Attendance management for construction and real estate companies

Treat every project site as a location

Set up each project as its own location, with a check-in spot drawn around the site office, and attach every engineer, supervisor and store keeper to the site where they report. Do the same for the sales office or sample flat, which often sits at the project gate but keeps different hours. When a tower reaches handover and the team moves to a new plot, HR changes the location on each record and the lifecycle history keeps the transfer, so March attendance stays with the old project and April starts at the new one.

• One location per project, plus head office and each sales gallery
• A check-in spot around the site office, not the whole plot
• The project cost centre on every site employee
• Transfer dates recorded when engineers move between projects

Punching at sites with no office network

Most sites run from a container office with patchy mobile data and no fixed network, so web punching limited to office IP addresses does not fit. Two methods work. Staff punch from the mobile app, which carries GPS location and can be limited to the site's check-in spot, with each punch tied to the employee's approved phone so nobody punches for a colleague. Or the site office mounts a kiosk tablet showing a QR code that refreshes every 30 seconds, with a typed code for phones that cannot scan. Head office can keep its biometric machine, because punches from every source land in the same record.

Site visits, approval runs and two-site days

A planning engineer who spends the morning at Tower C and the afternoon at the new Wakad plot, or a liaison officer who sits at the town planning office all day, should not show up as late or absent. Record these days as on duty requests, approved by the reporting manager and then HR, so the day counts as present with the reason on file. For engineers who regularly cover two sites, allow punches at the check-in spots of both sites instead of removing location rules altogether.

Late marks, rain stoppages and month close

Site shifts usually start at 8 am so work begins before the heat. A common rule is 10 minutes of grace, three free late marks a month, then half a day deducted for every further three. Suppose Suresh, a junior engineer at the Kharadi site, is late 7 times in June. Three marks are free, the next 3 make one block and cost half a day, and the seventh mark waits for the next block, so June carries a half-day deduction.

Rain creates a different case. When the project manager stops work for safety and sends staff home at noon, decide in advance how the day counts. If it is a full paid day, staff raise a status correction with the reason, the project manager and HR approve it, and any early-out penalty is waived with a reason. Close the month only after these corrections are in, so payroll reads final payable days.

How to set it up in ZeniaHR

1. Create each project site, sales gallery and the head office as locations, and add each project as a cost centre so every salary is charged to the right project.
2. In Capture controls, draw a check-in spot around each site office, set the mobile location rule and turn on phone binding so punches come only from approved phones.
3. Run a kiosk tablet at site offices where punching from personal phones is not practical, tie it to that site's check-in spot, and keep head office biometric devices pushing over ADMS.
4. In Attendance rules, set the grace, free late marks and half-day deduction for site shifts, then use the dry run on last month before switching them on.
5. Allow on duty requests for site visits and approval office days, and set correction limits per month and days back so late claims are caught early.
6. Before payroll, clear pending corrections, review missed punch-outs and use month close to finalize attendance for every site.

Read more about attendance in ZeniaHR.

Roles this applies to

Frequently asked questions