Employers use technology to know when, where and how much employees are working
Earlier this year, the exploits of Montreal’s blue-collar workers made headlines when newspaper investigations discovered that 10 workers had spent more than 90 hours repairing nine potholes and another crew worked only 20 minutes in a six-hour period. The rest of the time the crew loafed around a municipal yard, drove around, ate lunch and ran errands.
In an effort to make the blue-collar workers more efficient, and to monitor their activity more closely, one of Montreal’s boroughs will install global positioning systems (GPS) in snow removal and other heavy vehicles this fall.
“The technology is so advanced that it enables us to know exactly when the vehicle is being used, how it’s being used and will enable us to get reports to better organize our work schedule so we can be more efficient in providing services,” said Michael Applebaum, mayor of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Applebaum is still working out exactly which technology to use. The plan is to use a combination of GPS, two-way communication so the foreman can be in constant contact with crews on the road and software that allows the main office to gather information for reports from each vehicle.
“It’s not only a GPS system,” said Applebaum. “It’s going to be giving us all kinds of data and information.”
The use of this technology isn’t new in Canada, he said. Edmonton and Pointe Claire, Que., a city just west of Montreal, already use GPS in some municipal vehicles, said Applebaum. However, Montreal has a contentious history with its main blue-collar union, the Syndicat des cols bleus regroupés de Montreal. Past labour negotiations have led to violent standoffs and the media have often portrayed the workers as overpaid, thuggish layabouts.
While he hasn’t yet talked to the union, Applebaum said he’s confident the technology will be well received by the union leadership and its members.
“The union representatives said very clearly that they felt the problem of inefficiency was due in part to the foreman not giving out the work appropriately,” said Applebaum. “I think this type of equipment will now be able to help us analyse how we’re doing our work schedules and who we’re sending out to do different tasks. Our objective here is not to follow the individuals.”
Advances in software are making it easier for companies to more accurately track exactly when an employee is working and see if there are trends in individual or department absences. Customers of Mitrefinch, an international employee management systems producer with Canadian head offices in Cooksville, Ont., are asking for more HR functions in the time and attendance programs so they don’t have to buy an HRIS as well, said Ed Van Hooydonk, the company’s director of business development.
The use of biometrics — fingerprint scans being the most popular — in time and attendance technology has become more commonplace recently. One-quarter of Mitrefinch’s clients are buying technology with a biometric component, said Van Hooydonk.
“Three to four years ago we were still educating customers about the benefits of biometrics and now they all know it, they all get it and they’re all interested in looking at the technology much deeper than they would have before,” he said.
Biometrics eliminate the problem of “buddy punching,” where workers clock each other in and out. However, some employees and unions in Canada are still wary of the use of fingerprint scans for time and attendance, worrying that the information could be given to the authorities or used against the employee in a criminal case.
Matthew Bogart, the director of communications at Bioscrypt, a Markham, Ont.-based biometric technology firm, said the worries are unfounded. There are two forms of fingerprint analysis. The first, used by policing agencies around the world, is called a “minutiae-based” approach. This approach allows police to run a search and identify a suspect in a database based on his fingerprint. This requires a high level of detail to match the minutiae points (local ridge characteristics that occur at either a ridge bifurcation or a ridge ending) for an accurate identification.
The second, used in the technology Bioscrypt sells to the manufacturers of various time clocks, is called a “pattern-based” approach. It looks at the overall pattern of the fingerprint and can only be used for verification, not identification, purposes. The system doesn’t search against all employees to find a match, but rather it verifies that the employee’s fingerprint scan matches his fingerprint on file.
“The amount of information that’s gathered to do the match is not of a quality that is permissible to go back and do a search against you,” said Bogart
For manufacturers, time and attendance technology can also help them cost labour. Touch-screen technology on the shop floor lets workers enter their information using drop-down menus to indicate when they started and stopped work on a particular project. Web-based software then allows the company to calculate the exact labour cost of manufacturing a particular product.
Mitrefinch’s Van Hooydonk expects this technology to take off over the next few years. “In today’s manufacturing environment where cost is everything and we have low-cost products coming out of China and India, these sorts of things are becoming much more interesting to track.”
He also expects to see more companies requesting technology that will allow them to track remote employees. Tracking technology can be imbedded in cellphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptops.
“There’s a lot of interest but we’re not seeing a lot of customers acquiring that technology today. As high speed wireless networks start to develop and grow, the infrastructure to support remote data collection will be enhanced,” said Van Hooydonk.
In an effort to make the blue-collar workers more efficient, and to monitor their activity more closely, one of Montreal’s boroughs will install global positioning systems (GPS) in snow removal and other heavy vehicles this fall.
“The technology is so advanced that it enables us to know exactly when the vehicle is being used, how it’s being used and will enable us to get reports to better organize our work schedule so we can be more efficient in providing services,” said Michael Applebaum, mayor of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Applebaum is still working out exactly which technology to use. The plan is to use a combination of GPS, two-way communication so the foreman can be in constant contact with crews on the road and software that allows the main office to gather information for reports from each vehicle.
“It’s not only a GPS system,” said Applebaum. “It’s going to be giving us all kinds of data and information.”
The use of this technology isn’t new in Canada, he said. Edmonton and Pointe Claire, Que., a city just west of Montreal, already use GPS in some municipal vehicles, said Applebaum. However, Montreal has a contentious history with its main blue-collar union, the Syndicat des cols bleus regroupés de Montreal. Past labour negotiations have led to violent standoffs and the media have often portrayed the workers as overpaid, thuggish layabouts.
While he hasn’t yet talked to the union, Applebaum said he’s confident the technology will be well received by the union leadership and its members.
“The union representatives said very clearly that they felt the problem of inefficiency was due in part to the foreman not giving out the work appropriately,” said Applebaum. “I think this type of equipment will now be able to help us analyse how we’re doing our work schedules and who we’re sending out to do different tasks. Our objective here is not to follow the individuals.”
Advances in software are making it easier for companies to more accurately track exactly when an employee is working and see if there are trends in individual or department absences. Customers of Mitrefinch, an international employee management systems producer with Canadian head offices in Cooksville, Ont., are asking for more HR functions in the time and attendance programs so they don’t have to buy an HRIS as well, said Ed Van Hooydonk, the company’s director of business development.
The use of biometrics — fingerprint scans being the most popular — in time and attendance technology has become more commonplace recently. One-quarter of Mitrefinch’s clients are buying technology with a biometric component, said Van Hooydonk.
“Three to four years ago we were still educating customers about the benefits of biometrics and now they all know it, they all get it and they’re all interested in looking at the technology much deeper than they would have before,” he said.
Biometrics eliminate the problem of “buddy punching,” where workers clock each other in and out. However, some employees and unions in Canada are still wary of the use of fingerprint scans for time and attendance, worrying that the information could be given to the authorities or used against the employee in a criminal case.
Matthew Bogart, the director of communications at Bioscrypt, a Markham, Ont.-based biometric technology firm, said the worries are unfounded. There are two forms of fingerprint analysis. The first, used by policing agencies around the world, is called a “minutiae-based” approach. This approach allows police to run a search and identify a suspect in a database based on his fingerprint. This requires a high level of detail to match the minutiae points (local ridge characteristics that occur at either a ridge bifurcation or a ridge ending) for an accurate identification.
The second, used in the technology Bioscrypt sells to the manufacturers of various time clocks, is called a “pattern-based” approach. It looks at the overall pattern of the fingerprint and can only be used for verification, not identification, purposes. The system doesn’t search against all employees to find a match, but rather it verifies that the employee’s fingerprint scan matches his fingerprint on file.
“The amount of information that’s gathered to do the match is not of a quality that is permissible to go back and do a search against you,” said Bogart
For manufacturers, time and attendance technology can also help them cost labour. Touch-screen technology on the shop floor lets workers enter their information using drop-down menus to indicate when they started and stopped work on a particular project. Web-based software then allows the company to calculate the exact labour cost of manufacturing a particular product.
Mitrefinch’s Van Hooydonk expects this technology to take off over the next few years. “In today’s manufacturing environment where cost is everything and we have low-cost products coming out of China and India, these sorts of things are becoming much more interesting to track.”
He also expects to see more companies requesting technology that will allow them to track remote employees. Tracking technology can be imbedded in cellphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptops.
“There’s a lot of interest but we’re not seeing a lot of customers acquiring that technology today. As high speed wireless networks start to develop and grow, the infrastructure to support remote data collection will be enhanced,” said Van Hooydonk.
