Timekeeping has a profound effect on labor costs, operational efficiency and payroll accuracy. With hardware integration to our Vision clock, timekeeping becomes an intelligent process that automates workflows, increases security, promotes wellness and saves you time and money.
Let’s look at some numbers:
$7.4 billion is lost per day to unrecorded work activities.
As a whole, small businesses are losing a lot of money to unrecorded work activities. This includes rounding up in favor of employees, early punch in, and time theft. Our time and attendance solution and Vision clock hardware provides real-time accuracy, schedule enforcement and biometric assurance that time is allocated to the right person. Our intelligent timekeeping records everything and even offers notifications to alert you when employees record information outside of your parameters.
Time theft can add as much as 7% to your gross annual payroll.
Buddy punching, early punch in, and unrecorded breaks are costing you more than you know. Our Vision clock makes buddy punching impossible. Lockout features in our timekeeping software prevent employees from punching in earlier than you specify to reduce unplanned overtime, and our intelligent clock features reduce missed punches and other punch errors.
Automated time tracking can reduce the time it takes to calculate timecards from 7 minutes per card per pay period to 1 minute per card per pay period.
Manual timecard management is error-prone and a real time-killer. The American Payroll Association estimates that it takes a minimum of 15 minutes to discover, track down and fix a timecard error. That ads up fast considering errors are common in most hand-calculated processes. Our Vision clock automatically records all your punch data and stores it in our timekeeping software. All the calculations are done automatically, and delivered straight to payroll without any opportunity for human error. You’ll save time and effort every pay period.
With a manual process, employees who log their time at least once a day are 66% accurate, whereas those who log their time weekly are only 47% accurate, and people who complete their timesheet less than once a week are only 35% accurate!
Our new Vision clock helps you track time on a daily basis, including meals and breaks. This increases accuracy over traditional timekeeping and saves a significant amount of money in the long run.
The average cost of labor every time an employee fills out a timecard is $9.37. For a company with 100 employees, that’s $937 in employee time every pay period.
Our intelligent timekeeping software and new Vision clock bring a new level of speed and accuracy to time collection. Vision authenticates an employee’s identity in less than a second and automatically presents punch options that are relevant to the employee’s current state. That means employees can clock faster, and never have to manually record time, remember dates, or backfill a timecard.
Surveys indicate that up to 60% of employees are apprehensive about returning to the workplace.
Vision+ with thermal scanning can help employers track wellness and ensure that the workplace is healthy. Employees feel better about accepting risk when they know their employer is concerned about wellness and has taken measures to help ensure a safe work environment. Vision+ can also help employers track and respond to employee wellness, helping them remain compliant with new laws including OSHA and the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
Conclusion
Small businesses can effectively manage their modern workforces with our new Vision and Vision+ biometric time clocks. The Vision facial recognition clock paired with our timekeeping solution solve critical time and attendance pain points while providing the highest level of workforce management.
Vision+ provides additional data that helps you establish wellness protocols and assure employees that their workplace is safe.
Give us a call to schedule a demo and discover what Vision facial recognition can do for your business. Call 941 Payroll today at (877) 941-9419.
With faster processing, higher security and full integration with our time and attendance software, Vision offers an intelligent solution for modern timekeeping.
SPEED
A faster processor means shorter shift changes. With Vision, facial recognition is nearly instant, and authentication takes less than a second. This ensures employees can start their shift without taking extra time at the clock.
SECURITY
Vision features advanced security so that employee biometric data is encrypted and unshareable.
It also has built-in biometric consent so that employers can comply with new laws requiring employee consent to use biometric data. Compliance with biometric consent laws is already required in California, Texas and a growing number of additional states.
Facial recognition provides additional security to help you avoid buddy punching and other forms of time theft.
CONVENIENCE
Vision requires only a face to authenticate so there is no need to carry a fob or card, and no need to remember PINs or passwords.
It also works in environments that are tough on fingerprints. Industries like hospitality, construction and manufacturing are notoriously hard on fingerprints, yet these environments are most in need of fast and accurate biometric authentication. With Vision, no fingerprints are needed, and say goodbye to cards, fobs and PINs.
In addition, Vision works in low-light environments, and is portable when using battery backup for remote offsite clocking.
Of course, Vision will accept PIN authentication where facial recognition is difficult.
ENGAGEMENT
Vision allows you to create custom clock prompts to engage employees at punch in. Clock prompts can deliver notifications to an entire shift. Many employers are using the prompts to screen employees for symptoms of illness. This reminds employees to be mindful of their health and its impact on the workplace.
INTELLIGENT CLOCK FEATURES ELIMINATE ERRORS
The Vision time clock helps prevent punch errors by only presenting logical clocking options based on the current state of each employee. Employees who have yet to clock in will only see clock in options. Employees who have clocked in will only see options for meals, breaks or clocking out.
With intelligent clock options, employees are less likely to make punch errors that lead to payroll mistakes.
COMPLIANCE
With biometric consent, intelligent clock features, and full integration to our time and attendance software, Vision provides the ultimate in compliance. Employers can use clock prompts to ensure the proper classification is assigned to each employee on punch, and time and attendance records are updated in real time.
Wellness
Vision Plus features thermal scanning to help ensure that employees are healthy by scanning their temperature as they clock in. This feature is particularly helpful in a post-COVID environment where employers are looking for additional assurances that workers are well, and to help foster confidence among employees that wellness is a priority.
Small business owners who want the highest level of workforce management need an advanced employee time clock. If you’re still using older tech, you’re missing out on new features that help small businesses manage more efficiently, meet new challenges, and get back to work faster.
New Challenges
As small businesses bring employees back to the worksite, employers are addressing new challenges that require intelligent solutions. Let’s look at a few of the challenges employers are facing…
With more employees on site, punch lines are beginning to slow. Employers are looking for new ways to speed punch lines and better manage employee authentication.
Traditional methods of authentication such as fobs or cards are easy to lose, and employees regularly forget passcodes or PINs. Punch problems can slow the process of starting work which reduces productivity.
Biometric fingerprint scanners have filled an important niche in convenient and secure punching. However, in some industries, worn fingerprints fail to register and disrupt the clock-in line. Employers in many industries are looking for solutions that can speed up punchlines, increase security and get employees to their work stations without reliance on fingerprint technology.
Most employers with hourly workers pay more for labor due to hours theft. Unfortunately, many basic time clocks offer only a partial solution to prevent buddy punching and timecard fraud.
To complicate the issue, employers with conventional clocks don’t often have insight into labor allocation because they can’t tie employee time to jobs or clients. Furthermore, most traditional clock solutions can’t capture data at clock-in such as job location or wellness information.
Ease of use is another issue that sets advanced time clocks apart. Traditional punch solutions can be confusing for employees or are difficult to manage.
New concern for workforce health has increased adoption of employee wellness strategies.
Small businesses are working to ensure employees that wellness is a priority, and that the office is a safe place to work.
An effective strategy to ensure employee wellness is thermal scanning at punch in. Our new Vision+ clock features intelligent thermal scanning to ensure employees are healthy and ready for work.
Finally, synchronization with timekeeping software is essential for advanced workforce management. Without a real-time connection to your software solution, you simply aren’t able to take advantage of time and money-saving features that are inherent in modern timekeeping.
Bottom line?
Business owners using traditional punch solutions, or none at all, lose productivity every day.
We have a solution
Enter facial recognition and thermal scanning; the future of secure biometric time tracking. Facial recognition provides a fast, secure method of authentication that doesn’t need to be kept in a pocket or remembered.
Facial recognition solves new challenges as employees come back to work. It also helps employers prevent more types of time theft than with fingerprint, prox card or PIN clocks.
Our new Vision+ clock features intelligent thermal scanning to ensure employees are healthy and ready for work.
Small businesses like yours can solve these problems and more with our all-new Vision and Vision+ facial recognition time clock hardware.
Do you employ independent contractors? Are you sure they qualify as “independent?” The DOL estimates that between 10% and 30% of employers misclassify their employees and independent contractors. Misclassification can result in minimum wage, overtime, and FMLA violations. You can find the duties tests here: US Department of Labor.
Case Study
Companies often misclassify employees because of the additional costs and expenses typically related to employees. However, misclassifying employees leaves the employer open to litigation, a tarnished reputation, and costly fines.
An investigation by the DOL found Minnesota-based Cable Equipment Services violated FLSA overtime, minimum wage, and recordkeeping requirements when they failed to pay 41 market contractors and drivers overtime and minimum wage. The company treated the workers involved as independent contractors instead of employees. However, investigators found that the workers met the definition of employees. The defendants agreed to pay $350,000 in back wages and liquidated damages.
Employers should carefully review their independent contractors to determine if any of the workers should be classified as employees.
The Solution: Automated Time and Attendance
Automated time and attendance minimizes much of the administrative and regulatory burden of classifying workers, tracking work time, and maintaining compliant records.
Tools include:
Employee classifications
Automated timekeeping
Audit-ready recordkeeping
Automated Time and Attendance for Compliance Confidence
Our time and attendance solution provides an easy and effective way to maintain compliance with a variety of challenges that cause trouble for many employers.
Ready to up your game when it comes to compliance? Give us a call. Call 941 Payroll today at (877) 941-9419.
The Fair Labor Standards Act has been around since 1938. Regardless, thousands of employers fail to comply (either knowingly or unknowingly) with the FLSA overtime rules. Some violators are well-known multi-million dollar corporations.
When is overtime pay mandatory?
Employers must pay overtime when hours worked by a non-exempt hourly worker exceed 40 in a defined work week. The overtime pay rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must be at least time and one-half the employee’s regular rate of pay. No limit is imposed on the number of hours worked in a workweek for those over age 16. Overtime pay is not required for work on weekends, holidays or regular days of rest, unless the employee has exceeded the overtime hours limit in the workweek. State, local, union and industry-specific laws may also apply.
Case Studies
Overtime violations usually result from either misclassifying non-exempt employees or failing to track all employee time.
A Las Vegas plastering company had to pay $137,174 in back wages owed to 156 piece-rate employees who weren’t paid overtime.
An Ohio-based home health agency was fined $327,848 for multiple violations including not paying overtime when travel time between clients pushed aides over a 40-hour workweek.
Compensate correctly for “call-in” shifts or “on-call” work
Know meals/breaks laws
Pay employees for training time, putting on uniforms and traveling between job sites throughout the day (traveling from home to the first job site or client is not generally compensable time)
Unplanned Overtime Costs You Big Time
While we’re on the subject of overtime, it’s worth pointing out how unplanned overtime impacts your labor budget. A recent Deloitte study of over 800 U.S. employers revealed an average of 31 unplanned overtime hours each week, per company. Let’s do the math: if your company has an overtime wage of $25, 31 hours a week would add up to a yearly cost of over $40,000.
By limiting unplanned overtime, you not only reduce the risk of a violation, but also save your labor budget.
Automated Time and Attendance Works Overtime to Keep You Compliant
Automated time and attendance can help you track employee time and provides alerts and notifications when an employee is approaching overtime status. With automation in place, you have more control over your budget and all the right information for an accurate audit.
Automated time and attendance provides the following tools for overtime compliance:
Alerts for overtime hours thresholds
Meal/break early punch lockout
Overtime calculation by job code
Tip reporting
Flexible scripting for state or local overtime laws
A minimum wage law sets the lowest hourly rate an employer can pay employees who are covered by the law. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. It was enacted July 24, 2009. 29 states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above the federal level.
Most state-level minimum wage laws increase incrementally over several years. The upward adjustments generally occur on January 1, but some states don’t stick to the calendar year. It’s critical to know the specifics of your state’s minimum wage law!
In addition, it’s crucial that employers understand that when the state and federal minimum wage laws differ, employers are obligated to pay the minimum wage that is most favorable to the employee. In other words, if your city passes a minimum wage of $14/hr, you can’t pay the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
What about workers who receive tips?
The federal law allows an employer to pay a tipped employee not less than $2.13 an hour in direct wages as long as all three of the following conditions are met:
If $2.13 per hour (or hourly rate above this) plus the tips earned equals at least the federal minimum wage
The employee is allowed to keep all earned tips
The employee customarily receives more than $30 a month in tips
If an employee’s tips combined with their direct wages (at least $2.13/hr) do not equal the federal minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference.
Note that the federal minimum wage doesn’t apply to all young workers and full-time students. Get details on these exceptions on the Department of Labor website.
Minimum Wage and Overtime
Wage and hour laws, especially those involving minimum wage don’t exist in a vacuum. When you violate one law, there is a domino effect.
For example, suppose you use paper timecards and one of your managers isn’t strict about employees recording their time. At the end of the pay period, she gathers the timecards and notices several missed punches.
She’s too busy to ask each employee when they worked, so she estimates the shift times. Then she sends the completed time cards to the payroll manager. When the checks are deposited, a minimum wage non-exempt employee gets a paycheck that’s based on inaccurate hours. The employee had actually worked 43 hours that week but the timecard listed 38.
At this point, you have violated both minimum wage and overtime. When you divide the check total by the time the employee actually worked, the hourly rate had fallen below minimum wage, PLUS, you owe the employee overtime for the 3 overtime hours.
Case Studies
Businesses that violate minimum wage laws routinely face hefty fines. For example, two Connecticut restaurants paid $137,465 in back wages and liquidated damages to workers after the DOL ruled that they violated both minimum wage and overtime.
A Florida restaurant had to pay $19,000 in back wages and penalties when they failed to pay servers for their entire shift. The investigation found that the company didn’t compensate for time worked prior to when the servers’ first customers arrived.
Automated time and attendance assures that your employees are logging their hours and recording breaks and overtime.
With automation in place and multiple punch-in options for your employees, automated time and attendance can help keep you clear of any future trouble regarding minimum wage issues.
The following features protect you from violating minimum wage laws:
While there is no federal law on work breaks, many states have laws that apply to rest periods. Generally, the laws mandate a paid or unpaid break for a minimum number of hours worked. Thousands of employers violate these laws every year.
In many cases, the employer assumes employees are “cool” with a lax policy. However, when challenges arise, the employer will always be the one to be penalized if records aren’t in order.
Case Studies
A San Diego company agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a lawsuit over meal breaks. The court found the company automatically deducted 30 minutes from employees’ time worked regardless of whether the employee took a break. The employer had to pay 30 minutes’ back pay plus penalties for each day an employee was improperly docked time.
In April 2019, a jury awarded a class of 5,000 California-based Walmart fulfillment center employees over $6 million in damages for multiple violations including missed meal breaks which are required in California. The court found the company failed to pay for all hours worked, pay overtime, provide meal periods, provide rest breaks, pay final wages, and provide accurate itemized wage statements.
Don’t let rest periods cause compliance problems. Each of the items listed above can be solved with a fully automated time and attendance solution. With this solution in place, you can rest assured that you have your bases covered when it comes to break and mealtime compliance.
Protect yourself with:
Time clock prompts for unpaid breaks
Manager alerts for missed break punch-outs
Real-time manager oversight of mobile employees on break
Automated recordkeeping of shift punches including rest periods
Employers must recognize the classification of their employees. State and federal laws regarding overtime and variable pay schedules depend on those classifications, and there can be trouble if records are inaccurate or absent, altogether.
Employers who fail to classify non-exempt employees correctly are on shaky ground when it comes to compliance.
What is an exempt employee?
The ‘exempt’ in exempt employee signifies that the employee is exempt from the overtime protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In other words, the employer doesn’t have to pay overtime, generally time-and-a-half their regular rate for weekly hours above 40.
What qualifies for exemption from overtime laws?
The Department of Labor lists several categories of employees who are exempt from overtime laws. This is sometimes called the ‘white collar’ exemption. To be exempt, employees must meet the duties and wage test for all requirements. Remember that it’s the actual job duties that count, not the job title. Note that the salary threshold increase in 2020 did not affect the classification rules.
What is a non-exempt employee?
Any employee that doesn’t meet the salary and duties test mentioned previously must be paid overtime. Most hourly workers are non-exempt. This is far from straightforward. Even if the employer classifies correctly, if they don’t track time properly, they can violate overtime laws. Pitfalls include failing to track rest periods, illegal tip pooling practices, off-the-clock work, and difficulty tracking time for mobile and remote employees.
Case Studies
Zeigler Auto Group paid $85,000 in back wages to 214 employees for misclassifying non-exempt workers, failing to pay minimum wage and neglecting to maintain accurate payroll records. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20210331
One of the most famous cases of misclassification involved a $50 million judgment against MetLife. The claimants were former Claim Specialists. Up until 2013, these employees were paid hourly. As non-exempt, they were also paid overtime when they exceeded 40 hours a week. According to the plaintiffs, weekly overtime work was common. In 2013, MetLife reclassified the Claims Specialists as exempt salaried employees. Since their job duties didn’t change, MetLife was asking for trouble. The plaintiffs claimed that they continued to work 45-60 hour weeks. The judge agreed that the employees were due overtime pay.
Classification affects more than overtime laws. It can impact benefits eligibility, minimum wage protections, and workers’ comp eligibility. In addition, employers who fail to pay legitimate overtime could face state as well as federal penalties.
The Solution: Automated Time and Attendance
There are three main steps for complying with classification laws:
Follow the federal and state rules for classification,
Track every minute worked by all employees regardless of classification, and
Save all timecards and payroll records.
With Automated time and attendance, you automate employee timekeeping. Employees punch in and out with a hardware clock or mobile app. The software creates and saves virtual timecards so you don’t have to worry about the recordkeeping requirements.
In addition, Automated time and attendance helps you avoid the complicating factors that can trip up employers. These involve meals/breaks, mobile employee oversight, tip tracking, and employee timecard padding.
Meal/break prompts and early break clock-in lockout
Small business compliance has never been more complex. This eBook will introduce you to the leading challenges and solutions that will help you to stay on the right side of the law. It’s important to understand regulations and create compliant processes. This way, you protect your employees, customers, and your entire business. Managing compliance allows you to focus on the work that matters, and to leave the worrying behind.
Table of Contents
Family Medical Leave, COVID Leave, and Paid Time Off
Exempt vs Non-Exempt Employee Classifications
Minimum Wage For Hourly Employees
Meals and Breaks Tracking
Tracking and Calculating Overtime
Contractor vs Employee Classification
FMLA, COVID Leave, and PTO
Occasionally, employees need to leave work. This can be for medical emergencies, planned medical procedures, family support, or leisure. Several laws govern the management of these kinds of leave, and they affect most employers.
Managing multiple types of leave can become a full-time job if you don’t have the right tools. Let’s break down the main leave laws:
Family and Medical Leave
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) entitles eligible employees to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with the continuation of employer health insurance coverage.
In March 2020, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) which includes The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA).
The FFCRA requires employers to provide paid leave through two separate components;
The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA)
Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (Expanded FMLA)
The EPSLA is the second law contained in the FFCRA that provides paid leave. Specifically, it provides full-time employees up to 80 hours (two weeks) of paid sick leave for basically the same coronavirus-related reasons as outlined in the EFMLEA.
Paid Time Off
Paid time off is offered by many employers. In most cases, employers allow employees to accrue time off based on their work history. Typically, employers offer a specified number of accruable hours for every week on the job. Tracking and managing the number of hours accrued, and the number of hours the employee has applied to time off is where employers can get tripped up.
Except for the previous types of family and medical leave, there are no federal laws that mandate employers provide paid time off. However, many states regulate PTO to some degree.
24 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island (after one year of employment), Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming—and the District of Columbia have laws regarding payment of accrued vacation time.
‘Use it or lose it’ policies are prohibited in California, Montana, and Nevada. In addition, some cities regulate PTO. Check your state and local departments of labor.
Case Study: Delta Fabrication
Complying with FMLA and COVID leave while administering company PTO is not a simple task. Our example case shows how tricky leave compliance can be.
Delta Fabrication, a California-based sheet metal manufacturer, paid $19,694 in back wages to 71 employees after a Department of Labor (DOL) investigation. The company wrongly paid workers only two-thirds of their regular rates when they took coronavirus-related sick leave, a violation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).
DOL investigators found that Delta Fabrication first used the employees’ available accrued sick days to compensate them, wrongly subtracting hours from the workers’ accrued sick leave instead of providing the additional leave provided by the act. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20201124
Correctly administering leave is a compliance minefield for even experienced HR professionals. Common problems include:
Failure to notify employees of FMLA and COVID-related leave rights
Failing to confirm when employees become eligible for state or federal leave
Managers who don’t understand FMLA or EPSLA or who neglect to inform HR when an employee takes leave
Failure to keep sufficient records including separate documentation for FMLA and COVID leave
Penalizing an employee who takes protected leave
Failure to create a formal PTO policy
Failure to enforce PTO policies equitably
Solution: Automated PTO and Leave Management
With Automated PTO and Leave Management, you simply set up custom time-off categories. This allows you to allocate, accrue and track the use of federal FMLA and COVID leave, state family leave, vacation, and company PTO. Automatically.
Automated leave management benefits employees and managers as well. Employees can check their leave balances and request time off using any mobile device. Managers have all PTO requests in one location and can approve, modify or deny.
In addition, managers can see employees on leave or scheduled for leave as they build shift schedules.
Automated PTO and Leave Management streamlines PTO tracking and ensures employers can see the big picture before approving or declining time off. Automated time and attendance also provides historic data that can make audits easy, productive, and worry-free.
Employers who embrace flexible work environments with modern management solutions will thrive. There is no need to worry about scheduling employees, collecting time, or preparing for regular payroll. Our software solution can help you bring added efficiency that saves you time, effort and money.
To thrive in a hybrid work environment, you need modern solutions that take the work out of complexity. You need tools that allow your employees to work from anywhere, at any time. And you need control and oversight that helps you maintain compliance, and most importantly; control, productivity and growth.
We can help your business thrive with a flexible hybrid workplace and we’d love to show you how our time and attendance solutions will make life easier for you and your employees.
Give us a call today for a free demo. Call 941 Payroll today at (877) 941-9419.
