Biometric Timeclock Systems & Employee Attitudes

The use of biometric systems and scanning to track employees is growing throughout businesses.

One estimate is that approx $600 million worth of these devices were sold in the US last year and forecasts suggest the industry will be worth more than $1 billion by 2011.

Employers and manufacturers say the biometric devices improve efficiency and streamline payroll and help to keep employees honest.

For example it helps employees be more punctual when they’re on a lunch break because they know when they scan out that they have exactly an hour.

However not all employees are sold on the idea of biometric systems - take palm prints for example - it really grabs some people as a step too far.

On the vendor side, Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, a manufacturer of hand scanners in Campbell, CA said it has sold at least 150,000 of the devices to organizations such as Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s franchises, Hilton hotels and to Marine Corps bases, which use them to track civilian hours.

And in New York, officials are spending $410 million to install an automated attendance tracking system that may eventually be used by 160,000 city workers.

On the other side of the fence, civil servants who are members of Local 375 of the Civil Service Technical Guild have rallied against a plan to add the city medical examiner’s office to the list of 17 city agencies that already have the scanners in place.

A major benefit of biometric timeclock systems is the curtailing of fraud. New York’s Department of Investigation charges city employees several times a year with taking unauthorized time off and falsifying timecards.

Ingersoll Rand say privacy concerns are unfounded because hand scanners don’t keep large databases of people’s fingerprints — only a record of their hand shape.

However, New York union officials are concerned that the machines could eventually be used not just to crack down on employees skipping work, but to harass honest workers.

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