Whether your employees work part-time, full-time, shifts, or a combination of all, time and activity management (TAM) software can help you better manage their scheduling and payroll. 

Managing a couple dozen employees can still be handled manually. However, as your business grows, you’ll hire more people with different working hours and requirements. Monitoring everyone’s attendance with spreadsheets is, therefore, no longer an option. This is where employee time attendance software solves modern HR challenges.

But what is time and activity management? Why should you adopt employee attendance software? And why digitize it? You’ll find the answers in this blog. Let’s dive in!

What is Time and Activity Management?

Time and activity management, also known as TAM or employee attendance software, involves managing, monitoring, and controlling employees’ working hours, attendance, and absences. 

The needs of a small business with 10 employees differ from those of a multinational corporation. In the same way, a company operating in a sector with particular work cycles/shifts will not have the same TAM tool requirements as a company employing the common full-time work contract.

That said, all companies (regardless of their size and industry) need to manage their employees’ time and activities with precision. This allows them to control the workforce budget, set up product prices, ensure compliance with labor law, and more.

What Can Time and Activity Management Do?

Time and activity management covers several areas:

  • Employee working hours (clock-in and clock-out times, as well as overtime hours and shifts)
  • Employee self-service (request time off, see time sheets, schedules, and more)
  • Management of employee absences: paid leave, sick leave, etc.
  • Add, correct, submit, and approve holiday requests (manager role)
  • Instant calculations of accruals and balances based on requests 
  • Smart mobile app to record time and attendance for remote and mobile workers 
  • Analysis of activities and hours spent on tasks or projects
  • Analysis of activities by department, cost center, etc.
  • Generate compliant reports according to employment laws and regulations

Furthermore, by adopting TAM, you can set your own working hours system for each individual. They can clock in and out easily, and each entry will be logged into the employee database. These hours will then be transferred to several business functions, including:

  • Payroll for an automatic calculation of salary
  • HR for an automatic calculation of working hours, holiday entitlement, sick days
  • Finance for automatic calculation of workforce costs

What Challenges Can Tam Solve?

From the HR department to managers and the employees themselves, robust time management solutions benefit the entire company.

Maintain Compliance with Regulations

Keeping track of employees’ working hours helps ensure compliance with regulations on maximum working hours and daily and weekly off periods.

If an employee exceeds the maximum working hours authorized by the government (e.g., the French Labor Code) and the company’s agreements, the HR department can take immediate action to avoid any law infringement.

As a reminder, according to French labor law, exceeding the maximum working time without derogation exposes a company to a fourth-class fine, i.e., a maximum of €750 per employee.

Improve Profitability

Time and activity management enables you to monitor working time in a precise, analytical, and comprehensive way. You can break down the working hours data by team, project, or task. This enables team leaders and management to control project costs to calculate accurate profits. 

Optimize Project Planning

TAM plays a key role in project planning. It defines the work time allocated to a project and the resources required for each project stage. Leverage this data to anticipate any workforce shortage and act accordingly, such as recruitment, temporary transfer, schedule modification, etc.). Companies can also monitor the budget allocated to each project in real-time, so they can stay under the allocated costs.

Why Adopt a Digital Time and Activity System?

Gone are the Excel tracking sheets and vacation requests in paper forms. It’s now time to digitize all HR processes, including time and activity management. Here are some benefits of adopting digital employee time attendance software for your business.

Improved Productivity

Digitizing TAM allows you to optimize working time management by providing a global view of the time allocated to each project, as well as evaluating project output, progress, and employee performance.

The aim here is to manage employee working time optimally to boost productivity as much as possible. Time and activity management software can support managers in achieving this essential objective.

Accurate Payroll

Time and activity management software enables the integration of time management data (absences, overtime, RTT counter management, activity-related bonuses, etc.) directly into payroll software. 

This eliminates the need for managers or employees to enter vacation pay, overtime, Sunday, and public holiday bonuses manually. This way, you free your payroll system from errors, inaccuracies, or double entries and avoid unnecessary expenses.

Streamlined People Management

TAM solution streamlines exchanges between employees, managers, and HR. Managers can access their teams’ activity directly without going through the HR department.

Some TAM solutions also enable employees to enter their working hours and absences. This relieves the burden on HR departments and managers and gives employees a greater sense of responsibility in managing their working hours—a win-win solution for all parties!

Boost Productivity With Flexible Employee Time Attendance Software

Managing time and attendance records can be challenging, especially if your company has hundreds of employees with different working types and schedules. To solve this problem, employ robust employee time attendance software.

Not only does TAM help you manage the work hours logs, but it also ensures that your workforce is aligned with the costs, project timelines, and labor law. For a smart time and activity management system, adopt Crosstalent.

Our TAM solution empowers your employees to have the authority to manage their schedule from the comfort of their phones, managers can monitor and accept holiday requests in batches, and HR and payroll managers will be relieved from manual work. Consequently, you’ll have better control over your budget and comply with local workforce regulations. 

Try our time and attendance tracker today. Speak to an expert for a demo!