Data Export – Time and Attendance

Workforce management trends for 2027: from recording hours to protecting margin

Connecting people, working time and operational performance.

A business can have an accurate payroll and still have an incomplete understanding of its labour costs.

It may know how many hours it paid for last week, yet struggle to explain why one job exceeded its budget, why overtime keeps returning in the same department, or whether a shortage of trained staff is restricting output.

As UK employers plan for 2027, that gap de

serves attention. Research published during 2026 highlights pressure on employment costs, growing investment in existing employees and the practical difficulties of adopti

ng AI.

Our view is that these trends strengthen the case for connected workforce management: bringing together employee information, working time and operational activity so managers can act on a clearer picture of the business.

For Ceequel®, this connection runs through Time and Attendance, HR Pro and Operational Intelligence.

1. Labour costs need to become visible at job and activity level

In Make UK and PwC’s Executive Survey 2026, 86% of manufacturers expected employment costs to increase over the following 12 months. makeuk.org

For a finance director, knowing the

total wage bill is only part of the answer. The more useful questions concern where that spending went and whether it matched the plan.

Which operations needed more labour than expected? Where did premium-rate hours accumulate? Did a profitable-looking contract consume more time than the estimate allowed?

A weekly total can conceal these differences. Two departments may record similar hours while producing ver

y different results.

Ceequel Time and Attendance provides the foundation through configurable shifts, overtime rules, premiums, absence records and payroll-ready information. Connecting those hours with operational activity brings the commercial picture into sharper focus. Employee Clocking & Compliance

The management opportunity is straightforward: investigate labour variance while there is still time to influence the outcome.

2. Attendance and productivity need to be understood together

Being present and completing a job are different measures. Both matter.

Consider an illustrative manufacturing job budgeted for 100 labour hours. If it takes 118 hours, the additional 18 hours identify a variance. They do not explain its cause.

The useful investigation starts with what happened during those hours: waiting for materials, machine stoppages, repeated set-ups, rework or an unrealistic standard.

Treating every variance as an employee-performance issue risks missing the process problem.

Ceequel Operational Intelligence connects workforce and activity data with information from systems such as ERP and MRP. It can capture job time, output, downtime, scrap, rework and work in progress, then apply configured calculations to examine costs and performance. timeandattendance.co.uk

This extends Shop Floor Data Collection beyond recording transactions. It helps managers compare actual activity with the plan and understand the financial effect.

For manufacturers, that can suppor

t investigation of labour recovery, machine utilisation, Overall Equipment Effectiveness and margin variance. timeandattendance.co.uk The same management principle applies to project and site-based businesses: labour spending becomes more useful when it can be attributed to the work that incurred it.

The value lies in explaining the variance early enough to do something about it.

Connect recorded activity with the reasons behind cost and performance variance.

3. Skills and absence belong in the same operational conversation

The CIPD’s Resourcing and talent planning report 2026 found that 48% of employers had increased their efforts to develop talent internally during the previous year. CIPD

That creates a practical challenge. Investing in training is valuable, but managers also need to understand where those skills sit across the workforce.

Who has the required qualification? When does it expire? Which teams depend on one experienced person? Where would training create more flexibility?

Availability matters too. The CIPD’s separate Health and wellbeing at work 2025 report recorded average sickness absence of 9.4 days per employee, compared with 7.8 days in its 2023 survey. These are survey benchmarks, rather than a prediction for any individual employer. CIPD

Together, these findings underline the importance of understanding both capability and availability.

Ceequel HR Pro brings employee records, training, qualifications and competencies together. Skills matrices, expiry reminders and skills-gap reporting help managers identify development needs. When connected with Time and Attendance, HR information can be considered alongside attendance and absence patterns. Ceequel HR Pro

That visibility can support better preparation for shortages and more informed conversations with employees. Effective absence management also needs supportive policies and human judgement; a score or dashboard cannot explain someone’s circumstances.

The business question becomes more useful: do we have the available skills to deliver the work ahead?

Bring skills, employee information and availability into the same conversation.

4. AI ambition increases the importance of reliable operational data

AI is attracting considerable attention, but adoption is uneven.

Make UK’s June 2026 report on AI and manufacturing found that only 2% of manufacturers said AI was widely embedded across their operations. More than half cited skills shortages as a barrier to adoption. Make UK

Our assessment is that this makes the underlying information environment especially important.

A business exploring AI-assisted analysis needs to know what its data actually represents. Does “productive time” have the same definition across sites? Are downtime reasons recorded consistently? Can reported output be linked to the correct job and period?

Inconsistent inputs make both conventional reporting and advanced analysis harder to trust.

Ceequel’s configurable capture methods, business rules, calculations and reporting help organisations establish a more structured operational record. timeandattendance.co.uk

That has an immediate purpose: clearer management information today. It also gives a business a stronger basis for evaluating future analytical tools against real operational needs.

A sensible starting point is a specific question, such as why a recurring operation exceeds its labour standard. Define the information required, capture it consistently and assess whether the resulting insight changes a decision.

5. Connected workflows can remove the gaps between departments

The previous trends share a common dependency: information needs to move between people and systems.

A change in an employee’s role can affect HR records, working patterns, training requirements and access permissions. A holiday approval affects team availability. A production delay affects labour allocation and job cost.

When each department maintains its own version, reconciling the differences becomes another job.

Ceequel’s connected suite allows employee information to be shared across modules, with access controlled for authorised users. Ceequel Hub and Employee Self-Service also give managers and employees practical ways to handle relevant information and requests. Ceequel HR Pro

This gives organisations a way to reduce repeated administration while retaining control over who can see and change information.

Configuration matters here. Different sites, employee groups and operations can require different rules. Useful workforce software must accommodate that complexity while keeping the resulting information consistent enough to manage.

What should businesses ask of their workforce software?

As you review your priorities for 2027, consider whether your current systems can answer five questions:

Where are paid hours being spent, and how do they compare with the plan?
Can managers investigate the reasons behind labour and production variance?
Can HR identify skills gaps and expiring qualifications alongside workforce availability?
Do employees, managers, payroll and operations work from consistent information?
Can the software reflect your actual working rules and operational calculations?

These questions connect workforce management with the decisions that affect service, delivery and profitability.

Ceequel brings together the depth of configurable Time and Attendance, the employee and skills information within HR Pro, and the activity and cost analysis of Operational Intelligence. Organisations can address their immediate requirements while building a more connected view of their workforce and operations.

Your workforce data should help you understand what happened, what it cost and where to act next.

Arrange a Ceequel demonstration to explore how your employee information, working time and operational performance could work together.

Defensibility starts with the records you create every day

When a question arises about working hours, pay, absence or timekeeping, an organisation needs more than a confident recollection. It needs a clear record of what happened, how a decision was reached and whether the same approach was applied consistently.

That is the practical value of defensibility. It is the ability to explain and support a decision using reliable information and a fair process.

Workforce records are created for practical reasons: to calculate pay, manage shifts, approve overtime and understand absence. But they can also become relevant when an employee raises a concern, a manager investigates an incident or the business needs to review how a policy was applied.

ACAS guidance says workplace investigations should be fair and objective, gather information from both sides and avoid starting from the assumption that someone is at fault. It also identifies attendance records and computer records as possible evidence in an investigation.

That makes the quality of routine records important. If information is scattered across paper timesheets, spreadsheets, emails and separate systems, it can take time to build an accurate picture. Gaps and inconsistencies can make it harder to explain what happened.

Everyday records can become important evidence

Accurate time data supports better conversations

A clocking record on its own may not tell the whole story. Managers may also need to understand the shift that was scheduled, any authorised changes, approved overtime, an absence or a correction made to a record.

Bringing this information together helps managers ask better questions and respond to issues promptly. It can also help identify patterns in lateness or absence, while giving managers a clearer basis for a supportive conversation. ACAS recommends recording unauthorised absence and lateness, while also reminding employers to consider confidentiality, data protection and discrimination.

The aim is not to turn every minor discrepancy into a formal issue. It is to give managers dependable information so they can understand the circumstances and respond appropriately.

Records matter when pay is questioned

Working time records can also help explain how pay has been calculated. Government guidance on National Minimum Wage record keeping says employers need sufficient records to demonstrate that workers have been paid correctly. It recommends clear, consistent records that show working time and associated pay rates, and explains that the required detail can vary by worker and situation.

For organisations managing different shifts, overtime rates, allowances or working arrangements, it is useful to be able to see how recorded time connects to the rules used to calculate pay. That visibility can support internal checks and help the business respond to a query with relevant information to hand.

Consistency is part of a fair process

Good records are only one part of defensibility. Policies need to be clear, managers need to apply them consistently, and employees need an opportunity to explain their circumstances. Where a concern is investigated, relevant evidence should be reviewed fairly and kept confidential.

A system can help make information easier to find and apply. It cannot make a decision fair on its own. The process still depends on people using the information thoughtfully and following the organisation’s procedures.

Building a clearer workforce record

Ceequel Time & Attendance brings together clockings, shift information, absence and overtime within a configurable workforce system. Managers can review exceptions and approvals through Ceequel Hub, helping them see relevant information in one place and deal with issues in a more timely way.

For organisations, that can mean less time piecing together records and more confidence in the information behind workforce decisions.

Defensibility is not created when a problem appears. It is built through accurate records, clear policies and consistent decisions made every day.

The Fair Work Agency: Why Accurate Working-Time Records Matter More Than Ever

The way employment rights are enforced in the UK is changing.

Established in April 2026, the Fair Work Agency brings several previously separate enforcement functions into one organisation. Its responsibilities include National Minimum Wage enforcement, tackling labour exploitation and recovering unpaid wages, with its remit expected to expand progressively into areas covered by the Working Time Regulations.

For employers, this increases the importance of having accurate, accessible and consistent workforce records.

Could you prove the hours your employees worked?

When questions arise over pay, overtime, holiday entitlement or working hours, relying on spreadsheets, paper timesheets or managers’ recollections can leave a business exposed.

A modern time and attendance system creates a reliable record of:

When employees started and finished work
Breaks taken during the working day
Overtime and shift premiums
Holiday and absence
Working Time compliance
Authorised changes and manager approvals

Good records do more than support compliance. They also reduce payroll errors, prevent disputes and give managers a clearer understanding of staffing costs and working patterns.

Compliance should be built into everyday processes

The strongest compliance systems are not additional administrative exercises. They form part of the organisation’s normal operation.

Ceequel® Time and Attendance automatically applies each organisation’s working rules to the hours recorded by employees. It can manage complex shifts, overtime, premiums, annualised hours, flexitime, TOIL and absences, while creating a clear audit trail for managers, HR and payroll.

As employment enforcement becomes increasingly coordinated and evidence-led, the ability to retrieve dependable workforce information quickly could become just as important as having the correct policies in place.

The question for employers is therefore no longer simply, “Are we paying people correctly?” It is also, “Can we demonstrate it?”

Discover how Ceequel® Time and Attendance can help your organisation manage working hours, pay rules and workforce compliance.

Responsible Workforce Technology: Better Information Without Losing Employee Trust

Workforce technology gives organisations unprecedented visibility over working time, attendance, access, absence and operational performance. Used correctly, it can improve payroll accuracy, reduce administration, control labour costs and help protect employees. Used without clear safeguards, however, the same technology can create legitimate concerns about privacy, fairness and excessive monitoring.

Responsible workforce technology is not about collecting as much employee information as possible. It is about using the right information, for a clearly defined business purpose, with appropriate security, transparency and human oversight.

This distinction is becoming increasingly important. The UK Government is currently considering how workplace-monitoring technologies should be managed, with a particular focus on clarity, transparency, employee voice and responsible implementation. This is a consultation rather than final legislation, but it gives employers a clear indication of the direction in which expectations are moving. Read the Government’s workplace-monitoring consultation.

Workforce technology should have a clear purpose

Every workforce system should begin with a legitimate operational requirement.

An employer may need to record attendance so employees are paid accurately, manage access to restricted areas, confirm who is present during an emergency, monitor working-time compliance or understand the labour used on a particular job or production process.

These are valid business purposes. Problems arise when information collected for one reason is subsequently used for an unrelated purpose without proper consideration, communication or justification.

Before introducing any workforce technology, an organisation should therefore be able to explain:

What information will be collected.
Why that information is required.
How it will be used.
Who will be able to access it.
How long it will be retained.
Whether it will contribute to any automated decisions.
What choices or alternatives are available to employees.

Transparency creates confidence

Employees should not have to guess how workplace technology affects them.

Clear communication helps employees understand that a time-and-attendance system is there to create accurate records, that access control protects people and premises, or that operational data is being used to improve production rather than simply scrutinise individuals.

Where appropriate, employers should consult employees and their representatives before new technology is introduced. This provides an opportunity to explain the business requirement, answer questions and identify legitimate concerns before implementation.

Transparency is particularly important where technology involves location data, biometrics or detailed operational information.

Biometric technology requires additional care

Facial recognition can provide fast, contact-free and highly accurate employee identification. It can reduce forgotten credentials, discourage “buddy clocking” and support secure access control.

However, biometric information used to identify a person is special-category personal data. The Information Commissioner’s Office states that organisations must complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment before processing biometric data to identify workers.

Employers must also establish an appropriate lawful basis, demonstrate that the proposed use is necessary and proportionate, and consider whether a less intrusive alternative could achieve the same objective.

Where consent is being relied upon, employees must have a genuine choice. The ICO gives the example of providing a swipe-card alternative without disadvantaging employees who do not wish to use biometrics. Read the ICO’s guidance on biometric time and access control.

This does not mean that facial recognition cannot be used responsibly. It means that the organisation introducing it must make a considered and properly documented decision.

Collect only what is needed

A responsible system should allow organisations to configure technology around their actual requirements rather than forcing them to collect unnecessary information.

For example, a mobile employee may need to confirm that they have arrived at an authorised work location. That does not automatically mean their movements need to be continuously tracked throughout the working day.

Similarly, operational technology may need to record which employee completed a job or production operation, but this should not become unrestricted personal surveillance.

The principle is straightforward: collect the information needed to achieve the defined purpose—and no more.

Important decisions should remain subject to human oversight

Workforce systems can identify exceptions, highlight patterns and provide managers with better information. They should not remove appropriate management judgement.

An attendance pattern may require investigation, but the system will not necessarily understand the personal or operational circumstances behind it. A productivity variance may identify a problem, but it may have been caused by machine downtime, material shortages, training requirements or an unrealistic production target.

Technology should support fair, consistent and informed decisions. Managers should remain able to review the underlying information, correct errors and consider the wider context before action is taken.

Security must be designed into the solution

Workforce information must be protected throughout its lifecycle.

This includes appropriate access controls, encryption, secure communications, clearly defined administrative permissions, retention policies, audit trails and reliable deletion processes. Remote access should also be controlled, authorised and restricted to the systems and time periods genuinely required.

The organisation using the system remains the data controller and is responsible for determining why and how employee information is processed. The technology provider should support that responsibility through secure design, clear documentation and configurable controls.

The Ceequel® approach

Ceequel® brings together Time & Attendance, HR, Employee Self Service, Access Control, Visitor Management, mobile clocking and Operational Intelligence within one configurable software suite.

This allows organisations to establish consistent controls across workforce processes while maintaining clear distinctions between different types of information and their intended purposes.

Depending on the organisation’s requirements, Ceequel can support:

Facial recognition or non-biometric proximity credentials.
Defined user roles and administrative permissions.
Accurate time, attendance, absence and working-hours records.
GPS and geofenced mobile clocking for authorised locations.
Controlled access to buildings and restricted areas.
Interactive fire and evacuation information.
Job, operation, output, downtime and labour-cost analysis.
Audit trails supporting management and compliance requirements.
Integration with payroll, HR and wider business systems.

The communications software used within Ceequel clocking devices is designed and coded by ELF Productivity Ltd, providing secure, encrypted communication between hardware and the Ceequel software environment.

Crucially, Ceequel provides information to authorised managers; it does not replace their responsibility to make fair, proportionate and properly informed decisions.

Better control and responsible use belong together

Organisations do not have to choose between operational visibility and employee trust.

A well-designed workforce-management system can help employers control labour costs, improve payroll accuracy, manage compliance and make better decisions while still respecting privacy, proportionality and individual rights.

The strongest workforce technology is not simply the technology that collects the most information. It is the technology that gives an organisation the information it genuinely needs, protects that information properly and enables it to be used openly, fairly and responsibly.

To discuss how Ceequel® can support responsible workforce management across your organisation, contact ELF Productivity Ltd or request a demonstration.

Why ERP Shop Floor Data Collection Falls Short of Continuous Improvement

Many ERP systems now include some form of Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC). On the surface, this appears to give manufacturers everything they need: production quantities, labour time, machine status, scrap levels and completed works orders.

However, collecting production transactions is not the same as providing the insight required for continuous improvement.

ERP systems are designed primarily to manage business processes. They are excellent at controlling works orders, inventory, purchasing, scheduling, costing and financial reporting. Their shop-floor functionality is generally designed to feed these processes with accurate production data.

Continuous improvement requires something different.

ERP Records What Happened

Most ERP-based SFDC systems concentrate on recording key transactions, such as:

When a works order started and finished
How many units were produced
The quantity of scrap recorded
The labour hours allocated to the job
Whether the order was completed
What materials were consumed

This information is important, but it usually provides a high-level summary rather than explaining what happened throughout the production process.

A works order may have taken two hours longer than planned, but why?

Was it caused by a machine stoppage, a shortage of material, an extended changeover, a quality problem, an unavailable operator or repeated short interruptions?

The ERP system may show the variance, but it rarely captures the operational detail needed to understand and eliminate its cause.

Continuous Improvement Needs Greater Detail

Continuous improvement depends upon identifying patterns, losses and recurring problems. This requires detailed, accurate and timely information from the shop floor.

Manufacturers need to understand:

Why machines and production lines stopped
How often short, unplanned stoppages occurred
Whether delays were caused by machines, materials, methods or labour
How actual cycle times compared with expected performance
Where bottlenecks developed
Why output varied between shifts, teams or products
What caused scrap, rework or quality failures
How long changeovers actually took
Whether corrective actions delivered a measurable improvement

Without this level of information, improvement teams are often forced to rely on spreadsheets, handwritten records, supervisor feedback and employee recollection.

By the time the information is reviewed, much of the context has already been lost.

The Problem with High-Level Downtime Codes

Some ERP platforms allow operators to select downtime or loss codes. However, these are often too broad to support meaningful root-cause analysis.

Recording “machine breakdown” does not explain which component failed, what symptoms were observed, whether the same fault has occurred previously or what action was taken to resolve it.

Likewise, “material shortage” does not identify whether the material was unavailable, delivered late, incorrectly located, rejected for quality reasons or supplied in the wrong quantity.

Continuous improvement requires structured data that allows organisations to move beyond identifying the category of a problem and begin understanding its underlying cause.

Small Losses Create a Big Problem

ERP systems are generally designed around significant production events. Yet many of the greatest opportunities for improvement are hidden within smaller, repeated losses.

A production line may suffer dozens of two or three-minute stoppages during a shift. Individually, these interruptions may not appear important enough to record. Collectively, however, they can account for hours of lost production every week.

If these micro-stoppages are not captured, categorised and analysed, they remain invisible. The ERP system may simply show that the works order took longer than expected, without revealing the repeated events responsible for the lost time.

Reporting Is Not the Same as Analysis

ERP reporting typically answers business questions such as:

Was the order completed?
How much did it cost?
Was the required quantity produced?
How much material was consumed?
What was the labour variance?

Continuous-improvement teams need to ask different questions:

Where are we losing productive time?
Which problems occur most frequently?
Which issues have the greatest impact?
Are the same faults recurring?
Which shift or product experiences the most variation?
Did the corrective action work?
What should we improve next?

Answering these questions requires data to be explored by machine, production line, product, shift, employee, reason, duration and frequency. It also needs to be presented in a way that helps managers recognise trends and prioritise action.

A standard ERP report may present the numbers, but it does not necessarily turn them into actionable operational intelligence.

Real-Time Visibility Matters

ERP information is often reviewed after a shift, production run or reporting period has ended. This is suitable for costing and historical reporting, but improvement opportunities frequently require a much faster response.

Supervisors need to see when performance begins to fall, when downtime is increasing or when a production line is operating below its expected rate. The earlier a problem is identified, the sooner action can be taken.

Real-time operational visibility helps manufacturers prevent a minor issue from becoming an entire shift of lost production.

The ERP Still Has an Important Role

This does not mean replacing the ERP system.

The ERP should remain the central platform for managing orders, materials, stock, schedules and financial information. What it needs is a dedicated operational-intelligence layer capable of collecting and analysing the detailed information that conventional ERP transactions cannot provide.

An effective solution should combine data collected directly from machinery and PLCs with information entered by employees on the shop floor. This creates a more complete picture by capturing both what happened and the operational reason behind it.

The resulting information can then be used to support OEE, downtime analysis, root-cause investigation, DMAIC, Six Sigma and other structured improvement programmes.

From Shop Floor Data to Operational Intelligence

Ceequel® Operational Intelligence goes beyond traditional Shop Floor Data Collection. It provides manufacturers with the detailed, real-time information needed to understand production losses, investigate their causes and measure the results of improvement activity.

Rather than competing with the ERP system, it complements it. Production orders and relevant business data can be shared between the two platforms, while Ceequel® captures the deeper shop-floor detail required by production managers and continuous-improvement teams.

Because collecting more data is not the objective.

The real objective is to provide the right people with clear, reliable information that helps them reduce waste, improve performance and make better operational decisions.

An ERP system can tell you what was produced and what it cost.

Ceequel® Operational Intelligence helps explain why performance varied—and what you can do to improve it.

Take Advantage of Shop Floor Data Capture

Production companies can have any number of employees and machines working at any one time making it increasingly difficult for them to monitor time and energy. Meaning business are often unable to determine if employees are slacking or if machines are lagging behind. Fitting a shop floor data capture system in to your business will provide you with the opportunity to track each individual employees actions within each section of the production process as well as monitor machine production and waste numbers.

The Art of Chaos

Production is a stressful part of a business, especially having to monitor employees and efficiency of machinery. This responsibility is challenging while still maintaining a cost-effective production process. The amount of machines and employees are at times overwhelming. With each employee working in various parts of the process, it is often though to determine where there is potential to maximise time and energy. That is, unless you have the right software.

Monitoring All Angles

The unique ID swipe system that Ceequel® uses allows the seamless tracking of both individuals and groups: creating real-time result comparison on duration, efficiency, and productivity; giving the opportunity to recognise specific areas that need attention, in order to reach optimal employee efficiency. You can compare the detailed time records for production and employee attendance, for accurate individual productivity data. Our software even calculates performance based pay, then transfers this data to payroll for seamless accounting. These results are then used tweak the process, amplifying individual and group productivity.

Tracking Machinery

This software isn’t just for employees though, it also maintains the capacity to monitor machines as well, even using calculations to convert employee labour and machine usage into a monetary value which can then track machine down time, allowing you to locate areas to maximise efficiency, helping you monitor your production growth and discover needs for new equipment, ultimately increasing your productivity by process maximisation.

Contact us to learn more about how your company can take advantage of Shop Floor Data Capture and maximise your potential!

Syncing Time and Attendance Records

The best way for your business to enhance their bookkeeping and accounting is by syncing your time and attendance records between both departments. Syncing the data between the two makes sure every single one of your employees is paid on time and correctly every pay period.

Syncing Time and Attendance records is often the best way for a business to enhance their bookkeeping and accounting. Offering jobs to people in the community is a beautiful thing for a business to do. However, those jobs must pay well and pay properly to every employee.

With a time and attendance program that is synced to the company’s accounting or payroll system, every employee can be paid exactly what they are owed every pay period. This is especially helpful for the business owner who is working their business alone. The time and attendance software can transmit employee information to the business’ accounting or payroll program.

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