Using Biometric Identification Technology to Combat Time Theft in Workforce Management

Time theft is widely considered as a great obstacle of employee productivity and profit maximization in the workforce management industry. Time theft at works occurs when an employee accepts pay from their employer for time they have not actually put in, and it can occur in different ways such as time clock theft, proxy attendance, buddy punching, over extended breaks, excessive personal time, and more. Biometric identification technology is now taking a permanent place in the workplace to combat time theft and increase profits in the workforce industry, for many reasons.

Time theft has become a prevalent problem within many organizations worldwide and if you are a company owner or engaged with workforce management you might face similar problems. According to an American Payroll Association study, employees reported stealing roughly 4.5 hrs/week – the equivalent of 6 weeks’ vacation! However, business are looking for new ways or technology to prevent employee time theft and effectively manage their attendance. The use of biometric identification for employee time and attendance is the most reliable option and the future of workforce management accountability may be non-existent without this very useful technology. Let’s dig deeper on why a business should consider implementing a biometric attendance system to combat time theft in workforce management and how it can increase profits.

Why does workforce management need biometrics to combat time theft?

Biometric technology isolates and captures unique human physiological characteristics to identify a person. Once upon a time this technology was only seen in sci-fi movies but each day it becomes a go-to technology for government identity projects, law enforcement agencies (e.g. police, forensic departments, and detective branches) for fast and accurate identification. Biometric identification is accurate, secure, and end user solutions are specifically designed to be user friendly to help bring convenience to the workplace. The main reason of implementing a biometric system into workforce management for eliminating time theft is that it identifies a person by biometric credentials such as a fingerprint, finger vein, palm vein or iris, which cannot be lost, forgotten, guessed, or easily cloned. Therefore, there is less chance of any kind of time theft.

CloudApper Solution Community for UKG

We empower users to customize solutions

When features are needed to enhance UKG solutions, CloudApper is here to help. It’s a non-technical toolkit for customizing UKG – easily build anything you want, share it with the community, and help everyone thrive.

Learn More

Top customizations shared by the UKG solution community

Capture time
with QR codes

Capture time
with biometrics

Track
employee tasks

Generate
custom reports

Schedule
employee tasks

Ensure
HR compliance

Send personalized
alerts

Capture time
with geofencing

Build custom
dashboards

Capture
time with NFC

Capture Job transfer
with barcode

Manage HIPAA
compliance

How can biometric identification combat time theft?

Biometric identification is now considered a reliable and cost effective solution for implementation into a workforce management system to combat time theft. Here is a quick overview of what compelling features biometric technology has and how it can prevent employee time theft:

• Eliminate buddy punching: Buddy punching, defined as the practice of punching another employee in or out when they aren’t there, is the form of time theft most easily thwarted by biometrics. As biometrics characteristics cannot be duplicated it prevents employees from punching in a co-worker while not present in the workplace.
• Combating the false punch: In old fashioned manual and password or PIN based time tracking process, employees can commit fraud by sharing passwords. Biometric technology identifies a person by who the person is rather than what the person carries such as personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords, or ID cards. Biometric time and attendance systems can prevent this type of time theft from workforce management as biometric credentials cannot be duplicated or forged.
• Accuracy: As biometrics credentials for every individual are different and cannot be forged or duplicated, biometric identification becomes the most accurate system to identify any individual. Biometric technology will help accurately track employee time and attendance which can prevent time theft issues like early arrivals, early departures, and unauthorized overtime.

Benefits of using biometric identification technology to combat time theft

Implementing biometrics for employee time and attendance with a workforce management system can bring numerous benefits. Utilizing a biometric attendance system tracks employees clocking in and out by identifying them based on their biometric match. Listed below here are some major benefits of implementing biometric time and attendance with a workforce management system:

• Improve workforce productivity: Implementing biometric time and attendance with a workforce management system to combat time theft will increase productivity. Eliminating the practice of keeping manual time and attendance records, biometrics saves employee time, decreases staffing overhead and provides accurate labor data on the payroll system to effectively manage business operations and increase productivity.
• Increase profits: According to an estimate by The American Payroll Association, buddy punching affects 75% of businesses in the U.S. and can cost a business up to 7% of gross payroll annually. For example, if your company labor cost is $500,000,buddy punching could cost as much as $35,000 per year. Biometric technology can save a company from paying false wages by preventing buddy punching and providing accurate attendance data.
• Reduce labor costs: Integration of a biometric identification system to manage business costs will subsequently reduce labor costs. Manually collecting, managing, calculating and processing timesheet data takes a lot of time, but with an automated biometric attendance system, companies are able to increase efficiency and save money. Therefore, this system can save costs from losing swipe cards and password reset headaches from the IT team.
• Increase efficiency: Implementing an automated biometric time and attendance system can drastically speed up the process of collecting time and attendance records which normally requires hours of paperwork and manual entry in an old-fashioned system. Moreover, it allows business owners to produce automatic time sheets and provide an entire employment history with a few clicks of the mouse. This will reduce the amount of time tracking employee hours and allows the ability to generate a quick report to see overall attendance data.

Biometric identification in the workplace has great potential not only to prevent employee time theft but also to prevent buddy punching and other egregious violations to increase productivity and profits. Moreover, a biometric attendance solution integrated with a workforce management system improves the ease-of-use, efficiency, and accuracy of timekeeping systems while saving payroll costs of any company and increasing profits.