Organizations are recognizing the benefits of placing human capital management technology (HCM) at the centre of their HR, payroll and recruitment functions, writes Ben Lagden, Commercial Director, GT Clocks.

The rapid uptake in HCM solutions means that the market is predicted to experience high growth over the coming years. There are variances when assessing exactly how much value will be added to the sector, but the vast majority of recent research on HCM shows that billions of dollars will be added to its value over the next decade. And, it’s the US and North America that are expected to lead the charge.

GT Clocks has over 30 years of experience in providing HCM solutions to a wide range of geographic and vertical market sectors. Our key objective is to remove the challenges HCM application providers face in surfacing and delivering their products. At GT Clocks, our Professional Services Team enables the user experience to be tailored specifically to our partners’ requirements.

We provide a variety of branding options to customize devices for larger end user clients, where their logo, name or brand colors can be incorporated into the time clock. Our goal is for the time clock experience to be a true extension of the wider customer experience.

A world of change

There is no single realm of the business world that hasn’t seen change brought about by the pandemic – and HCM is no exception. The way companies and their people work has been altered, with hybrid and remote working becoming the norm for many.  

As a result, businesses have flocked to cloud-based solutions and collaboration tools such as HCM that allow HR and personnel teams to handle onboarding, employee communications and payroll functions more efficiently. It’s HCM solutions that have helped businesses to continue operating during a time of real upheaval, enabling them to stay connected to their employees and manage a period of uncertainty.  

It’s our broad approach to HCM solutions that means that our clocks can be found in the four corners of the world, in every imaginable environment. GT Clocks has clients in retail, manufacturing, healthcare, food production, restaurants, grocery stores and of course standard office environments.

But that’s not all – we’ve had some fairly unusual requirements requested of us. These have included: 1) Salt mines where the customer needed an industrial enclosure for the clock to protect it from the harsh elements; 2) Prisons where we had to secure the clock to the wall so it couldn’t be used as a weapon; 3) A customer that had numerous adult entertainment venues where we had to ensure – and even guarantee – that facial recognition was completely disabled.

Robust design that lasts

Our hardware is designed with longevity and reliability in mind for high footfall, always-on environments and this is not the case with cheaper solutions or tablets. Our hardware, when combined with our GTConnect platform, significantly decreases total cost of ownership in several areas including:

• Reduced integration costs with our modular integration approach. This heavily reduces the development needed to take the solution to market both at a clock and a cloud level
• The management of your assets is remarkably simplified with the estate management functionality. All security updates, feature enhancements and configuration changes can be deployed at a click of a button
• Our platform allows you to take a proactive approach to supporting your estate. Analytical insights mean issues will be identified often before the phone rings. The remote support capabilities have revolutionized the support approach with software and configuration issues being fixed quickly, without the need for an onsite engineer visit
• Buddy punching can account for 2.2% of your total payroll and biometric solutions are best placed to eliminate the practice. The ever-changing data protection legal landscape often creates a reticence to deploy. GTConnect eliminates risk by ensuring compliance both with privacy enhancing technology and enforcing processes around consent, retention and deletion of the required biometric data. This allows businesses to capitalize on the savings while maintaining the lowest possible risk

GT Clocks provides a secure at-scale method of collecting workforce data to provide accurate real time data to our workforce management partners, allowing them to focus on their core business of providing leading human capital management solutions globally.

Making light work of complex rosters

Employees who work shift patterns, in particular within the hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing and retail sectors, typically work according to a particular schedule pattern.  Our clocks have the ability to enforce different schedules to ensure that employees are only paid according to the schedule defined within the HCM System.

Web-based functionality can be accessed via integrated secure user identification. This opens the possibility to have real-time data presented on the device via a rich web experience, whilst maintaining resilient offline data collection capabilities. Examples of the sort of data that can be presented through this web-based interface include vacation booking, timecard management, schedule management, audio/video content and training material.   

Connected cloud solutions

Enterprises worldwide are turning to the cloud-based solution to drive efficiencies, improve output and reduce costs. In the HCM sector, customers can choose from a vast number of bespoke cloud-based HCM solutions that can be customized to suit the needs of their organization.  

These cloud solutions are able to connect all HR processes across a business, meaning companies with multiple locations across the US and further afield can collaborate on recruitment, talent acquisition, employee relations, and other HR functions such as payroll and remittance. Whereas previously, all HCM information would have been stored locally on one or two machines, all HR personnel across an enterprise can be given log-in credentials which they can use across multiple devices.  

One of the biggest changes in the market over the last five years has been the rapid adoption of biometric technology within workforce management devices. This was particularly relevant during the global COVID-19 pandemic that initially highlighted the need to provide a touchless environment for employees to reduce contamination risks. While this led to a huge initial demand for facial recognition technology, as well as the use of temperature screening devices as a way of creating a safer workplace, we have seen a prominent return to finger biometrics as the world returns to normal. 

The greater use of biometric technology and the protection of this data within GT Clocks is a trend that we anticipate will continue to grow for the foreseeable future as the significant reduction in fraud via our solutions and the clear financial impacts are easily demonstrable from an ROI perspective.

The significance of data security

Security of PII data has become a critical element for global organizations. The introduction of biometric security legislation in many countries has demonstrated the need to ensure that the capture, processing and storage of data must be a core part of any organizations’ strategic security plans.

Class action lawsuits that have been taken against companies that have failed to maintain compliance clearly demonstrates just how employees are becoming increasingly aware of the rights and obligations of their employers.  The security of our devices and the GTConnect platform is an essential aspect for any organization addressing compliance with current (and future) legislation. The tight integration of our devices into the GTConnect platform ensures that very high levels of data security and encryption is applied at every stage of the workforce data management process.

For more information, visit: gtclocks.com

This article was originally published in the bumper September edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.

Return to Security Journal Americas NEWS INDEX