Mining companies are being urged to automate their time and attendance procedures if they want to reduce timesheet inaccuracies and labour costs and gain insightful workforce data.

Advanced’s Damien Durston said miners were increasingly doing away with paper-based time and attendance solutions in favour of automated ones, with the company’s Time & Attendance software one of the options.

“One of the greatest and most complex costs in the mining industry is labour,” Durston said. “With more than 100 award rates in Australia, it’s a huge gamble for employers to pay their employees correctly when time and attendance procedures are still done manually.

“I think many companies who are still doing manual inputting would be astounded at the amount of unauthorised overtime they have leaking out the back door.”

Durston warns employers to do their homework when choosing the right automated time and attendance system, which give supervisors and managers access to real-time data to manage staff, backfill staff in an emergency, optimise overtime and streamline administration work, all the while saving significant money.

“It massively helps though if you have the right award interpretation built into the backend of the software so you can pay your employees correctly and within the law,” he says. “There have been examples of companies accidently underpaying or overpaying employees due to award rates incorrectly being applied for public holidays, and this all comes down to implementation issues.

“Ensure your provider understands award rates for Australia and how to apply them. Implementation should be done on shore, working closely with Fair Work Australia, the Australian Tax Office, and Fair Work Ombudsman.”