Monitoring employee attendance used to mean staff queuing in front on a machine to record the time they punch in and out of work. Over time, the paper cards have been replaced with magnetic card scanners, and more recently with biometric readers.
But with growing concern over the COVID-19 outbreak, how will companies be able to screen employee attendance at work?
About 40% of Vietnamese businesses use finger machines, the remaining businesses use book timekeeping or do not have the optimal timekeeping method. This was the view of Quan Tran, founder of Tanca.io, an online human resource management platform based in Vietnam
The company recently launched what it calls is an AI-assisted facial recognition technology that uses mobile devices or CCTV.
An employee can use their phone to time attendance via GPS and take pictures of faces. The AI compares the employee's image taken and their original image on the system to verify the attendance.
Businesses can also install the Tanca app on any mobile device such as a tablet in front of the company's doors. When employees enter the office, they can check in via this device without touching it. The same technology can also be adapted for use using CCTV camera.
The system will automatically identify employees when come in/out and automatically notify via mobile phone to employees.
The idea of using face recognition to record in / out is not new, but this is the first time an HR software in Vietnam has applied this technology. "Since finger machines pose risks of exposure, non-touch solutions will be more efficient and safer in the current context," said Tran.
