Setting Up HR in Manufacturing: How to Handle Biometric Attendance and Wage Issues?

Hi All,

I recently joined a manufacturing industry where there was previously no HR department, but now the company wants to implement a Biometric attendance system. There are a few issues that need to be addressed:

1. Most of the workers are receiving below the minimum wage. How can I register them in the payroll package appropriately?

2. There is no standard salary break-up in place. Please advise on the typical structure for the manufacturing industry.

Additionally, I would like guidance on whether, if we implement a Biometric attendance machine, we should continue to maintain wage and other registers manually or if the machine's reports would be sufficient.

Please assist me as soon as possible.

Shyam
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Since you do not pay the minimum wages fixed by the government, the formats prescribed under the Factories Act, Payment of Wages Act, etc., cannot be maintained by you. Various Acts call for different forms, returns, and registers to be maintained at the factory office. These are subject to inspection by the competent persons, namely, Inspector of Factories & Boilers, Labour Inspector, etc. Therefore, first of all, bring all the employees under minimum wages.

You can have electronic devices and soft copies of the returns and registers. But along with it, please manage hard copies as well since generally the authorities are more concerned about the registers in hard copy when they inspect the factory.

Regards, Madhu.T.K

Hi,

I suggest that you must check whether the workers getting a salary below the minimum wage are on the company rolls. You may start a system to hire a contractor for such requirements. In that case, you will not be required to maintain the data for these people, but still, you will have to check the data of the contractor. For the rest of the employees, design a salary structure and a salary breakup system. You can gather the data as it is and then redesign the structure without changing the salaries. Once you complete this process, you can work on developing the online system.

Thanks, Skill Mapping

If you are paying below the minimum wages, then biometrics can only help you in getting accurate in and out time of employees. It will stop proxy punching, unauthorized access, and you can prevent defaulters from joining you again. You can get attendance in Excel or any form, and once you have inputs in Excel, you can easily prepare any HR report. In the future, you should pay at least the minimum wages. Also, ensure you have at least 4 components in your salary structure (basic, HRA, transport, special allowance) to bring uniformity in the salary structure. Once at least this is done, biometrics will be really helpful.