What defines Time and Attendance Equipment?

When we talk about time and attendance equipment within time and attendance management, what kind of actual equipment are we talking about? We all know it includes basic time clocks and biometric time clocks but what about the simple employee time card? Does it qualify as time and attendance equipment? I think so, particularly if it is a smart card that uses a computer to chip to store information about the employee and it used with a punch clock.

Looking into what other types of time and attendance equipment that could qualify you would then add fingerprint scanners to the list, although they really fall under the biometric category. The same goes for retina scanners. They store biometric employee information about the size and shape of the eye and this information is used when the employee "clocks" in. There are many variations of biometric hand scanners out there too. They use all sorts of variations of measuring the hand to ensure the accuracy of the scan and to also allow for adverse conditions such as dirty or cut hands.

At a trade show recently I actually heard someone ask the salesperson, "Does it work through a glove?". At first this seems like a ridiculous question but its not so crazy when you think about it. If the scanner can work through mud and dirt on the hand, then how far can scanning through a glove really be?

All of these devices are meant to keep far better track of each employee's work hours and to stop the notorious buddy punching.