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Fingerprint time clocks offer increased security but are they worth the investment? Well this depends on who you ask. If you ask the owner of a building company or a motor vehicle workshop the answer is most probably to be a resounding no. If you ask the owner of a hotel or an finance company then the answer may be yes.

Basically, fingerprint time clocks are only as good as the application. In applications where the employees have dirty or damaged fingers the system rapidly becomes problematic. This is because even the best fingerprint recognition may not work reliably for perhaps 5 percent of your workers . Once you have any individuals with problems the only solution is to allow them other methods of clocking in such as a PIN number. This approach usually results in other employee having issues as the reliability of the system comes into question.

Is there a way around this? Yes, but there is a down side. Some fingerprint time clock vendors configure the readers to have a very low rejection rate which leaves the system open to abuse. In a client application I recent visited employees had quickly discovered which employees could clock in for other employees. It started when ne employee had by chance used his workmate’s number and placed his finger on the reader only to find that the reader accepted the finger. The acceptance rate on these fingerprint readers was so tolerant that it accepted practically any finger.

Usually, fingerprint time clocks are selected to address concerns that employees may be clocking in for each other which is always conceivable with punch clock or swipe card systems. This is all great in theory but it is certainly not uncommon for a fingerprint system to cause more disruption and cost than any time theft losses that it was introduced to save.

My consulting experience and feedback from surveys tells me that fingerprint recognition works well in approximately 30% of applications. Alarmingly it is considered a complete failure in more that 30% of applications. Contributing factors include application issues, industrial relations issues, product issues and training issues.

There are solutions out there that will suit many applications. The lesson here is that you should assume it is not going to work in your particular application and put the onus on the vendor to demonstrate or guarantee that it will. This is actually not that difficult to achieve. Simply ask for time and attendance software or hardware provider for a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee based on the the device being able to reliably recognise all the employees fingerprints and some assurance that it cannot be fooled by another user’s finger. If the provider baulks at this then it is likely that he does not have confidence in the product and should be avoided.

There are other biometric alternatives worth considering including hand scan and vein scan which are much less prone to failure. All said and done I am in favour of a secure system of employee identification over a simple punch clock so if your preference is biometric time clocks then it is worthwhile considering all the available time and attendance software and hardware technologies.