A Brief History of Time and Attendance Systems
By Jeff Morrow
Redcort Software
When the first employee time clock was invented in 1888, it had but one purpose: to record the time an employee entered the factory and the time an employee left the factory. This mechanical employee time clock would stamp day and time information on a heavy paper card, hence the name 'time card'. This gave the factory owner an official record of the hours each employee worked.
The time card protected the business owner by making sure that each employee worked the number of hours they said they did. Time cards also protected the employees by providing the exact number of hours they worked, making it much more difficult for employers to cheat them out of their wages.
Attendance tracking systems continued to advance with smaller electrical time clocks eventually replacing the large mechanical ones. Later time cards even had 'time in' and 'time out' areas marked on them already, so workers had to carefully line up the time card in just the right place. Business owners and employees were no longer the only ones interested in accurate time tracking systems. The government now stepped in to help regulate and standardize fair labor practices.
Timecard software started to come on the scene in the 1990s as business owners starting moving away from mechanical and paper time and attendance systems to computer based time and attendance software. Software based systems greatly reduced the amount of time needed to prepare employee time cards for payroll processing by automatically totaling employee hours and overtime. Time card software also reduced the reliance on mechanical or electrical time clocks that were subject to failure and expensive to replace or repair. This allowed business owners to reap the benefits of reduced operating costs.
As computers have become more sophisticated, so has timecard software. Attendance tracking is far easier as vacation, sickness, and personal leave time can now be automatically tracked and accrued. Employee time clock computers can be networked together with time card data maintained in a centralized location, yet accessible from all.
Time and attendance systems have come a long way since 1888, but the purpose has remained the same: to record the time an employee starts work and the time an employee stops work.