As much as it is important to expect the maximum productivity from employees, it is necessary to maintain a work-life balance amongst them. And out of the most critical policies and guidelines of any organization, time and attendance policy supports this fact the most. Not only does it help to check absenteeism and avoid performance downturn, but it also provides the manpower with fair and transparent pay. Thus, attendance policy comprises a documented set of rules regarding punctuality and regularity of employees along with predefined disciplinary actions on infringement of the same.
First, let us look at the four scenarios that arise while tracking the pattern of employee arrival and departure in an organization:
There is a particular number of hours that every employee must spend working inside the office premises. This period usually ranges between 8 to 9 hours and when an individual completes the same, he/ she is marked present. The monthly remuneration provided to each employee is calculated on the basis of this record.
A normal day at work is divided into two parts: the first half and second half of the day, each lasts from 4 to 4.5 hours. If the employees refrain from completing this duration any day in the organization, they are paid half the amount of their daily wage for that day. The Time & Attendance Management Software offered by HROne manages effective time tracking and records deviations from normal working hours.
There is relaxation to a certain extent in the half-day cases. For a particular number of days in a month, employees are allowed to come late to the office or leave early by 0.5 to 1 hour. These non-uniformities can be regularized by raising requests that are accepted/ rejected by the reporting managers under certain conditions.
When an employee does not show up at work or fails to complete the required number of hours in the office, he/ she is counted as absent. This scenario is further analyzed under 3 conditions:
- Leave Without Approval: Straight absenteeism; no pay
- Present For Less Than Half Day: Straight absenteeism; no pay
- Leave With Approval: Tentative absenteeism; can be regularized later with payment reimbursed
Then the question arises, how do you manage such a cumbersome procedure?
In this technology-driven era, the HRMS of every organization is interfaced with Biometric Systems to record employee attendance through the recognition of physical traits or by scanning ID cards. Tracking employee attendance everyday aids the Attendance Management Software in calculating the salary of employees as per the number of days marked ‘Present’, thereby simplifying the payroll processing altogether. So, this is the best way to keep a fair track of attendance and easily maintain the database.
Now, apart from the aforementioned conditions, there are a few more factors that contribute to the formulation of attendance policy:
Types of Leave
Depending upon the type, size, work, and nature of the organizations, there are different kinds of leave that employees can avail with full pay. Some common types include Saturday/ Sunday (optional) Festival Holidays, Earned Leaves, Casual and Sick Leaves, Compensatory Offs, Out on Duty and some additional/ special leaves such as Marriage, Birth/ Marriage Anniversary, Maternity, Paternity, Bereavement among others.
To understand the Attendance Policy.
Biometric Glitches
Many a time, due to some technical faults in Biometric Systems, the employees are unable to punch in/ out and fail to mark their attendance. In this case, the person needs to regularize the same and get it approved by the reporting manager with the required reason/ proof.
Hence, the attendance policy should be thoroughly designed in coordination with the leave management policy and taking multiple other possible scenarios of presence/ absenteeism into account.