Digital transformation in the construction industry is the next big “thing” to happen, and for good reason. According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, it was found that digital transportation can lead to 14-15% increases in productivity while reducing costs by 4-6%. These positives can be attributed to the way digital transformation in construction promotes collaboration, helps reskill teams and connects projects. But another huge benefit to digital transformation is how it improves your employer brand. If you haven’t digitized some of the most essential processes, like time tracking, it may leave a bad impression on new hires.

 

What is Employer Brand?

Your employer brand is your reputation as an employer. It consists of the different factors that make your construction company the top choice for candidates looking for a job, along with the factors that help keep current employees engaged and happy at work. In this tight construction labor market, maintaining a positive employer brand is necessary to attract skilled construction candidates, retain current construction employees and remain competitive. Using paper time cards may give the impression that your company isn’t technically advanced and doesn’t have the inclination to embrace new work tools.

What Paper Time Cards Say About Your Company

Paper time cards can say a lot about your company, and much of it isn’t great. Paper time cards could say:

  • You’re Lax When It Comes to Time Theft. Using paper time cards leaves your company wide open to time theft, sending the wrong message to workers who may add a few minutes here or there. Fudging time might be intentional, like having a buddy clock you in early or punch you out late or by accident because workers can’t remember exactly when they clock in or out. But a few minutes here and there can add up to hours your company pays for but gets no value from.
  • Payroll Could be Wrong or Late. Relying on someone’s sloppy penmanship to accurately relate hours worked for payroll can easily lead to mistakes. What looks like a seven could be a one and vice versa. No one wants to receive a paycheck that can’t be cashed because it’s wrong. And it also takes time to transfer those paper time cards into your payroll, increasing the possibility checks could be late. According to the 2021 Construction Business Report, 32% of construction companies say manual processes are where their businesses experience the most inefficiencies.
  • You Don’t Care About Your Environmental Impact. Using paper products might be a part of everyday life, but paper and its production has a number of harmful effects on the environment. Paper production ranks among the top four energy consuming industries. Discarded paper remains a major contributor to landfills, with paper products many times comprising the largest component of municipal solid waste.

Embrace Digital Transformation in the Construction Industry

One of the easiest ways to embrace digital transformation in the construction industry is by adopting a digital time tracking solution.

  • Eliminate Time Theft. Digital time tracking allows workers to clock in and out from a mobile device or a portable time clock. Workers clock in as soon as they get to the site and clock out when they’re ready to go home, eliminating the need to remember all of their start and stop times at the end of the week. What’s more, with built-in security features like face front photo ID verification, GPS and geofencing, managers are assured workers are only clocking in themselves from the actual job site.
  • Reduce Payroll Mistakes. All worker hours are tracked and stored in the cloud and then uploaded to your payroll system. Because the process is automatic, there is never a need to decipher the data or accidentally transpose a number. But the best part is the time it saves staff when it come to processing payroll. There is no need to drive around collecting time cards or waiting for crew leaders to collect all of the cards at week’s end. All of the information can be accessed from the office, reducing downtime.
  • Decrease Your Paper Reliance. Paper not only has a negative environmental impact but with current supply chain issues it can be difficult to get and costly. Currently there’s a paper shortage, which Publishers Weekly states will continue throughout 2022, which might make it difficult or expensive to procure paper time cards when you need them. Dealing with shortages will inevitably raise paper costs but there are other costs to consider when using paper, like ink,  filing equipment and even storage space.

Embrace digital transformation in the construction industry by eliminating paper time cards and using a digital time tracking solution, like ExakTime, instead.

ExakTime’s mobile app and rugged time clocks have all the features that help construction crews to upgrade their time tracking and payroll processes.