What About Location Tracking On Cell Phones?

Cell phones and mobile devices increasingly utilize GPS (Global Positioning System) technology to track location. With the explosion of “location aware” applications for smartphones, and the rise in the use of GPS devices for navigation, people are growing more and more accustomed to their “smart” devices knowing where they are at all times.

As we are always working to stay on the forefront of development in telephone timekeeping, we wanted to let you know what is on the horizon. We recently launched Mobile Chronotek, and were open to considering new mobile location based technologies as well. With that in mind, we took the time to evaluate the state of location aware mobile technologies, and how they could be applied to the Chronotek system. This research has led us to two determinations:

First- the current location technologies are limited exclusively to the “smartphone” category, which is still a very small fraction of cell phone users in the United States. It is important to note that, for the vast majority of cell phone users without data connected smartphones, location aware services simply don’t work.

Second-Reliability. The Chronotek system is predicated on its ability to be absolutely reliable and accurate. Some of the location aware systems and applications that we tested had great features and were a lot of fun- but didn’t provide the kind of guaranteed reliability we expect from our own service.

So whats the takeaway from this? Technology is always changing rapidly, and at Chronotek we are very proud of how we incorporate these advances into our product. We also remain very committed to maintaining the extraordinarily high standards for reliability and usability that is the hallmark of our system. With these goals in mind, we will continue to monitor the development of cell phone location tracking, and move to incorporate these features when the time is right.

Pay, Performance and Telephone Time Clocks

Many managers assume that performance-based pay systems will be too difficult to implement. Some assume that they will sap employee motivation, while others aren't sure that employees will maintain the same standard of work if they are given incentives to push through 'more' product. However, the experience of many different companies tells us that performance-based pay systems are actually highly effective at getting employees motivated to do a good job, and keeping them that way! Today we check out how performance based pay systems can tie in with initiatives like telephone-based employee time clocks and time attendance tracking, to create a positive change in your business bottom line!

Pay for performance: A growing phenomenon

In the few years prior to 2008, a study found that while standard employee pay had risen only marginally in comparison to inflation, bonuses based on performance had hit a record high of 12% of the entire country's payroll figure. Given the massive number of businesses that haven't even considered performance-based pay, it seems that there are some companies out there paying quite a lot of profits directly back to employees.

There is a big 'But!' attached to that statement, though. Structured properly, performance-based pay systems don't cost a company extra. They simply ensure that the workers that are contributing most to profits are rewarded, while low-value employees have corresponding rewards.

Performance-pay and time attendance tracking

Performance-based pay and telephone time clocking-type systems are two sides of the same productivity coin. You can make the two strategies work together to achieve more complete and fair results, using techniques like:

• Starting simple by instituting bonuses for people following clock in and out procedure correctly
• Use your telephone time clocking system to accurately measure output for time present at work, and therefore identify bonus-worthy employees
• Creating a forfeit-system for any employees found not to be using the clock-in system correctly

Time Attendance Tracking: The Impact of an Outdated Browser

There are a lot of things that can impact on the productivity and profitability of your business. Many of them are actually out of your control ... market fluctuations, business risks, and employee attentiveness. If you've recently discovered the impact that taking control of time attendance tracking can have on your bottom line - congratulations! However, there are some sneaky hidden factors that can still impact on the usefulness of telephone time clocks. One of those is, surprisingly, your internet browser. Today we check out why!

The differences between internet browsers

The world of computing is changing pretty rapidly nowadays. We've come a long way in the couple of decades since 286 computers started appearing in peoples homes with monochrome green and black graphics! You can no longer depend on a single, non-updated program to perform its best in an internet-based computing environment. One of the areas where problems often show up is your browser.

Currently, Internet Explorer 8, the newest version of Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome are more than adequate for ordinary web-based tasks. But when it comes to doing

The impact of an old browser on your telephone time clock experience

The impact that an older version of a browser has on your experience with time and attendance tracking is the same as its impact with other websites. You'll find that:

• Features like drop down boxes might not display correctly
• Text might run off the edge of the screen
• The entire experience will be slower
• Sometimes the browser will crash when you're doing critical tasks like calculating reports or sending information
• Sometimes buttons randomly disappear

Support for older browsers

Every time a website is built, it needs to be tested and refined across all different browsers to make sure that it will operate properly in the different environments.

For most web developers, there is simply no point testing websites in older browsers like Internet Explorer 6 anymore. There are too few customers using the platform to justify the time and expense of testing and making fiddly modifications ... and there is a strong expectation that if any customers are still using IE6 or other similar outdated browsers, they will be changing over very soon!

5 Things You Didn't Know Telephone Time Clocks Could Do

You might be aware of the concept of telephone time clocking - the technology has the potential to benefit a huge range of businesses, yet is chronically underutilized! When we speak to many employers who finally ge fed up with time card padding and institute an employee time attendance tracking system, many of them say that if they'd known what telephone time clocks could do, they would have put one in years ago. So today we look at five of the things that you probably didn’t know telephone time clocks could do … apart from save quite a bit of money!

1. Usable with mobile web devices

Even if you’re on the road just as much as your employees, you can still ensure that everything is going to plan, and work is being done during work hours. Most good telephone time clocks have a dedicated mobile web version, making it easy to check on your employees from wherever you are.

2. Phones are caller-ID stamped
Even if you aren’t there to check on your employee's arrival times, you can ensure they are on site because telephone time clocks allow for recording of the caller ID of the phone. Some telephone time clock models won’t even allow an employee to sign in if it isn't done from an approved phone.

3. Automatic voice verification is available

Did you know a person's voice is as unique as their fingerprint? Voice recognition software can ensure the correct person is clocking in - no chance of a friend or workmate clocking in for a late employee.

4. Personal voice verification also available

You can also choose to record a message when your employee clocks in by voice, and personally verify that it is their voice on the other end of the line.

5. Calculation of overtime

You can actually see overtime occurring before it happens if you use a telephone time attendance tracking system. Overtime gets expensive, and if your employee tells you that they 'simply needed to finish a job before they could leave', there is little you can do after the fact. However, when you see overtime in progress, all it takes is a polite call to the employee to let them know that whatever they are working on can wait until tomorrow to avoid massive paychecks denting the budget.

5 More Things You Didn't Know Telephone Time Clocks Could Do

The name telephone time clock can actually be a bit misleading. This technology's main purpose is to allow your employees to verify the hours they've worked, to the minute … but in reality they can do so much more! Today we look at 5 more of the things that simple old employee time clocks by telephone can do, that you may not have known about!

1. Send you a no-show alert

You can have a text message alert sent instantly to your phone if an employee scheduled to clock in doesn't do so for a set period of time after their shift starts. Don't leave your business hanging indefinitely.

2. Send you check-in / check-out alerts

If you want to monitor things closely for a while, you can also choose to have text alerts sent to you for every clock-in or clock-out event on your telephone time clock system. That way, if somebody takes 15 minutes to clock out after their relief staff member arrives, you can question them immediately.

3. Account for different time ones

If you've delayed instituting a time attendance tracking system because you work across different time zones, and believed it wouldn't be able to handle that little niggle, think again. This is not a problem for modern telephone time clocks - employees always hear the correct time for their region.

4. Leave messages for your employees

You can leave messages for your employees and actually guarantee that everybody will hear the entire spiel at next clock-in! Simply set yourtime attendance tracking program so that clock-in can’t be completed until the entire message has been played back. If it's a long one, don't forget to set it so that your employees are listening on company time.

5. Track different activities
Your employees can actually enter different activity codes and almost fully automate your payroll process. This helps in your accounting, as well as in cost effectiveness reporting.

Many Reasons to use a Time Clock System

The telephone time clock system is a revolutionary system that can enhance and simplify your small business needs. There are so many positive reasons why it makes sense to replace your old time management system with this new system. Some of the reasons are:

· Simplification of time keeping

· To the second time keeping

· Less paperwork

· Uploadable data

· Removes the guess work

The old way of keeping employees time involved having to calculate the total hours and minutes. This system is time consuming and can lead to costly mistakes. The telephone time clock calculates all the time and sends the data to your computer; it takes all the guesswork out of the work involved and the person writing the paychecks simply has to input wage information.

There is less paperwork involved in this system which means less time spent filing and less storage space needed. It really does free up the payroll clerk to do other more important tasks besides spending hours on end figuring and writing payroll checks. The employee time clock is obsolete and all one needs is a phone to clock in and out.

Hundreds of businesses have begun using the telephone time clock system and have only good things to say about it. Payroll clerks praise about how easy it is to get the data they need in preparing payroll checks and how happy it makes them because it cuts the time they have to spend doing payroll in half. Because it is so simple to use and access, employees have found this system more convenient to use; especially employees who work away from the home office who no longer have to make a special trip into the office to clock in. Business owners have seen a sharp difference in money saved because of poor time management systems because this system keeps perfect track of all employees’ times.

Keeping Track of Time

Whether you have two employees or a hundred, it is vitally important to keep excellent records of the time your employees are working. One should never estimate the number of hours or minutes an employee has spent working for a certain week; this only leads to improper payroll figures the employee might not agree, leading to a recount of hours. That is why the telephone time clock has become such a hot item in recent years; it keeps perfect records and if there are any discrepancies concerning the total time, it is because the employee didn’t phone in as he/she should.

The old time clock method of calculating hours worked is an acceptable method but it requires somebody figuring up the total time and then calculating the pay. With phoning in, the time is automatically calculated at the end of the pay period and is ready to be used to figure payroll. It takes all the guess work out of the process and is a lot less stressful for the payroll clerk.

My company has been using the time attendance tracking system for over a year now and has found it to be an excellent method. Employees are each given a specific number to call and code in which they can clock in and out with. It takes less time than the conventional method as employees can make the call from their cell phones as they enter the building. There is a bit of honesty involved as an employee could call in and not actually be working but that is easily checked and is considered fraud which would lead to termination and possibly legal prosecution. We have never had an employee take advantage of the system nor have we ever had any complaints from employees about being shorted time on their paychecks.