Advanced Software Solutions is revolutionising time and attendance procedures, helping companies manage their labour costs.
The Australian mining industry is a goliath, with operations and people hard at work at all hours across the country. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry but, as the saying goes, you’ve got to spend money to make money – and miners spend big.
One of the biggest and most complicated costs is labour. Advanced Time and Attendance software is helping miners take control of all aspects of their workforce, from juggling award rates to managing overtime.
The Advanced solution does away with dated time and attendance procedures, which are often still done manually, through automating the process with a real-time clock-in system that utilises biometrics to verify the identity of employees.
But it’s about much more than just clocking in and out.
The system provides all sorts of insightful data that can optimise a company’s operations from top to bottom, as is the case with award rates.
“Our system has an in-built award interpretation tool which keeps award rates up to date, no matter the scale of the operation,” Advanced Software Solutions head of sales Damien Durston told Safe to Work.
“We have a customer with over 4500 employees and 26 different entities under their corporate banner. In this instance, we work with up to 74 different awards at any given time of the day.”
With over 100 award rates in Australia, applying them correctly is no small feat, and mistakes can cost a company dearly.
“Unlike our competitors, we do implementations onshore, working closely with Fair Work Australia, the Australian Tax Office, and the Fair Work Ombudsman,” Durston said.
“That means we know the award rates and exactly how to apply them.”
By providing a real-time overview of attendance, employers are able to see exactly how many hours each employee works in real-time and take action to address issues such as any potential overtime or roster discrepancies for which the business has not planned.
“I think employers would be surprised at the amount of unauthorised overtime they’re leaking out the back door,” Durston said.
“Our system is giving supervisors and managers the real-time data they need to validate these hours, reducing overtime whilst ensuring the authorisation process is being adhered to and significantly saving money if potentially required.
“Overtime isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but having control over it means you can optimise overtime when it’s really needed.”
This kind of time validation is essential payroll information, which saves companies hours of administrative, manual work. It creates efficiencies and assists with validating pay rules and award interpretation
Greater oversight of time and attendance also helps solve another issue faced by all industries: time theft.
“The system creates one source of truth, meaning you can’t tamper with start and finish times,” Durston said. “However, tampering can be defined as time theft and correct pay details in preparation for payroll submission.
“Our facial recognition sign-in means workers need to be physically present. This needs to occur for each individual, which eliminates any buddy clocking.”
Beyond validation and guarding against time theft at a management level, Advanced Software Solutions provide a helpful, streamlined tool for the workforce that brings accuracy to business operations.
“The system is automated and has a real-time rostering solution. It allows workers to efficiently manage their schedules, enabling them to change duties, take breaks and request leave,” Durston said.
“If someone calls in sick, the system has an auto-resolve function where it suggests the most capable replacement based on skill and capability.”
From a safety point of view, site operators having access to live data that shows exactly who is on-site is an invaluable tool in an emergency.
From minimising value-leakage to optimising a workforce, there are many reasons for the mining sector to automate its time and attendance systems. But few system providers offer such a robust, comprehensive solution as Advanced.