Time and attendance systems are used to record when employees start and stop work, and often the department where the work is undertaken. Tracking of breaks, lunch-breaks, vacation time and sickness absence is also commonplace.
Traditional paper-based or password-based tracking systems which are open to compromise are being replaced by electronic systems, often using cards containing electronic data. Multi-application smart cards that are used to grant access to physical and logical resources can also be used to track attendance using a range of technologies from a basic magnetic stripe to Ultra High Frequency proximity systems that track employees’ whereabouts whenever they are within the building.
Here are examples of how different sectors use time and attendance monitoring:
Corporate
Often linked to a physical or logical access control system, a time and attendance application enables the smart card to be used to track an employee’s hours of work and movements within buildings and networks. Technologies deployed can range from a magnetic stripe ‘swipe’ system to a more advanced tracking technology using Ultra High Frequency proximity cards which can pinpoint the cardholder’s whereabouts
Education
Students and staff movements can be tracked and monitored using a smart card linked to a time and attendance system. This not only verifies whether students are in the right class at the right time, but also can monitor absence, sickness or in the event of a mustering scenario in an emergency, can verify that all the students are accounted for
