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                         MinuteHound Sponsoring TidBITS

   Adam Engst

   We'd like to welcome as our latest long-term sponsor MinuteHound, a
   company that provides a zero-contact biometric time and attendance
   tracking solution.One of the things I've most enjoyed about our TidBITS
   Content Network business of providing syndicated content to Apple
   professionals is hearing about the challenges faced by Apple-using
   organizations of all sorts. For instance, since college in the late
   1980s, I haven't had a job that required filling out a time card or
   clocking in and out. The field has evolved since then, but many
   companies still need employees to work specific shifts or keep close
   track of their on-the-job hours. How best to record that data is an
   interesting problem.

   Employers want to make sure that their employees are working the hours
   they specify, and not claiming to work extra hours or clocking in
   friends who aren't present. Plus, firms may need to adjust staffing
   quickly to respond to changing business conditions. On the other side
   of the equation, employees want to make sure they get credit for all
   the time they work, without spending any more time on tracking than
   necessary.

   A solution to these problems comes from [1]MinuteHound, a company run
   by a long-time TidBITS reader and our latest long-term sponsor. Instead
   of asking employees to clock in and out via software, or fill in time
   cards (online or not), MinuteHound uses biometrics to make clocking in
   and out as quick, easy, and accurate as possible. MinuteHound is used
   all over the world.

   MinuteHound started about 9 years ago with a fingerprint scanner, but 3
   years ago, the company started working on [2]a zero-touch approach that
   relied on facial recognition and was also Mac-native. With the COVID-19
   pandemic causing upheavals in staffing and the desire to avoid touching
   shared surfaces, MinuteHound released its facial recognition system
   earlier this year.

   Enrollment takes less than a minute. Once enrolled, all an employee has
   to do is look at the MinuteHound device's camera'the software can run
   on a Mac, a PC, or an Android tablet'and MinuteHound figures out who
   the person is and clocks them in or out as needed. The information is
   recorded instantly in the MinuteHound Web portal. When the inevitable
   mistakes happen, a manager can manually correct the data through the
   portal.

   Privacy is of course a question, but much like Apple's approach with
   Touch ID and Face ID, MinuteHound's biometric recognition algorithms
   never store actual fingerprints or face scans. Instead, they create a
   token based on the employee's fingerprint or face scan, and then store
   that token. Subsequent scans match against the stored token. All
   information is also encrypted within the cloud-based system.

   I can't pretend that I've regularly used MinuteHound in the real
   world'precise time tracking isn't something that matters to my company.
   But I have set up a free MinuteHound trial account, played with the
   online interface, and practiced clocking in and out by looking at my
   Mac's webcam. It works well, although it became obvious quickly that it
   would be best run on a dedicated device'perhaps an older Mac laptop or
   an inexpensive Android tablet that would be easy for employees to walk
   by on their way in or out.

   So if you own, run, or are involved with a business that has time and
   attendance tracking needs, [3]check out MinuteHound. The American
   Payroll Association estimates that 'buddy punching' and schedule
   exceptions cost the average business 5% of payroll, so at $3 per
   employee per month ($2 for businesses with more than 100 employees),
   MinuteHound pays for itself quickly. Especially if you're still fussing
   with paper time cards!

References

   Visible links
   1. https://www.minutehound.com/?utm_source=tidbits&utm_medium=email
   2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEwKngDUQWQ
   3. https://www.minutehound.com/

   Hidden links:
   4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEwKngDUQWQ

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