Time and attendance systems are not just for factories

Up to 500 jobs will be created when two warehouses are built at Whittle Road, Meir Park in south Stoke-on-Trent. 

The Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s planning committee granted planning permission for the storage and distribution warehouses to be developed. 

The warehouses will provide 372,722 sq ft of warehouse space and 28,987 of office space on the 21.5 acre-site.

The jobs created would include a mix of warehouse operatives, technical and administrative staff and management positions.

The development will also create 260 car parking and 126 HGV parking spaces, and contribute towards improving the cycle and footpath infrastructure, and towards a new sports pitch facility.

Councillor Anthony Munday, cabinet member for greener city, development and leisure, said: "This is great news for Stoke-on-Trent. As well as creating hundreds of jobs for our residents, the development will also regenerate an unsightly part of Meir Park industrial estate that has been dormant for some time and provide a significant economic benefit to the area while developing on brownfield land."

Bruce Topley, senior development director at Gazeley, said: "The central location of Stoke-on-Trent makes it a prime area for logistics, with key transport links to other parts of the UK.

"The recent government commitment for HS2 to service Stoke-on-Trent only further improves the access to the region for the surrounding workforce and will continue to encourage infrastructure investment into the area." 

______________

Many people think of clocking in and out as something which only applies to factory and warehouse workers, or only to people who are paid by the hour. While it is certainly vital in those circumstances to ensure correct payroll at the end of the week or month, at Time and Attendance Midlands we believe it has its place in salaried office work, too. 

Firstly, it helps to quantify lateness. Many managers know little more than “this staff member is always late”. 

This is difficult to understand or to act upon, whereas if they had to clock in every time, the manager could show the employee a colourful, graphical display which clearly and undeniably showed that they were late every Tuesday and Thursday after lunch. 

This would give the late staff member a chance to either explain their lateness, or to see that it has become a pattern for no reason. 

Our time and attendance software can be set up to send alerts to the managers once lateness or absences have hit a certain threshold, so the manager can stop worrying on a daily basis. 

Another area where our time and attendance system could benefit an office is in making the process of taking the register during a fire alarm activation quicker and more accurate. 

Often, businesses have to rely on the health and safety officer or fire marshal grabbing a paper sign-in sheet from the desk as they walk out. This may be incomplete because people forgot to sign in, or incorrect because they forgot to sign out. It may be partially illegible thanks to bad handwriting. 

Sometimes businesses don’t even have the sign-in sheet, and instead rely on managers to do a headcount amongst the crowd.

Our clocking system can be connected directly to your fire alarm. Whenever the fire alarm is activated (as a drill or for real) the system prints a list of who has clocked in.

You can make this even more accurate by connecting the time and attendance system to a door control system, which removes the possibility of employees forgetting to clock-in by barring entry.