Employee Time Tracking: What is the Best Method for a Company?

Tracking employee entry and exit times during their working day, as well as calculating their overtime hours, became mandatory in 2019; since then, various employee time tracking systems have been developed, aiming to offer the maximum possible level of automation.

Employee Time Tracking in a Company

Time tracking in companies consists of maintaining a record of the working days, from beginning to end, for each of the organisation's employees; this record also includes overtime hours, breaks, and absences due to holidays. The publication of Royal Decree-Law 8/2019, of March 8 confirmed the obligation to record and store such time tracking data.

There are two primary reasons (and related to each other) for time tracking in companies: Social Security contribution revenues and worker protection.

This regulation seeks for employees to contribute for all hours worked, while Social Security collects the corresponding quotas for those hours: to give an example, it is estimated that in 2020, in Spain, more than half of the overtime hours worked went unpaid.

Furthermore, these records must be stored for four years by companies and made available to labour authorities, employees, and unions; those who do not comply with this regulation are subject to fines of approximately 600 to 6,000 euros.  

Best Time Tracking Systems for Employees

Manual Systems

This is the classic way of tracking work hours: it requires a person or department dedicated to manually recording each entry and exit, using a physical support or an Excel sheet.

The aforementioned regulation does not specify the format in which companies must carry out and store these time records, so this system is usually chosen by companies with few employees and limited technological resources.

Identification Systems

The most widespread method for time tracking involves the employees themselves, who log their entries and exits using an identification method, such as an access card, fingerprint, or through an application located on the company's intranet or on their smartphones.

Similar to manual methods, this system requires employee proactivity to be 100% accurate.

Automated Systems

This idea is based on a digital time controller that automatically associates time clocking with the employee's entries and exits at the workplace, without requiring additional action on their part.

Raixer Offices consists of an electronic lock system linked to an application, which validates each employee's access when entering or leaving work, and associates it with the time clocking system.

The best system for employee time tracking will always be the one that requires the least manual intervention from the company or the employees themselves, in order to comply with the legal basis that regulates it.

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