BIOMETRICS FOR

WORKFORCE

MANAGEMENT

ATTENDANCE, PAYROLL & HUMAN RESOURCE

BAYOMETRIC

MARCH 10, 2017

Written & Compiled By

Danny Thakkar

CEO & Co-Founder

“ Losses due to time thefts average 2.2% of the gross payroll and account for a large chunk of employee related costs.

” NUCLEUS RESEARCH Leading Source for Case-based Technology Research

BIOMETRICS FOR WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

INTRODUCTION

Employee time theft is a major cause of

concern for U.S. companies and costing them

around $400 billion annually in lost employee

productivity. A study by the American Payroll

Association (APA) revealed that around 75% of

U.S. businesses are affected by time theft and

43% of employees admitted to committing time

theft. These numbers are staggering enough to

demonstrate that an efficient system for

managing workforce is crucial to business

profitability and efficiency. The critical success

factor for such a system is that it should be

able to address the key factor affecting

performance i.e. time theft.

A biometric-based time and attendance system

seems a viable solution as they are extremely

reliable, secure and provide a high level of

identification accuracy. It provides real-time

auditable attendance data and can be

implemented in workforce of all shapes and

sizes. Biometrics is the only effective means of

eliminating the issue of time theft as it directly

links the individual to his or her personal

attendance record.

FACTORS THAT ARE DRIVING BUSINESSES TO

ADOPT BIOMETRICS IN WORKFORCE

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

According to Nucleus Research, losses due to

time thefts average 2.2% of the gross payroll

and account for a large chunk of employee

related costs. So, what exactly is employee time

theft? It occurs when an employee gets paid for

the time that they have not actually worked.

Time theft happens when employees

inaccurately record their work time or when

they get someone else to clock them in the

time and attendance management system. This

practice of one employee clocking time in or out

for another employee is known as buddy

punching and is one of the significant causes of

time theft.

Thus businesses are constantly looking for

workforce management solutions that can

address the issue of time theft. Biometrics is

one such solution which is considered highly

reliable and accurate due to its inherent

characteristic of identifying individuals based on

their physiological or behavioural traits. These

traits are unique to the individual and help to

BIOMETRICS FOR WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

identify him/her from the entire global

population. Some popular biometric modalities

that can be used in workforce management

systems are fingerprint, finger vein, palm vein

etc.

Image 1: A fingerprint based access control unit

Of all these modalities, fingerprint recognition is

widely employed due to its ease of use,

familiarity and affordability. Integrating

biometrics in workforce management systems

will eliminate the issue of time theft and

increase the accuracy and security of time and

attendance management systems. Companies

employing biometric identification systems will

benefit significantly in terms of greater

employee accountability and increased

productivity that will ultimately boost business

profits.

Traditional time tracking systems such as paper

based systems, swipe cards, passwords or PINs

that were used to clock in and out of

attendance systems and access company

networks have now become obsolete. For paper

based systems, a lot of resources had to be

expended in manual reconciliation of

attendance records and re-entering the data in

payroll system. Passwords or PINs are often

lost or forgotten and swipe cards easily

transferred between employees leading to

buddy punching and decreased employee

productivity. Again company resources need to

be spent in replacing lost or stolen cards and

resetting forgotten passwords. This goes to

prove that traditional workforce management

systems prove inefficient in today’s highly

competitive business environment.

Biometric time and attendance management

systems that require a fingerprint for

authentication provides irrefutable attendance

records to business owners. Biometric systems

effortlessly authenticate an individual based on

who they are (i.e. fingerprint) as opposed to

what they know (i.e. password) or what they

have (i.e. swipe card). Fingerprints are unique

to each individual and cannot be shared like

passwords or cards. Even identical twins have

different sets of fingerprints. Fingerprints are

extremely difficult to duplicate under normal

conditions and hence one employee cannot

punch in for an absent or late co-worker.

A biometric fingerprint identification system

directly links the employee to his personal

records and ensures that only the authorised

individual can access the record. It protects

personal information by eliminating swipe cards

and privately identifying the employee’s clock-in

and clock-out time. Thus a biometric system

can help overcome the limitations of traditional

workforce management systems and provide

tangible benefits to business owners by

consistently providing accurate, reliable and

auditable employee data.

BIOMETRICS FOR WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

HOW DOES FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION

WORK?

For fingerprint recognition to work, employees

need to be enrolled into the biometric system.

In the enrollment process, the fingerprints of

employees are scanned and only the specific

characteristics of the fingerprint are filtered and

stored as a digital template. These specific

characteristics determine the uniqueness of

each fingerprint. The actual image of the

fingerprint is never stored and it is impossible

to reproduce the original fingerprint from the

digital template. Hence fingerprint recognition

is secure and highly reliable method of

authenticating individuals.

When employees arrive at the workplace, they

can effortlessly check-in with a simple scan of

their fingerprint. The scanned fingerprint is

matched with the existing fingerprint templates

and on a positive match the employee

successfully clocks into the system. The whole

scanning and matching process can be

completed in less than a few seconds which

makes fingerprint recognition an extremely fast

process. For companies with extremely large

workforce, fingerprint recognition can help in

significant time saving where a large number of

employees need to check into work. Fingerprint

scanners require very little maintenance and

can be very easily cleaned with a simple wipe

over.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF INTEGRATING

BIOMETRIC TECHNOLOGY IN WORKFORCE

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS?

Deploying biometric fingerprint recognition in

workforce management systems can have

manifold benefits. Businesses no longer have to

depend on lost passwords or forgotten access

cards, rather a more reliable identification

factor such as fingerprint which is part of the

employee himself. Business owners can now

save on the costs associated with lost cards or

buddy punching.

Biometrics is not some futuristic solution. The

technological advancements in biometrics have

promoted the widespread use of biometric

devices and the cost of biometrics has also

fallen significantly over the last few years.

Fingerprint recognition is now an affordable and

accessible solution for workforce management

systems. Let us look at some of the benefits

that can be achieved by implementing biometric

fingerprint recognition in workforce

management systems.

Increases operational efficiency and accuracy:

Things such as forgetting of access cards or

passwords lead to time delays and are

hindrances in increasing employee productivity.

The employee has to wait while the manager

provides an override for a forgotten swipe card

or the IT help desk person resets the password.

Such delays add up and decreases efficiency. A

biometric time and attendance system does

away with the need of passwords or access

cards and decreases staffing overhead. It

captures real-time and auditable attendance

data which the payroll department can use for

efficiently managing operations. Biometric

clocks work great in the case of hourly

employees too as it ensures that the employees

get paid for the actual hours that they have

worked.

BIOMETRICS FOR WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

A manual payroll process is time consuming,

tedious and prone to errors. Attendance data

collected with the help of biometric attendance

systems are automated and highly reliable. This

data can be extracted and sent directly to

payroll processing which not only saves a lot of

time but also boosts the operational efficiency

of payroll processing by providing timely and

error free attendance data. It helps to eliminate

the payroll and other administrative costs that

are incurred due to the errors made in manual

payroll calculation.

Eliminates time theft and increases

accountability: The most evident benefits of a

biometric workforce management system are

the elimination of time theft and buddy

punching. Fingerprint recognition makes it

impossible to defraud the biometric workforce

management system. Fingerprints are inherent

to an individual thereby implying that only the

employee can punch in or out of the system.

Thus it reduces the possibility of intentional or

unintentional human error more than any other

traditional attendance tracking methods. Since

biometric systems are able to provide a

concrete audit trail of employees, it helps to

increase the accountability of employees as well

as encourages them to act ethically.

Boosts return on investment (ROI) by loss

prevention: The organizational costs that

companies have to bear due to buddy punching

and time theft are enormous and in millions of

dollars. A biometrics enabled attendance

system completely eliminates time thefts and

buddy punching and thus justifies the

investment on such a system. It also eliminates

the administrative costs and inaccuracies of

traditional time and attendance management

systems. Thus a higher ROI can be achieved by

integrating biometric fingerprint recognition in

workforce management systems.

It provides greater security and convenience as

compared to traditional attendance

management systems. Security concerns

regarding shared passwords or lost access

cards do not exist with a fingerprint enabled

workforce management systems. Employees

also find it highly convenient as they no longer

need to remember any complex passwords or

carry their ID cards. They now get

authenticated based on their fingerprint.

Biometric workforce management systems

provide non-repudiated and concrete audit trail

of all employee transactions thereby ensuring

regulatory compliance and increased savings by

avoiding the fees on any legal actions or

penalty.

INTEGRATING BIOMETRIC FINGERPRINT

RECOGNITION IN WORKFORCE

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

With Touch N Go, integrating and maintaining

fingerprint technology in workforce

management systems is simple. It is very easy

to implement as there is no learning curve for

developers. The unique nature of the

integration methodology of Touch N Go allows

fingerprint integration instantly into existing

management systems within few minutes and

with no prior experience. It is an expandable

biometric solution and allows for seamless

integration with workforce management

systems.

BIOMETRICS FOR WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

With Touch N Go biometric solution, the

integration of fingerprint recognition into

existing workforce management systems does

not take months or hours but can be

accomplished with just four lines of code. It is

developer friendly, affordable and provides a

best fit solution for systems such as workforce

management that require high levels of security

and accuracy in identifying employees. The

user interface is pre-developed and ready to

use and hence developers do not need to spend

any time on this component.

Image 2: The integration is super-fast. With just 3 lines of code.

Touch N Go is flexible and has support for

multiple programming languages with inbuilt

applications and sample source codes. It has a

very high level of security and all client server

communication are encoded and encrypted. It

is a high performing solution with support for

all leading fingerprint scanners. It has inbuilt

features such as smart enrollment and

duplication checks. These features ensure that

only the best quality fingerprints are enrolled

and no duplicate fingerprints get enrolled

reducing the false acceptance and rejection

rates. This makes it a biometric solution with

high performance.

CONCLUSION

We have discussed the integration of biometric

technology in workforce management systems

and its advantages. Businesses can benefit

greatly in terms of improved productivity,

higher ROI, ease-of-use and greater employee

accountability.

BIOMETRICS FOR WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT

Bayometric

1743 Park Avenue

San Jose, CA, 95126

sales@bayometric.co.uk

t. 877.917.3287 (USA)

t. 408.940.3955 (INT)

AUTHOR

DANNY THAKKAR CEO & Co-Founder

Danny Thakkar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bayometric,

one of the leading biometric solution providers in the

world. He has been in the Biometric Industry for 10+

years and has extensive experience across public and

private sector verticals. Currently, he is chief evangelist for

Touch N Go.

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REFERENCES 1. Biometrics: High-value Workforce Management - Acuity Market Intelligence

2. What is Buddy Punching And How Do You Stop It? - FingerCheck

3. How Software Can Reduce Payroll Losses IndustryView | 2015

4. Employee Time Theft Facts & Stats - EPAY Systems

5. The rise of biometrics in Workforce Management - Labour Solutions Australia

6. The advantages of integrating biometrics with workforce management solutions - Biometric

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