The 5 Main Issues with Paper-Based Scheduling & Time Tracking

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Using paper-based systems for tracking and scheduling has always gotten the job done but they are not the most efficient or ideal. Unfortunately, they can cause a lot of errors and even serve as a distraction from more important duties.

 

It is inflexible and very challenging to keep up to date

 

When you post a particular work schedule, it is only accurate at the moment that you make it available since aspects on that schedule will likely change quite quickly. For example, an employee may have an emergency sick day or they have to take unexpected leave. This will result in having to actually call your other employees to see who can take up the extra shift since they wouldn’t know that it is available.

 

Additionally, schedules that are written on paper can cause a great deal of confusion among employees. There is a higher chance that one or more employees may get their dates mixed up or start at the wrong time etc.

 

Increased time theft vulnerabilities

 

When time tracking is written on paper, then this can lead to the rounding up of time spent working to overly generous hours. There was a survey done by Software Advice where about half of the employees who worked on an hourly basis admitted that they lied or exaggerated about how much time they worked.

 

It may seem harmless for employees to add a couple of extra minutes, however, it adds up in the long run. It was found that this can actually cost your business an extra 7% of the annual payroll. So, when there is a paper-based time tracking system in place, this makes it almost impossible for you to be aware of this type of behaviour and do something about it.

 

No one likes paperwork

 

Recording time manually in a paper-based system can take up a lot of time and be its own job. The majority of employees who already spend all day working typically don’t enjoy having to manually fill out forms. As a result, many of them treat it carelessly like a chore and this results in the date recorded becoming inaccurate due to errors. According to the folks at Tsheets, they can tell stories of unhappy workers submitting their times on Styrofoam or paper cups! This is why you should bring your time tracking up to date with www.tracktime24.com – the hassle-free workforce management tool.

 

 

Huge repercussions due to tiny errors

 

When it comes to manually tracking time, each employee would have to record the hours they worked and then the payroll manager would then have to record this in the database. Unfortunately, this is a very imperfect system that is easily prone to errors that can be caused by the manager incorrectly reading what the employee wrote down. For example, it is very easy to misread handwriting since the number 2 can easily look like the number 7 etc. Also, there is the chance of a typing error when the information is being written onto the payroll. Once this occurs and there is a dispute, it can be very challenging to find out where things went bad.

 

Slows everything down

 

Most employees will need constant reminders to finish and hand up timesheets. Once they do that, then the times have to be typed into the payroll and this can cause a lot of time loss. This is not only just a distraction but will also result in the payment of extra wages. By having manual paper-based time tracking and scheduling, this is not only complex and costs you more money, but also wastes a lot of valuable time. For this reason, we recommend employee tracking software and tools which allow for automatic time tracking.