The availability of teachers and lecturers is highly volatile now, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But tacking the challenge of ensuring the operations of the school or university in times of pandemic is only one of the multiple benefits of leave and attendance management software.
According to the Unicef data, more than 90% of educational ministries have issued some forms of remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. The information is clear: remote schooling has gone massive.
The pandemic itself is widely seen as a game-changer when it comes to accelerating the existing processes, but rarely inducing new ones. Thus, the digitalization and usage of cloud-based administration tools in schools, universities, and colleges has been present – but it lacked momentum. Running classes online was possible, but unpopular. The same goes for transferring the paperwork into a digital form.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided universities, colleges, and other educational institutions with multiple reasons to implement an online attendance management system. But it would be foolish to assume that there are only COVID-related advantages of these solutions. Among the most obvious ones one can name:
First and foremost, the leave and attendance tracking software deliver reliable and solid information about the employees’ worked hours. In the educational institution, this aspect can be tricky. In schools, younger pupils tend to enjoy unexpected free time. In higher education, there are multiple types of classes (labs, external visits, etc.), and managing the employee’s attendance can be even harder.
Using dedicated software, where the teacher needs to clock in when the lessons start and stop it when it is over. The same applies to the rest of the staff, with the administrative team being available in the building at certain times, external excerpts running after-classes, and cleaning staff being in charge to keep the facility clean.
A traditional approach utilizing signature tables is totally ineffective in times of remote education. Also, it is prone to mistakes in the way the online app like Calamari will never be.
The online tool with a real-time updated list of employees who are on a leave is priceless when it comes to communication in the company. When there is no response for the message, be that a phone call, an email, or a message, the sender can quickly check if the recipient is working at all. If one is on vacation or sick leave, it is rarely possible to respond. If it is only about a lunch break, the response will be halted but not blocked at all.
In an educational institution, with extremely flexible working hours and multiple types of contracts, it can be difficult to inform everyone that a particular employee is responsive only on Tuesday afternoon. On the other hand, though, providing everybody with an open and accessible online calendar makes the job.
The pandemic has been a severe hit for every educational institution. It disrupted the traditional, offline process and forced countless schools worldwide to go online without a transition process.
With that, schools and universities have found themselves in an urgent need to find an online employee attendance system. A cloud-based app like Calamari was both the most intuitive and the best pick available.
But it is only one of many COVID-induced problems in education. Teachers and lecturers meet a lot of people in classes, making them one of the most vulnerable groups. In many countries, they are first to be vaccinated.
But vaccination is not a magic trick – there are multiple cases of feeling bad for a few days after vaccination. Thus, the pandemic has increased the need to manage the leaves in an agile way, only to keep the lights on. Using an online attendance tracking system like Calamari is the best option to do so.
Last but not least, isolation and frequent quarantines are currently the best way to reduce the number of new cases. Clear information about the people who have met a potentially infected person is a good way to manage the spread of the COVID. With an online tool, where every attendance and work is noted, filtering out the list of employees who were at risk and should stay home is a matter of minutes. And these minutes can be life-saving, especially where teachers can be of age and still working.
There is a perpetual myth of making a school administration lean to make it run more efficiently. This is not an entire truth – a good administration can be costly, yet the benefits significantly outweigh the costs. Yet this is true when it comes to a good administration.
A good administration is about knowing where to save and where not to, to max out the budget. A cloud-based attendance system like Calamari is a good example of cutting costs in a smart way. The program is delivering reports and summarizations in seconds, while an administration employee would have done that for hours. Especially if the institution is large.
The system handles also the process of leave management, the inquiries, and the acceptation process. When done in a paper-mode, the process is easier to abuse or fall into chaos, either by passing an unpermitted leave or losing the application.
In fact, a digital system provides the company with a digital version of the leave-related documentation pipeline. Thus, there is no need to make photocopies, sign, accept, follow-up, and check the status constantly – all is done in a paperless environment.
Another significant advantage – the digital solution saves up space and paper by making the documentation digital. Depending on the jurisdiction, there is a need to keep all the HR-related data for many years. It can be either a room full of paper or a pendrive stored in a safe cabinet.
Another benefit of utilizing the online leave management system is providing all employees with schemes and attendance information about their peers. So one can easily check if their colleague is sick, has a paid leave, or an unexpected absence.
This approach cuts the gossip and delivers clear information on the availability of a particular employee. It also helps to spot the policy abusers who are utterly destructive to the team’s morale.
In a school or an educational institution, transparency is especially important. With the myriad of contracts and types of employment, the tensions in the teams are unavoidable. If the project is halted due to one employee’s absence, it can be either slacking or mismanagement – and there are multiple ways to solve the problem, assuming it has been spotted.
School, university, or a college are extremely challenging when it comes to managing the human resources and leaves. The process can be troublesome, prone to mistakes, and time-consuming. That’s why implementing an online system to keep track of absences and leaves is a smart move that is going to boost many aspects of organizations’ daily operations.
If you wish to talk about this more and share your thoughts, don’t hesitate to contact us now!
Get monthly insights and make HR simple with us
