Technology is increasingly weaving its way into our daily lives, and most of it is helpful and makes life easier.  But sometimes a new gadget or program sounds like a good idea when we see or hear about it then turns out to be impractical or unusable when applied to real life.  For example retina scanning in science fiction movies seems cool to consider where highest security is needed, but can be the wrong attendance tracking system in situations that require speed to administer, companies that are constrained by budget or time attendance needs such as that that don’t require such extreme security.

Impractical technologies such as the clumsy (if not silly) “wearable” computing devices may have sounded like a good idea initially.  But attaching a tiny “screen” to glasses and strapping on some device to your body so you can have computing access everywhere you go doesn’t make sense for many to use day-to-day (unless you’re an extreme nerd – no offense).  This of course may change in the future as there seems to be no shortage of inventors working on wearable computing technologies and miniaturizing components.

Biometric attendance tracking solutions such as fingerprint scanning makes sense only for specialized circumstances. Using biometric devices or devices to record the presence (attendance) of people by reading any part of their physical body can be expensive, impractical, unreliable, inflexible and many people may have negative feelings associated with their use.

Expense

Biometric attendance tracking solutions can be very expensive to implement in terms of:

• Upfront installation expense
• Ongoing monthly service fees
• Repair fees
• Costs in additional time to make them work

Many biometric attendance solutions come with large price tags.  The entire cost is difficult to determine because the reliability compared to swipe card attendance tracking is unknown, and the manufacturer response, repair and quality record can be difficult to assess.  It is also difficult to know the learning curve required to get operators fully productive and knowledgeable in their use and how to troubleshoot problems.  Question any biometric attendance tracking solution provider copiously about their response, repair, and quality track record.  Find out about the learning curve required to use the devices and get testimonials from their customers.

Overkill

Related to expense somewhat, biometric attendance tracking solutions are not required for employee time tracking or any simple attendance tracking need.  Biometrics are most effective when security needs are high and there are real costs associated with letting the wrong people through the tracking mechanism.  Many attendance tracking needs do not require such a high level of security.  If biometrics are applied where simple employee time tracking is needed, the biometric attendance tracking solution could actually slow down the tracking function over using simple swipe cards because biometric software solutions are less reliable than swipe card attendance tracking software.

Reliability

Swipe card employee time tracking solutions always work because the “code” being read is a constant, simple numeric string.  Biometrics requires software that operates the scanning devices to maintain a relatively large database of scanned fingerprint, retina or other data.  Matches involve computation and an element of computer guessing which adds to unreliability.  You can swipe a plastic card 100 times and often the string of characters will be read correctly 100 times.  100 fingerprint reads from most biometric fingerprint scanners will yield far fewer than 100 correct reads.  Can you afford to have employees standing around while operators try to get biometric devices to read correctly?

Even the most modern biometric readers can be unreliable.  Many are and will create additional delays and bottlenecks.  Ask yourself, “if even one employee is delayed by using biometrics, is such a technology really improving my bottom line?”  Even when (if?) new biometric hardware is made to be much more reliable, current hardware is impossible to upgrade and must be replaced, likely at further expense.  However our thinking is that just like “talk and type” software programs are far from perfect even today, biometric attendance tracking solutions need further development to become as reliable as swipe card solutions.

Flexibility

Attendance tracking software should have manual input capability to provide for the dozens of situations where strict physical attendance event tracking is too rigid.  However, manual input capability undermines the high security nature of biometric attendance tracking.  Consider the attendance tracking scenario you may have and think about any situation that would make using a solution without the ability to manually check in attendees too rigid and therefore costly to you.  If you need the ability to manually check people in or out for any specialized reason, make sure the employee time tracking solution you select provides that ability.

Psychology

Biometric time and attendance software usually works with a hardware device that reads your eye or more commonly your fingertip.  “Checking in” by performing such an action can give users an “incarcerated” feel.

Consider two scenarios where a swipe card solution fit “psychologically” where a biometric solution would not.  The first a church pastor that wanted to track attendance to his church.  He applied a swipe card reader and signed people up allowing them to use any credit or store club card they already owned.

The second scenario involved a community college football coach that needed to measure attendance of his football players to the library.  He applied a swipe card attendance tracking software solution and issued cards available from the manufacturer.  Can you imagine either of these situations using a fingerprint or retina scanning device?  First, neither required extreme security – a cost saving assurance that those authorized can get in and the wrong people are kept out.  Second, it is likely that elderly church attendees or football player students showing up to study would subconsciously have a negative feeling about having a fingerprint or retina scan.  Such behaviors are foreign to many of us, where using plastic cards is extremely familiar.  We use plastic cards of all kinds for payments and club memberships every day.  Using plastic cards to check in psychologically and subconsciously feels somewhat the same as using a plastic credit or debit card to make a purchase; it is an empowering action to the subconscious mind.  The negative psychology associated with biometric time and attendance solutions is a strong consideration when deciding on your employee time tracking needs.  We suggest to both:

• Find a solution using plastic swipe cards if your business doesn’t require high security levels, and;
• Use an employee time tracking solution that allows the use of any swipe card

This way you can keep costs low and maintain high moral in your employees or attendees.

Clock Real Time from Kneson Software is a time and attendance software solution that uses any swipe card and is priced lower than any other attendance tracking solution.  Click here to read more about Clock Real Time.

Kim Bobo, Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org) Executive Director and author of “Wage Theft in America” states that wage theft is a national crisis that is continuing to grow, and it’s not just a small problem in a few mom and pop companies.  She states that wage theft is found in some of the largest and most recognizable companies such as Walmart, Cyntas, Home Depot and even Target.  The video below is an important description of this very real threat to our economy. Unlike the banking crisis or gas price increases, wage theft can be solved and in doing so can be part of the solution to the current recession.

Current Unemployment

In the midst of this wage theft crisis people are finding themselves increasingly out of work.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics continually reports a bleak unemployment picture:

“Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 345,000 in May [2009], about half the average monthly decline for the prior 6 months. The unemployment rate continued to rise, increasing from 8.9 to 9.4 percent. Steep job losses continued in manufacturing, while declines moderated in construction and several service-providing industries.”

The national rate of unemployment rate has gone from 4.4% to 9.4% in just over two years, rising 25 out of the last 27 months.

Wage Theft Exacerbated by Unemployment

Corporations who engage in wage theft are more inclined to injure or steal from workers in other ways.  Unsafe workplace environments, tools and equipment, quality and integrity of protective safety gear and negatively incentivizing workers using threats of job loss are just a few ways employers take advantage of those working for them.

This last point is most poignant:   corrupt employers engaging in wage theft practices combined with the 2009 economic climate has created employers that use threat of job loss to maintain their wage theft practices, worsening the crisis and allowing wage theft practices to continue.

Under such circumstances, what price employment? What is the value in such jobs to improve society, uplift workers to higher income levels or provide hope that we are working to dig ourselves out of this economic mess?  My parents had a pole bean farm when I was growing up.  Dad never had problems getting workers because he paid everyone by check at the end of every single day.  No other farmer did that.  Dad always paid worker’s their full wages daily and his employees did better work for him as a result.  I believe that actually made him money.  I cannot imagine a more hopeless existence than to feel locked in a low wage job I’m afraid to lose with a shrinking paycheck working for a corrupt, criminal employer.

Captive, Repeat Victims

Every month the recession continues, lower class workers are pressured to “move further down” the socio-economic chain as displaced middle class workers apply for lower class jobs.  This coupled with the threat of job loss for those that complain about wage theft has applied double the job loss pressure on lower class workers.

In an armed robbery or home invasion, the perpetrator overtly and sometimes aggressively seizes cash or property in a single act against a victim.  Victims experience a single loss in a single event that often gets reported to police.  Wage theft on the other hand is silent, ongoing and grossly under-reported.  Victim workers endure loss each pay period for months or even years by the same criminal: their employer.  The ease with which wage theft can be executed, maintained through threats and repeated has created a “silent crisis.”

Employer ethical issues aside, many inexpensive yet modern tools are available to help employers avoid wage theft. Newer, more modern time clocks, time and attendance software and modern accounting software are nearly effortless to learn and use and these tools can improve efficiency without high cost.  For restaurants and other cash register-based businesses, many modern point-of-sale systems manage employee time automatically as part of their functionality.  Modern tools such as these leveraged to their full technological advantage can likely save employers money over antiquated paper or time clock systems.

Regardless, it is important to report wage theft no matter what excuse an employer might provide for doing it.  Often employers will engage in wage theft and use a recession or other financial excuse to keep more revenues even if they have sufficient funds to pay workers their fully earned wages.  Companies allowed to continue engaging in wage theft hurt everyone in their employ and are therefore just as dangerous to society as any criminal.  Wage theft undermines our countries economic foundation and ability to recover from recession.  To report wage theft, contact the United States Department of Labor for your state. CLICK HERE for a list of State Labor Offices or call the Wage and Hour Division’s toll-free help line:

1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243)

TTY: 1-877-889-5627

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