Attendance tracking and access control: two sides of the same coin

Until a few years ago, company systems survived almost entirely lacking a serious and real access control or presence detectors for employees, or external consultants. In many cases even today, installation of video surveillance systems is still the only measure taken, used more as a deterrent for external personnel than as methods of control and verification of internal personnel. Laws regarding safety, access control to specific company areas, and verification of employee presence instead compel the utmost care in choosing the access control system, which can also fulfill other functions. In a company with numerous areas and sectors, it is necessary to regulate access for both external members and internal members to keep under control the circulation of the large number of people moving within large corporate environments. It is important to prevent unauthorized persons from accessing reserved or dangerous company premises without necessarily using physical control by a guard.

Why verify attendance

A practical and legal level access control is useful to know the entry and exit times of each employee from a company. This type of verification is often carried out in an “analog” way, meaning that a staff member verifies employees’ entrance and exit. Many companies have the traditional clock-in system, with a device that records each employee’s passage through the use of a badge. It is important to keep track of arrival and departure times from the workplace to count the actual hours of employee presence on company premises in order to also determine periodic compensation and the accounting of holidays and permits. Very few companies use this method to verify access to certain specific areas. Because access control systems can be integrated with software capable of selecting personnel who can access a specific area, for example those where sensitive data of employees or clients are stored, which cannot be viewed by everyone but only by authorized personnel. Attendance verification is often considered solely from the perspective of controlling the individual employee’s working hours, when in fact it is also about improving security of some particular zones, controlling their access, and knowing at any moment the number of staff present in an area of the company. It also involves monitoring and managing personnel safety, which is fundamental in the event of fire or other types of incidents. Having a real-time list of persons present inside a company complex in case of imminent danger is a valuable aid in controlling evacuation activities from the company complex.

Access control

Many conceive the concept of control as something related to life disciplined by a superior, the fact of not having maximum freedom, as if it were a vexatious event. In reality, access control in a company is fundamental from several points of view, without constituting a vexation. It is rather about verifying presence within an area, which allows limiting access to certain company zones, but also optimizing services or perfectly monitoring possible area evacuation. Presence and access control systems are in fact also used to activate air conditioning systems or to make accessibility easier to environments, not only for employees but also for external consultants, clients, or occasional guests. Through attendance detection and access control software it is possible to precisely monitor personnel flow at every point in the company, adequately managing services, security systems, air conditioning, or other systems, thereby also optimizing energy consumption. The latest generation home automation systems allow us, through software, to set turning on and off air conditioners, lighting, and heating systems and regulate the temperature of a specific environment based on set schedules and the number of people present in a certain place at a given time, thus optimizing energy consumption.