An employee attendance monitoring system is asked for by a small employer who wants to see the problem before the write-up rather than at it. Monitoring is the right frame, and it is easy to get wrong by watching the wrong thing: a punch log is activity, not attendance, and a monthly absence count with no policy behind it is a number with no consequence. What is worth watching is narrow: each person's points in the rolling window, the room they have under the threshold, and the crew's attendance rate and on-time rate from scheduled shifts. This page says what a monitoring system should show and how often, and the free tracker template on this site computes the rates now, with no account.
Figure one: points in the window, per person
The policy is five numbers, and the total each person carries under it is the first thing to monitor. On this site's worked example (1 point per unexcused absence, 0.5 per tardy, 2 per no-call, threshold 8, 12-month window), a crew of ten might carry totals from 0 to 6.5, and the monitoring question is who moved this week and in which direction. An employee attendance monitoring system shows the totals as of today, with points that aged out removed, so a lead sees 4.5 rather than the 6.5 a stale spreadsheet still says. The attendance points calculator on this site works one person's total on the page; the paid record keeps all of them current.
Figure two: room under the threshold, and what uses it up
The total matters because of the threshold, so the second figure is the room left: 8 minus the total, on the worked example. Monitoring that figure changes what the lead does at the start of the shift. An employee with 1.5 points of room is one no-call from the end of employment and two tardies from the same place, and that is a conversation to have this week, as a reminder, rather than next month as a final warning. A monitoring system that shows the room and names the event that would cross it has turned the record into an early warning; one that shows a list of absences has not.
Figure three: attendance and on-time rates from scheduled shifts
The crew's rates are the figures that say whether the policy is working. The attendance rate is shifts worked divided by shifts scheduled; the on-time rate is shifts started on time divided by shifts worked. On the tracker template's worked month, a crew scheduled for 200 shifts that missed 12 and started 18 late has an attendance rate of 94% and an on-time rate of about 90.4%, each shown on the page. The Bureau of Labor Statistics table linked below is where national absence rates are published for comparison; the point of monitoring is the crew's own trend month to month, which the free employee attendance tracker template on this site computes from scheduled and missed shifts.
What monitoring must not score
A monitoring system that counts every absence will count the ones the law says score nothing, and a lead watching the totals will act on them. Leave under the FMLA and absences that are a reasonable accommodation under the ADA are the two a small crew meets most; the Department of Labor's and the EEOC's pages linked below describe each. The system shows the excused event in the window at zero points with its reason, so the total the lead monitors is the total the policy allows, and the rates can be read with excused shifts counted as scheduled and worked or excluded, as the employer decides and records.
Questions people ask about employee attendance monitoring system
What should an employee attendance monitoring system show each week?
Each person's points in the rolling window as of today, the room left under the threshold and the event that would cross it, and the crew's attendance rate and on-time rate from scheduled shifts. Those three figures are the monitoring; a punch log is not.
How is the attendance rate calculated?
Shifts worked divided by shifts scheduled, for the crew or for a person. The on-time rate is shifts started on time divided by shifts worked. The free tracker template on this site computes both from the month's scheduled and missed shifts.
Does monitoring need biometrics or a GPS clock?
No. The shift lead's roll call at the start of the shift is the capture; monitoring is what the record does with it. The free tools on this site work from a roll call and a policy typed in.