After providing contractor management systems to customers specifically for construction over the past couple of years I can see more recently the cost of solutions causing price stress with companies due to the tough economic conditions. From small companies needing to invest $3,000 to 7,000 for a time keeping solution to much larger companies considering $25,000 to $50,000 solutions across multiple locations.
I wanted to talk here today about a solution we created recently for a 130 strong workforce on a long term construction project of more than 2 years. When the company first came to me they were looking initially for biometric employee time clocks and software for payroll, typically a solution with biometric technology and time and attendance software configured for payroll for 130 employees and contractors on a single location would cost approximately $8,000 to $15,000 depending on the software requirements. Multiple locations and the costs simply go north.
Biometric employee time clocks
Over more than 10 years I have provided thousands of employee time clocks to every industry you can think of and some you may not realise actually use employee time clocks. Biometric time clocks are a very popular request for contractor management inquiries. The problem with biometric technology is that the technology is simply not good enough for contractors and construction. Biometric technology in some industries is inconsistent. I often say to companies making inquiries about biometric technologies that the perceived advantage of biometric technology is lost quickly when the employee or contractor cannot clock in or out because the biometric technology will not read the persons finger.
Back to the company…working on the project with 130 employees. As we spoke more about the project and the needs of the company it became clear that while they initially asked for a time and attendance solution the company would benefit greatly having a contractor management solution that included an Induction Module.
Most interesting about this project is the head contractor who had a full height turnstile in place for all persons entering and leaving the location could not supply any reporting to the sub contractors in this case a company with 130 employees and contractors. Thousands of people across hundreds of companies are working on this project all with the same common issues.
The issues include
- What time did the person arrive?
- What time did the person leave?
- How many hours was the person on site for the day, week and month?
- Who is on site right now?
The final solution
Pulling all of this together and after discussing the requirements of the customer we put together a single RFID reader that would read the existing RFID cards supplied by the head contractor, the software used was WhosOnLocation Contractor Management and Induction Management software that allowed head office to view information live as it was happening on the construction site remotely.
The software produced a simple spreadsheet for head office that included the start and finish time each day for each person that we manipulated further for around $1,500 with our spreadsheet guru to make a file that could be imported weekly into MYOB payroll removing the need for weekly data entry by admin into payroll.
The customer now had a full contractor management solution that included management of insurances, licenses with a full online Induction Module allowing contractors to complete the initial induction off site, they also had detailed reporting. The time and attendance solution was only ever going to give a clock in and a clock out.
See a short video on contractor management that includes induction management here
Running simple reports