Using Biometric Time Clocks on Your Construction Site

In the eyes of many professionals, biometric devices help create a more secure and precise way to authenticate employee identification, and manage time and attendance. According to several studies, more than 60% of organizations across different industries currently use some form of biometric technology to authenticate employees. That includes the construction industry.

Biometric Time Clocks in Construction

Being able to track time and attendance more accurately is one of the key reasons construction firms turn to biometric time clocks. They understand that biometric authentication can help do away with buddy punching, and other types of time theft. The promise is simple: biometric authentication helps construction firms ensure that employees are who they say they are when they clock in, or switch job tasks.

But there’s another reason why construction firms turn to biometric time clocks: biometric authentication can help increase security and safety by tracking and ensuring which employees are on a jobsite and when.

Safety and Accuracy with Every Clock Punch

Biometric fingerprint technology offers construction firms two immediate advantages: it makes it easy for employees to clock in and out, and, and it helps firms reduce labor costs by eliminating buddy punching. In addition, the benefits extend to the safety of workers, and the security of your site.

Construction sites are rugged environments. Some can sprawl multiple city blocks, and host dozens, even hundreds of employees and contractors at any given moment. Behind temporary fences and “hard hats required” signs, machines, equipment, and materials sit for days, weeks, and months at a time. There are pallets of lumber, mixers, earth movers, compressors, roofing equipment, and much more, all adding up to costs that easily trend toward hundreds of thousands of dollars and beyond.

And then there are your workers. Some are trained for specific jobs and equipment. Others are not. Some work hourly. Others are salaried.

To say that it can be difficult to manage a construction site is an understatement. And, while proximity tags and swipe cards might have been enough to manage things in the past, they create their own challenges, and also invite certain abuses:

• Cards can be expensive to create and maintain.
• Employees lose their ID tags all of the time.
• When you have dozens or hundreds of workers on site, cards and tags don’t eliminate buddy punching.

With biometric technology., dealing with site-related challenges is easier.

Using fingerprint biometrics, plus a backup camera, the TotalPass B600 from Icon Time offers accurate time and attendance information, and helps you tighten security on your construction site. The TotalPass B600 leverages TotalPass proprietary software, and includes the following:

• Customization options that let you track benefit accruals, measure productivity by job numbers, and handle up to 99 different department codes.
• Encrypted data security.
• Email alerts that help you manage issues related to overtime, high and low hours, employee punch alerts, and missed punches

TotalPass B600 can accommodate up to 500 employees, which can satisfy the needs of small- to mid-sized construction firms, including jobsite crews, as well as administrators and office support.

• You can connect the TotalPass B600 with onsite computers or mobile devices that run on Apple, Android and Windows operating systems.
• Manage the clock from anywhere, and from any device, as long as you have a web connection.
• The TotalPass B600 can give you greater insight and control into when and where certain employees are onsite, which jobs they are doing, and what equipment and machines they’re using.
• The clock’s user-friendly self-enrollment system makes it easy for new employees to get started, even on a busy construction site.

Some of the clock’s native features include:

• Next-gen identify verification (biometric fingerprint + backup camera)
• Convenient and fast entry
• Easy self-enrollment
• Time-tracking and exports
• Export hours directly to payroll
• Create a valuable labor data base
• Productivity tracking

The TotalPass B600 is a secure way to manage employee data. The time clock does not store a raw image of employees’ fingerprints. Rather, it stores a digital representation of specific characteristics of each fingerprint. This can put workers’ minds at ease, if they are worried about their personal information.

With the TotalPass B600, you can lower operational costs, create new accuracies, eliminate the need for employee badges, and much more. When you eliminate buddy punching and badge swapping, you can reduce labor costs, shore up leaks in your payroll, and gain a clearer view into which employees use certain equipment, and accomplish what job tasks.