Time and Attendance Using Swipe Cards
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.
