WorkMax TIME by AboutTime Technologies Unveils Face Recognition for Accurate Employee Time Tracking
Automates employee verification, reduces labor costs, and improves security in businesses with a mobile workforce.
(Payson, UT – Tuesday, December 17, 2019) – AboutTime Technologies, a 16-year veteran of mobile resource management solutions, announces the addition of face recognition for its employee time tracking solution, WorkMax TIME. WorkMax TIME’s face recognition was developed to help businesses with mobile workforces gain the most accurate and automated way to help auto-verify the employee’s identity without added hardware, expense, or manual verification. Many of the inferior methods such as fingerprint scans and face capture cause employee frustration, leave a high margin for error, and don’t efficiently solve the buddy-punching issue for businesses with a mobile workforce.
Face recognition in the WorkMax time tracking solution takes standard employee face capture to an entirely new level. Many mobile time tracking systems are capable of simply taking a picture or “selfie” of the employee as they clock IN/OUT by attaching the photo to the employee’s time record. Payroll admins/managers/humans are then required to manually inspect each individual employee time record in order to find discrepancies.
Face recognition in WorkMax’s time tracking solution is far superior to face capture because it auto-searches the photos associated with time records and utilizes intelligent computing and facial-spatial measuring algorithms to compare employees’ IN/OUT photos to their profile photo. When a mismatch is identified, WorkMax TIME’s face recognition flags the record providing a match percentage to payroll admins, supervisors, and managers. With WorkMax TIME’s face recognition, customers decide the face recognition match percentage or threshold that works for them. They also have the flexibility to determine which time records are flagged for further review.
Instead of having admins/managers/humans spending countless hours manually comparing employee clock IN/OUT images, WorkMax’s face recognition dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes to identify suspect time records. Many WorkMax customers have hundreds or even thousands of employee time records streaming into the system daily. With WorkMax face recognition, time records are auto-scanned and suspect records are flagged immediately. Mobile employees simply clock IN/OUT on their Android or iOS mobile app. WorkMax face recognition doesn’t prevent mobile employees from clocking IN/OUT and doesn’t require any added hardware plugins or expense. This is a substantial benefit; it avoids hardware misreads and field issues which hinders the ability for employees’ to quickly and easily clock IN/OUT.
“When we launched WorkMax TIME, we offered mobile photo face capture tied to the time records like many time tracking solutions do, but we always planned to add automated face recognition to our time tracking solution to perform the bulk of the work and enable WorkMax customers to eliminate buddy-punching and time-theft. We wanted to free up the need for humans to manually inspect every employee time stamp. WorkMax face recognition helps reduce time theft and automates the process for our customers. This results in paying the right employees for their work accurately,” said Ryan Remkes, CEO of AboutTime Technologies.
Key Benefits of WorkMax TIME’s face recognition include:
Automated Face Recognition – WorkMax TIME’s face recognition automates the photo comparison process with intelligent computing so businesses drastically increase the probability that the employees clocking IN/OUT are in fact performing the work they’re being paid for. With the face recognition feature turned on, as employees clock IN/OUT each day and their time records stream in, the system automatically compares the time photos against the employee’s profile photo, alerting you when the two images don’t meet your required match percentage threshold. The system also provides the actual image match percentage.
Eliminate Buddy Punching – Buddy punching is when employees have their co-worker clock them IN before arriving at the job site in the morning or clock them OUT long after leaving the job site for the day. WorkMax’s facial recognition measures the similarity of the employee’s profile photo against the daily selfies the employee takes upon clock IN and clock OUT helping to eliminate buddy punching. Clock IN/OUT records are easily filtered by time records NOT meeting the match percentage threshold; managers are quickly alerted of suspicious time stamps to greatly reduce buddy punching.
Mismatch Alerts – With automated facial verification, businesses can configure the minimum match percentage threshold for comparing the employee’s profile photo against their clock IN/OUT photos. After the desired threshold percentage is set, suspect records are flagged when any face recognition match falls below the acceptable threshold. This reduces the process to a finite amount of time records, allowing businesses to manage by exception and not waste time on employees clocking IN/OUT properly.
Improves Security – Combining WorkMax TIME’s face recognition and GPS feature helps business managers ensure they have the right people in the right place at the right time and that they are paying employees fairly and accurately.
Save Time – Most employee time tracking solutions only offer a simple face capture photo attached to the time stamp for manual verification that the employee clocked IN/OUT is actually who they are supposed to be. This is a very labor-intensive task that requires a manager/admin/supervisor to visually inspect each and every time record’s IN/OUT photo and manually compare them against the employee’s profile photo. WorkMax TIME’s automated face recognition compares the images in near real time with a high level of accuracy and doesn’t prevent the employee from clocking IN/OUT in order to work. Other time tracking systems require employees to walk outside of their work area to clock IN/OUT. With WorkMax TIME, employees save time by clocking IN/OUT from their mobile devices wherever they are working.
No Expensive Equipment – Other biometric solutions such as fingerprint or retina scanning require the purchase of expensive equipment to capture your employees’ fingerprints or retina scans accurately. As employees are using the equipment in the field, these expensive scanning devices get damaged or stolen and are costly to replace. Many of the biometric systems generate misreads causing employee frustration, preventing them from clocking IN/OUT. With face recognition included in the WorkMax time tracking solution, employees simply clock IN/OUT from their smartphone without the need for scanners, readers, or additional hardware.
Doesn’t interfere with Clock IN/OUT: Unlike other biometric modalities like fingerprint or retinal scans, WorkMax TIME’s face recognition does not impede an employee’s ability to clock IN/OUT. With WorkMax TIME’s face recognition, employees can clock IN/OUT and start or end their work. As time records stream in, the system checks logged time records and flags any mismatched records to draw it to the attention of managers, admins, or supervisors.
To learn more about WorkMax TIME’s facial recognition for mobile workforces, visit www.workmax.com/face-recognition.
Increased Taxes – Accurate asset tracking of your fixed assets is critical if you want to pay the proper taxes for fixed assets you own. If you have more fixed assets on your balance sheet than you can actually physically locate, you are increasing the asset inventory that you own. When fixed assets aren’t properly accounted for on the balance sheet, your company could overpay on income and property taxes for assets that have vanished and are no longer owned by the company. Overstating the value of the assets you own could have a big tax impact on industries that operate in the construction, utility, oil, and gas, and transportation based on the expensive equipment needed. 
Decreased Productivity – If you have a ghost asset, you are decreasing your productivity. Your assets are tools and equipment that are supposed to help your employees get more work done easier and faster. If you don’t have a good asset tracking system in place, your employees are spending time looking for ghost asset and they’re also not getting the work done that is needed on your projects. They’re spending time making phone calls, sending texts, and emails to find out where a piece of equipment or where a tool is. These unproductive labor hours aren’t helping you finish your projects on time and are driving up your labor costs without any productive output. 
Increased Asset Replacement Costs – If you have a ghost asset that has mysteriously disappeared, it’s pretty obvious that if you can’t find the piece of equipment, then you can’t perform routine maintenance on the tool or piece of equipment. As a result, instead of getting full use of the asset during its entire asset life by repairing the expensive tool or piece of equipment, you will have to replace the entire piece of equipment or tool for the full replacement cost sooner than you had planned. This increases your fixed asset costs and increases expenses sooner for your business. In addition, if you have two generators in your asset inventory and one is a ghost asset, you are over-utilizing the one generator available and drastically reducing the asset life and increasing your asset expenses.
Increased Maintenance Costs – When you don’t have an asset tracking system to show any maintenance contracts associated with a piece of equipment in the same place that you track your asset inventory, you could be paying for maintenance fees on a piece of equipment or a tool that can’t be located. Ghost assets drive up your maintenance costs for any fixed assets on a maintenance contract. Also, if you don’t keep your asset warranty information easily accessible to everyone in your organization that can be accessed from any mobile device, you could be overpaying for maintenance or repairs on assets that should have been covered under the warranty. 
Theft of Fixed Assets – Without an asset tracking solution in place that keeps your asset inventory and asset assignments up-to-date, unfortunately, dishonest employees can take advantage of this and steal company tools and equipment. If you don’t have a centralized location for your fixed asset inventory and the ability to easily see who is assigned to a piece of equipment or tools, your company could be at risk. 
