Struggling with Outsourced Employee Attendance: How Can We Ensure Fair Pay?

Friends, we are facing a weird situation where we are not able to control the attendance of outsourced employees, and we are ending up paying the full salary even if they were absent for a day or two. Can someone suggest methods to tackle this issue? I need your suggestions at the earliest.

Hi Sonali,

Monitoring the attendance and OT timings of our outsourced employees is a difficult task. I request you to suggest methods to keep track of all the above-mentioned. Currently, these outsourced employees are entering their attendance in the register at the gate and leaving without entering the factory premises, resulting in us paying them the salary for the entire month.

Regards,
Veerendra

Dear Veerendra,

As mentioned by you, if they are not entering the factory premises, then how is the work getting done? I suggest that from the outsourced team, you designate someone responsible for daily attendance and have this person provide you with a daily report either over the phone or in person. I hope this suffices.

Regards,
Sonali

Dear Viren,

I don't know how you pay the whole salary without their presence in the organization, as you explained it is tough to monitor them. It is very simple and the basic theory is to put an attendance register at the main entrance or install some biometric punching machines linked with your PC. It is very necessary for processing salary, measuring productivity, and budgeting. Altogether, it's good for your organization and your outsourced employees as well.

Dear Virendra,

How strong are the employees? Please let us know the location of this premises. Is it far away from where you sit or in the same premises? Kindly instruct the outsourced company to obtain the attendance register in compliance with the rules and ensure that employees sign it every 2 to 3 hours. Maintain a sample signature of all employees with you and randomly verify it when in doubt. I believe this approach should help in tracking attendance effectively. If this method proves ineffective, implementing a biometric system may be the only viable solution.

Regards,
Sandeep Kulkarni

Dear Sujata, Sandeep, MNJ Tiwari, Francis Victor, Sujal, and Sonali,

The idea of setting up a biometric attendance system linked to the administrator's PC looks promising. After reviewing your responses, we have decided to proceed with installing the biometric system.

Sandeep --> The total number of outsourced employees is currently around 97, and we anticipate increasing this number soon.

Sujal --> Your suggestion aligns well with the implementation of the biometric attendance system.

I have one more request: if your organization has already implemented a biometric attendance system, could you please provide an approximate cost estimate for implementing it at our location?

Looking forward to your responses.

Regards,
Veerendra

Dear Friends,

Usually, outsourcing employee attendance is a major task for the HR department. Most of these employees are Marketing & Sales personnel whose nature of work is connected outside the office. For these employees, a self-attendance sheet should be prepared and submitted through the concerned department head to the HR department. This is because the concern is mostly in touch with the department heads.

Regards,

PBS KUMAR

Dear Friend,

Let me first understand the objective and scope of your company's operations so that, depending on the availability of funds, you can consider setting up the biometrics system. Otherwise, let us first understand how to proceed.

First, ensure that where employees are posted to departments, a register is maintained at that particular site. The concerned operational head or supervisor should monitor this. Otherwise, appoint a supervisor who can go around and update the attendance. If timing is a problem, then keep a register for check-in and check-out. I hope this will cost you very little. GOOD LUCK

Dennis

Dear Friends,

Can you please forward me any attendance tracking sheet for our outsourced candidates.

Regards,
Veeru

I guess many companies opt for freelancing and outsourcing their work due to several reasons such as the quality of work and cost incurred. Freelancing/outsourcing is preferred compared to hiring talent, which not only takes a lot of time but also requires long-term commitments, unlike an outsourced project for three months. While there are many advantages of freelancing and outsourcing, it also comes with a drawback. You never know how long the freelancer worked, especially when billing is based on the number of hours supposed to be worked. Additionally, communication gaps may arise when you have outsourced or freelanced. These hurdles can be easily tackled with the help of tools and software available in the market, ensuring productivity.

Tools for Managing Freelancing and Outsourcing

Tools such as:

- Skype for video conferencing
- Dropbox for file and data sharing
- www.hivedesk.com for time tracking and productivity management
- Hangouts for instant messaging

I hope this helps!

I know that when there are a couple of outsourced employees, it's very difficult to monitor them and keep track of their work. This was exactly the case for me back in 2014. I simply googled the problem and found that there are many tools that can help resolve this issue. I researched the tools and shortlisted three based on my need for tracking my employees' progress, task completion, and attendance. I tried the trial version of all three tools and found that two of them provided good value for the money. I opted for a three-employee management plan from https://www.hivedesk.com/pricing/, which was only $15 a month.