Employee shift differential and overtime expenses are challenging for organizations of all sizes to anticipate or identify because the differentials do not jump off the page. Rather, it is that accumulation of punch time differentials that cause the biggest problems and cost the organization the most money. Using time rounding rules can help organizations prevent unexpected expenses and headaches.

Avoid Clock Creep

Shifts might have designated end times, but often an employee’s work may not. It is common in many organizations for an employee to clock out after their shift has ended, which tacks on time to their time worked. This may only be a few minutes each day, but cumulatively, this can add up to meaningful amounts of time that require paying overtime or trigger other requirements. This “clock creep” can be costly for businesses and result in unexpected budget impact.

Integrating ZKTeco’s Ultima device with your organization’s Human Capital Management system (HCM) can help to avoid clock creep by using rounding rules for time punches falling outside of the employee’s scheduled shift. For example, if an employee’s shift ends at 5:00PM, but she clocks out at 5:03, Ultima’s rounding rule function will record the punch out time as 5:00 if there is a rounding rule that records time in fifteen minute increments and defaults back to the prior quarter hour. Ultima will then push the rounded time to the HCM.

Rounding rules can be applied individually to all punch types. These rules are also customizable to a specific organization’s policies and labor law requirements.

Simplify Payroll and HR Processes

Rounding rules help Human Resources (HR) teams avoid the time-intensive work required to verify punch times to avoid clock creep. This results in more efficient payroll processes. This also enables HR professionals to identify real issues, such as unapproved or excessive overtime, which may require attention. By surfacing real time punch issues, HR professionals will be better equipped to remedy issues and avoid significant budget issues down the line.

Further, because the review process will be less intensive, HR can enlist people managers to help identify punch time anomalies and work with their team members to resolve the issue.

Simple Solutions to Avoid Complex Problems

Implementing rounding rules can help an organization better manage their employees time and avoiding unexpected or unintentional budget or employment law compliance issues. Clock creep impacts businesses of all sizes and of all types. Utilizing the Ultima timeclock’s rounding rules function, in combination with your HCM’s shift scheduling process, can help to avoid clock creep and headaches and issues that come with it.

Posted by Editor