Two challenges in the manufacturing industry that an HCM solution could help you solve

The manufacturing industry, like many industries, has its fair share of HR challenges and barriers that sometimes prevent operations from being managed as effectively as they should. With a desperate need for professionals, recruiting and retaining can prove difficult for HR managers in the manufacturing industry. Additionally, with such a unique business model, effective timekeeping also presents its fair share of challenges.   

Let’s explore the hurdles that Manufacturing faces from an HR perspective and discover solutions.   

Engaging and Retaining   

Recruiting and retaining employees is a problem across all industries– not just manufacturing. Unfortunately, with a decentralized workforce, HR professionals in manufacturing have an even more difficult time keeping their people engaged. In fact, current trends estimate that more than 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will become vacant within the next 10 years.   

The only true solution for solving issues of retention and engagement across the board is to adopt creative solutions to stay connected with your workforce and to adapt to the changing workplace we face in today’s world.   

Time and Labor  

The manufacturing industry is complex and uniquely structured, making traditional HR functions, such as time and labor, difficult to keep track of. On one hand, HR professionals need options for their people to track their time on the go and in non-traditional settings on job sites. The difficulty lies in managing potentially dishonest time tracking practices done by your employees before they are actually working on the job.  

In this article, we will explore the various time-keeping options available for the manufacturing industry with PeopleGuru™’s time and labor systems in both of the above scenarios.  

Many manufacturing organizations have multiple work sites, which make keeping track of time more difficult than traditional single work locations. If employees are working hourly, they need the necessary time and labor processes so they can clock in and out and track time on a day-to-day basis. Because many work locations are off-site, clocking in and out can be a challenge due to a lack of physical time clocks.   

Having a mobile application to track time and attendance allows great flexibility for workers at all sites to punch in and out of work. From an HR perspective, this reduces stress associated with having to track and manage manual and potentially inaccurate time stamps.   

But what if you are concerned about employees punching in and out while they are not working? This is where kiosks come into play. Physical kiosks can be placed at long-term factories and company headquarters. With biometric technology, an employee can punch in and out with facial and fingerprint recognition, allowing for convenient time tracking. This eliminates potential situations where someone can leave work and punch out an hour later while they are on the clock getting paid.   

Time and labor as a service can be offered as a stand-alone product, but many companies include it as part of their HCM system. For many HR managers, being able track all elements of the employee lifecycle in one place is very efficient. Companies often want one system for time and labor and payroll service. Human capital management software was designed for this reason.

HCM software for manufacturing has many benefits including:  

• Visibility to real-time labor costs  

• 100% paperless onboarding experience   

• Reduced labor costs with proactive overtime reporting   

• Automate for time off requests 

• Comprehensive G/L capability to automate journal entries   

• Minimized compliance risks associated with FLSA, ACA, and union rule enforcement   

PeopleGuru™ offers Time and Labor as a standalone service as well as with our HCM software application. We understand the business challenges that manufacturing organizations face as we are proud to provide HCM to many manufacturing firms.