How to monitor an employee's working time in GWS?

After logging into Green Work Schedule, the employee sees a large button, “Record work start”, on the main screen. When they click it, the date and time of the click are stored in the database, and the button is replaced with “Record work end”. If an employee forgets to record the end of work and wants to record the start the next day, they have the button “Cancel and start work”. In this way, they indicate that they did not work continuously all day, but simply forgot to click “end”.

Below, the employee sees a list of the last 5 entries: the date and time of start and end (if the end has not been recorded, only the start is shown), the duration (end time minus start time), and comments. Comments can be written by both the employee and their supervisor (for each comment, the author and the date and time of creation are saved). The full table containing all entries is available in the side menu as “Attendance”.

The employee can also add work time manually by entering the start and end date and time. The system also stores when the entry was created, so the employee can correct their own mistakes afterward, but the supervisor can see that they were edited later. Such post-factum entries can also be added by the supervisor themselves.

User summary

If we have a complete schedule, in the “User Summary” tab we have a single table showing when the employee should be at work and when they actually were. We select the date range and employee there. On the left, we can see the planned time from the schedule, and on the right, the actual time from attendance.

Protection against abuse

Using GWS gives us certainty about when the employee clicked to start and end work. The previously mentioned option to correct data afterward leaves a record of when that data was modified (whether it is corrected by the employee or their boss). Trying to change the clock on the computer/phone will not help either—the server clock is used.

It is more difficult to detect where the employee clicked. An employee can also log into GWS while not at the workplace.

Theoretically, location can be checked using GPS, but this is easy to bypass. One option is to override GPS data using developer tools, and another is to give a colleague at work your password, so they can click start from their account while already at the office.

One of my clients uses ZKTeco fingerprint readers—the employee must place their finger on the permanently mounted reader (so it cannot be done for someone else).

Another option is to place a dedicated computer/tablet with an RFID card or smart card reader at the workplace (RFID is cheaper and simpler, but it can be counterfeited) and restrict the Start button to that one device only.

Summary

In the end, it’s worth remembering that although Green Work Schedule helps monitor employees’ working hours, it does not tell us whether the employee was actually working during that time or just lounging around.