Connected worksites: how to save both time and money in payroll management?

Being responsible for employee payroll is a heavy responsibility. Every month, an HR manager or director faces considerable pressure to pay everyone a fair wage, on time.

This task, already arduous, is made even more so by the difficulties associated with the construction sector.

To meet these challenges, and make payroll management more efficient, construction companies are increasingly turning to industry-specific TAM software. The digitization of "Time and Activity Management" relieves the pressure and administrative burden on payroll managers, while having a positive impact on overall company productivity.

What exactly is TAM, and how can it be digitized for a construction company?

What is AWM?

As its name suggests, TAM stands for Time and Activity Management, referring directly to employees' working time, as well as to the type of activity carried out during that time.

In the case of a construction company, TAM refers to the monitoring of :

• absences and presences on site,
• and tasks carried out on these same sites.

State of play in the building and civil engineering sector

The challenge of measuring activities

For a construction company, payroll management raises two issues:

1. Having an efficient payroll management tool.
2. Correctly measuring workers' activities.

As far as HR software is concerned, construction companies are increasingly equipping themselves with HRIS, or HR information systems. However, the measurement of time and activities is still often neglected by the digitalization phenomenon.

This creates major difficulties, affecting the field, the HR department and even the finance department. Everyone's productivity is hampered by extremely time-consuming and inefficient measurement and reporting processes. For payroll managers, the facts are clear: information arrives incomplete, late or even erroneous.

Payroll management: the choice of weapons

At present, most activity measurement tools are still far from ergonomic. From the encoding of hours on paper forms (sometimes lost or damaged at the end of the week), to the excessive use of Excel spreadsheets (in which information is successively re-encoded), information gathering in the field is time-consuming and generally inefficient.

This undoubtedly explains the growing trend towards the use of digital solutions. The use of a time and attendance application, for example, can truly revolutionize the processes of a construction company, and generate significant benefits for the payroll manager.

Digital potential: how to save money and relieve HR?

Collect hours worked, no more errors

Managing the payroll of mobile workers is a time-consuming task. Hours are recorded on paper or in Excel files, with only relative efficiency.

With a digital time and attendance solution integrated into an HRIS system, for example, the correct encoding and processing of wages becomes immediately more accessible. Gone are the days of red tape and excessive pressure on staff:

• Automated collection of payroll data. Information arrives securely, structured and validated beforehand.
  
  
• No more errors, time-consuming re-entries, or the race to find missing information at the end of the month.
  
  
• A structured, centralized view of all necessary information.

Track attendance, real-time information

Checking which worker has arrived on site, at what time and for how long? This is another traditional headache for the HR department. Yet this information is vital for wage calculations and administrative management.

• With a specialized attendance control application for the building industry, it's now easy to check the presence of workers on site, in real time.
  
  
• The HR manager can compare this information with an absence schedule, and then react quickly to any unforeseen absences. They can also take these unforeseen events into account when calculating workers' pay.

Consult information, a centralized view of all data

Collecting hours, checking attendance, scheduling absences... calculating payroll requires a large number of dashboards, all equally essential.

However, having to cross and recross information sources can be as tedious as it is time-consuming for payroll managers. The right suite of integrated digital tools can eliminate this inconvenience.

• By digitizing time & attendance, presence control and absence planning at the same time, for example, it is now possible to access a structured view of all necessary information.
  
  
• Data from the various tools, or from the customer's digital environment, can also be used to highlight anomalies or points for attention: has a worker not worked enough hours, or on the contrary, exceeded the maximum weekly quota? This information is now automatically brought to the attention of HR managers.

Digital EAM for the construction industry at your fingertips

"Our processes are very complex. It's difficult to find the right time and activity management software".

Construction companies are no strangers to this reality.

Mobile resources, the uniqueness of each worksite, the multiplicity of professions (intervention, worksite, office, etc.)... the construction sector presents specific difficulties. Where traditional HR software struggles to provide an appropriate service, specialized solutions meet the specific needs of a construction company, including :

• Wide range of parameters: different maximum hours, night work, successive validations, categories of workers, calendars, specific schedules, temporary work, subcontractors... a specialized application is capable of handling all the diversity of situations characteristic of the construction industry, to provide the payroll manager with complete information.
  
  
• Multiple views available: depending on their needs (view by week, by day, by worksite, etc.), HR managers obtain an adapted view of the information.
  
  
• Integration with existing digital environment: on the one hand, your worksite codes, cost structure, etc. are integrated into the time and attendance solution, for example. On the other, data collected in the field is integrated into your existing digital environment (HRIS already in place, ERP, etc.).

Conclusion: start saving now

Equipping yourself with specialized EAM software for the construction industry saves both time and money in the payroll process. No more costs associated with errors or delays. Pressure at the end of the month is greatly reduced, while wages are paid more fairly and accurately. You avoid dissatisfaction, or time wasted painstakingly searching for information of dubious validity. All in all, everyone's working time is valued. Teams are more available for richer, more interesting and higher value-added tasks.

Choosing the right time management software is therefore essential. Traxxeo's digital time and attendance, absence and resource planning solutions, for example, are perfectly suited to the needs of the construction industry.