Clocking in

Time and attendance solutions are becoming increasingly important business tools for workforce management, says Brian Harris of NOVAtime.

Today's demanding business requirements, and the thin line between success and struggling to survive in today's landscape, highlight the reason why time and attendance, or workforce management solutions, have become an important tool for businesses of all sizes. Not only do economic factors drive labor decisions, but compliance factors are becoming more and more of a business driver in managing workforces. Access to real-time data and ability to effectively manipulate this data for labor costing and reporting solidifies the role of time and attendance in the business world today.

Businesses are often slow to adapt to some of these challenges and grasp technology that is able to address these issues. Companies often feel there is no need to address legacy systems that 'just work' and therefore do not take advantage of the automation, savings, and compliance tools made available in today's workforce management solutions. As companies do begin to undertake the process of implementing, or replacing a time and attendance solution, there are many variables that make the decision-making process complicated.

One major issue facing the time and attendance industry today is quality of solutions and the consolidation of providers. While there are a number of providers in the industry, many of the current solutions have been built on aging and proprietary platforms. To further complicate the time and attendance landscape, providers are consolidating with each other thereby reducing the available choices to today's businesses. It's important that the remaining players in this industry continue to update their solutions in-terms of technology, functionality and usability to be able to meet the business requirements of today and those of the future. Continued consolidation of solutions and solution developers threatens the ongoing advancement and evolution of workforce management solutions.

Technology is also very important in the time and attendance industry, and those providers that are embracing technology and developing on standard platforms are separating themselves from other solutions because of their ability to easily integrate with third-party products and solutions. Many companies have invested heavily in enterprise systems to address ERP, accounting, scheduling, and business intelligence requirements. Because of this, today's time and attendance vendors must be able to interface with these critical, costly systems. The use of current, as well as emerging, technology must be incorporated to provide real-time interfaces to these systems to move data in and out. Furthermore, those vendors focusing on technology are able to scale and add solutions to meet evolving business requirements.

The development of open standard interfaces, transports, and solutions will help time and attendance solutions become more strategic in the overall suite of enterprise applications. Companies may not realize the gold mine of information that is contained within a time and attendance solution. Most often, these workforce management solutions are considered part of the payroll process when, in reality, time and attendance is the foundation of labor costing and effective cost management. To increase access and the usability of this labor costing data, vendors continue to develop software and tools. An increased collaboration between vendors of workforce management solutions and enterprise application providers will help business maximize the potential of the data stored within time and attendance.

The other major discussion point in the time and attendance industry is compliance. Companies have seen the governments' focus shift from compliance support to compliance penalties. In addition to the increased scrutiny from enforcement agencies, companies must also observe the possibility of employee claims. The ability to automate policy and report on violations provides proactive tools for workforce management thus minimizing liability.

While time and attendance solutions have developed significantly over the past decade, from manual punch solutions to complex systems, the next five years will redefine the industry. Biometrics provided the last significant contribution to cost savings, process updates and new solutions; however, new technologies such as web services, standardized interfaces, transports and open platforms will differentiate vendors and be the foundation of strategic solutions for years to come.

Brian Harris serves as the Director of Professional Services for NOVAtime, overseeing all customer-facing activity from pre-sales to support. Having served nearly 20 years in the nation's largest consulting firms, Harris focuses on the alignment of process and technology with today's ever changing business-critical issues and demanding workplace environments.