clocking in but also clocking out at the end of their shift. First, suggest setting reminders or alarms to prompt employees to clock in and out at the correct time. Second, offer incentives for clocking in and out on time, such as a gift card for gas or groceries or a special lunch provided by the company. Finally, remind your employees how clocking in and out helps the whole team. When everyone clocks in and out on time, payroll is more accurate and the team runs more efficiently.
Discipline When Necessary
While you hope you will never have to take disciplinary action, it’s important to stick to procedures if an employee regularly neglects to clock in or out. Often, a verbal warning is enough to change an employee’s behavior. But if this warning isn’t enough, many businesses follow with a written warning and finally possible termination if the employee’s behavior does not change. It’s important to note that employers cannot dock an employee’s pay if they fail to clock in or out. You should include these procedures in your written policy for both employees and supervisors to reference.
Chronotek Makes Clocking In and Out Second Nature
Time clock infractions are unavoidable, even with the best policies in place and the hardest-working team on the job. An employee might clock out and help another team member for five minutes, but this additional work time is not significant and the employee likely won’t request an adjustment to their timesheet. Help your employees clock in and out easier and more accurately, and help your supervisors quickly make adjustments to timesheets with Chronotek’s smart time tracking app.
While the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require a specific form for recording employee hours, it does require that they include certain identifying information and data about work hours and wages earned. With Chronotek, your employees can clock in and out anywhere using our smartphone app, web clock, or a phone call. Geofencing and GPS location tracking also ensure that your team is located at the job when they start and end their shifts. Supervisors have easy access to their dashboards to check who is on the job, even getting alerts if an employee is late or does not show up for their shift.
It’s okay for timesheets to be imperfect, but with a system like Chronotek, inaccurate time sheets will be a thing of the past.
Make it easy for your team to never miss a minute with Chronotek!