What is an employee time clock?

An employee time clock is a device that helps your business keep track of employee work hours so you can pay your team accordingly.
Time clocks come in three basic formats:

– Manual
– Software
– Combination

The most flexible of those options is Sling’s software time clock because it can be set up for businesses of all sizes and includes even more tools to help you manage and optimize your workforce.

Why is an employee time clock important?

Saves time and money

One of the main reasons a time clock is important for any business is because it helps save time and money. An employee time clock reduces the time it takes to process employee time cards and calculate payroll. And a time clock saves money by automating collection and calculation, preventing time card fraud, and shifting the responsibility of hour tracking to your employees.

Ensures accurate payroll

Accurate payroll is essential for the success of your business and the engagement of your team members. Too often, the accuracy of employee payroll falls short because of confusing policies, human error, or banking issues. Incorporating Sling’s digital time clock into your business’s workflow drastically reduces the likelihood that you’ll experience these issues.

Provides real-time information

Sling’s digital employee time clock provides real-time information about all the variables that affect the way your business tracks time. It gives insight on employees and departments that are costing you the most in overtime, and on how your business’s labor time and cost per hour compare to the norms in your industry. Deep data such as this helps estimating and gives you tighter control over labor costs.

Alerts you to attendance issues

Sling’s time clock gives you insight into attendance issues such as:

– Regular, repeated absences (e.g., a specific employee calls in sick three Fridays a month)
– Tardiness
– Long breaks
– Early clock-ins
– Late clock-outs
– Unapproved accumulation of overtime hours

Controlling these attendance issues can cut a significant percentage off your business’s annual payroll costs.

How can an employee time clock help your business?

Helps manage your team remotely

Sling’s cloud-based time clock gives busy managers the ability to coordinate their teams remotely. No longer do they have to be on-site physically to ensure that their team is arriving on time, working their shifts, and leaving when they should.

Eliminates human error

With Sling’s software-based time clock and time management system, human error is all but eliminated. The software stores all the data in one place, tabulates it, and produces reports that you can use to simplify the payroll process. Allowing a computer to do the work for you reduces the potential for errors that occur when manually entering all the numbers.

Guarantees security

When you choose Sling, you all but guarantee the security of your employee data. Sling’s system saves sensitive information such as address, social security number, pay rate, and hours worked, in digital format rather than in a physical file so you can better control access.

Improves productivity

Manually tracking and calculating employee work hours takes a lot of time out of your busy day. With Sling’s integrated time clock, a process that usually takes hours will only take minutes. This frees you up to focus on other business matters and improves your productivity dramatically.

Who is an employee time clock right for?

All businesses — regardless of size or niche — can benefit from implementing the Sling employee time clock into their workflow.
In fact, the Sling suite of tools is perfect for such industries as:

– Healthcare
– Restaurants
– Retail
– Education
– Hotels
– Transportation
– Call centers
– Caregiving
– Entertainment
– Emergency
– Nonprofits
– Remote work

Even if your business doesn’t fall into one of those categories, it can benefit from the power, flexibility, and organization that the Sling time clock provides to your team.

How to use an employee time clock?

The physical act of clocking in and out is pretty simple, but the rules that surround the process are more involved and require all employees to learn how to use the time clock correctly.

Here are some of the more common regulations that businesses use to govern how their employees use the time clock:

– Employees are required to record hours worked for each week and use Sling for that purpose.
– Employees must clock in by the start of their assigned shift.
– Employees must clock out at the end of their assigned shift.
– Employees may not clock in more than 5 minutes prior to the start of their assigned shift, or clock out more than 5 minutes after the end of their assigned shift without manager’s approval.
– Employees must clock out for their assigned lunch break and clock back in when the lunch break is over.
– Employees who have worked more than 40 hours during one week will be paid for the additional hours worked at a rate equal to 1.5 times their regular wage.
– Employees must clock out if they leave the work location for any reason other than work duties assigned by a manager.
– Employees should always clock in and out at their assigned duty station.
– Any adjustments to the time recorded using Sling must be approved by an immediate supervisor.

Of course, you may need different guidelines for your business. Tailor the items on this list to meet your requirements.

Why choose Sling?

The Sling time clock can make your and your team’s work life much easier. But the path to simplicity actually starts before your team clocks in and out at the very beginning of the process: scheduling.

Sling can help with that too. In fact, Sling is designed specifically for scheduling, managing, and optimizing your workforce. Sling contains all the intuitive tools you need to create schedules quickly and correctly the first time through. It even provides guidance, suggestions, up-to-date availability, and time-off requests to help you avoid conflicts while, at the same time, giving you notifications of overlapping shifts and double-bookings.

Sling is your one-stop solution for all your workforce management and optimization needs. With the time-clock manager, work-hour tracker, and employee scheduler (just to name a few), you can keep everyone on task while building a better company culture.