Attendance Management in Financial Institutions and Healthcare

Today’s modern attendance systems specialize in particular industries or groups of industries to provide them with full support. Therefore, you cannot rely on a recommendation from someone using a system for a different type of business, as it might not meet the needs of your employees and HR department.

So, what are the specifics of different industries, and what type of attendance system is suitable for them?

Financial Sector

Banks and other financial institutions typically have a portion of employees working standard 8-hour shifts, usually at the headquarters. For them, you can choose from a wide range of systems, as most attendance systems can easily handle these stable working conditions in compliance with legislation.

However, a significant portion of financial sector employees work in so-called “call centers” — departments that must be available for extended hours, including weekends and sometimes night shifts. Call centers have irregular working hours, and under regulation, these employees are entitled to a safety break. This break should be scheduled every two hours, counts as working time, and lasts up to 10 minutes.*

Banks also involve on-call duties. These are predetermined, have their own limits, and at the moment an employee is called to work, they convert into overtime. Since on-call time and overtime impact wages, reliable attendance tracking is crucial for accurate payroll calculations. Your attendance system must fully support these types of work arrangements in compliance with legislation. This is now standard with modern (mainly cloud-based) systems.

A specific area, especially in large banking institutions, is branch network attendance. Branches have a unique approval hierarchy, and employees often work two-shift patterns, including weekends. Attendance tracking at branches (compared to, for example, the retail sector) is less demanding in terms of planning flexibility because employees usually work more evenly, and branches generally have fewer employees. Nevertheless, compliance with legislative rules on breaks, allowance calculations, and similar regulations is still essential.

Healthcare

Healthcare is an extremely specific sector. Practically all types of attendance, work patterns, and exceptions exist here. Healthcare workers (especially in hospitals) work shifts, are on-call, have on-duty periods, standby shifts, and more. They may also serve in various departments, not always under their official supervisors.

 

Today, sophisticated scheduling is possible in attendance systems that allow detailed planning by department, team, or for the whole year and beyond. You can tag employees to ensure you have necessary specialists on shift — like anesthesiologists, enough nurses, radiologists, or foreign-language speakers. A specialized attendance system can monitor everything you need. However, this functionality is not standard in basic systems.

Healthcare facilities also employ non-medical staff, such as economists, cleaners, security guards, and doormen, each requiring different attendance solutions. For some, classic card-based clock-in systems are more suitable. Combining everything into one system is not automatic; you must be prepared to implement multiple systems for different employee groups — usually two: a modern cloud system for shift planning and absence tracking, and a traditional physical terminal for clocking in and out. These systems can be interconnected to share input data.

 

Such projects are more financially demanding. Since healthcare facilities are often state- or municipality-owned, funding can sometimes be a barrier to modernizing internal processes. Therefore, private healthcare institutions are usually the leaders in adopting new technologies.

 

The key takeaway here is that flexibility in the attendance system is critical. It must handle all possible cases. It’s also important to note that healthcare workers differ in their levels of digital literacy, which affects expectations and demands for system usability.

Manufacturing Enterprices

Manufacturing enterprises face similar challenges to healthcare. They also employ several types of workers. Office employees today prefer not to use physical clock-in devices and often work remotely, necessitating a modern, cloud-based attendance system.

However, the production workforce remains the largest segment, and detailed monitoring of a large number of employees is crucial, especially given the high turnover rates typical in the industry. Knowing every employee personally and relying solely on trust is impractical.

Thus, a hybrid system is recommended — some employees are mainly monitored through “negative attendance” (tracking only absences and exceptions), while others use “positive attendance” (recording arrivals and working hours in detail). Usually, this means combining two different attendance systems.

Often, shift supervisors or managers plan attendance, and workers record their attendance using punch-in terminals. For supervisors, it’s important to be able to monitor deviations from the plan, receive alerts if an employee hasn’t clocked in, and so forth.

Attendance System as a Safety Element

Security is often the primary concern when modernizing internal processes. Moving to the cloud requires a mindset shift — from physical attendance controls (such as clock-in terminals) to virtual solutions that are less visible. Employees are unaware of the background processes calculating entitlements, recording hours, and ensuring legal compliance. Most importantly, these systems prevent unauthorized access and minimize errors.

Today, regular employees should trust these systems, just as they trust smartphones, e-shops, and email in daily life.

 When choosing an attendance system, it is crucial to involve the IT department. If the company doesn’t have an internal IT team, an external specialist can be hired. An experienced professional can quickly assess whether a provider is serious about security.

However, there’s no need for fear — most providers are highly reliable. You should simply ask about international certifications, penetration tests, service support, and where data is stored. Positive references from large international clients are a good indicator of a trustworthy supplier.

In fact, cloud solutions usually offer higher security than local attendance systems. Cloud providers make security a core part of their business model. A single security breach could destroy their reputation, so they invest heavily in protection. Cloud companies routinely spend hundreds of thousands of crowns annually on security. Ask yourself: how much did you invest in your IT environment last year?

Legislative Changes Favor Cloud Solutions for Remote Work

 Remote work was once seen as a benefit, but since the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU requires it to be treated as a standard option. Consequently, local laws across the EU have been adjusted to favor remote work, impacting attendance tracking and increasing demand for cloud solutions.

Clocking in on-site is becoming obsolete in many sectors. This trend started about five years ago during the pandemic and even conservative companies are adapting — if they want to retain high-quality employees.

*Legislation is not uniform and varies somewhat between countries.