Just in time.
It’s been a long week, take some time, read on.
Time. It just keeps ticking along. Over the weekend I was watching a couple of great NFL football games and was all caught up with the time clock. Last-minute heroics seem to be just part of the game these days. Managing the clock. Running the clock down. Taking a knee to end the game. It’s action-packed and keeps us on the edge of our seats. It got me to thinking about my awesome team at KHT, and how we manage our time. We estimate time for jobs, track delivery times and processing times, making sure your PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs! come out just right – time after time. Time is so important to how we live too – we do things at a specific time, “later on”, “suddenly”, “after a while”, or even “at the same time”. We use a timer to cook, the alarm to wake us up, and our stopwatch to end an event or finish a run. When a dear friend calls, we “make time” or disappoint them that we’re “out of time”. Today marks a special anniversary of Willard Bundy, the inventor of the time clock – way back in 1888. So, take a few minutes to “punch in”, gather up some trivia, and share with your co-workers during your next zoom chat before you (punch) log out. Thanks to ontheclock.com, Wikipedia, and YouTube for the info and amazing music videos. Enjoy!
If you “have time”, here are some fun songs to play while reading our post – and it’s ok to sing out loud – cause they are awesome!
The Doors – Love Me Two Times
Pink Floyd – Time
The Zombies – Time of the Season
Cindy Lauper – Time After Time
Chicago – Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?
Jim Croche – Time In A Bottle
- The sundial represents the first relatively accurate method of tracking the time of day. The earliest sundials can be traced back to 1500 BC from ancient Babylonian and Egyptian astronomy. Before humans could track time, workers were most likely paid by the day.
- In Roman times, soldiers were paid a “salarium” or payment to buy salt, which was used as currency and was considered essential for living in the time. Along with the word salary (so that’s where it came from), many experts believe these roman origins are where the phrase “worth his salt,” comes from. (now you know!)
- From Ancient Rome through the Second Industrial Revolution in 1930, the term salary referred to payment for services. In this case, a salary could mean a flat fee for work or hourly compensation. It wasn’t until the 1800s that employers started differentiating between flat pay and an hourly rate for work.
- In the late 1800’s, while unions were protesting and lawmakers were debating working conditions, one man in New York was tinkering away in his jewelry shop. Willard Legrand Bundy, born and raised in Cayuga County, New York, opened a jewelry store and used his trade to develop multiple inventions, many of which are still used today. Bundy holds patents for multiple cash registers and calculating machines, but he is known for inventing the employee time clock. The patent for his time recorder was approved on November 20, 1888 and Bundy started a business manufacturing machines that would record when employees would clock in and clock out of work. A year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company, and began mass-producing time clocks. (I love when families work together!!)
- In 1889, the Bundy Manufacturing Recording Company opened in Binghamton with eight employees and $150,000 in capital. By 1898, the company expanded to 140 skilled workers and had sold more than 9,000 Bundy Time Recorders. These machines were sold as a solution for “vexatious questions of recording employee time.”
- In the following years, as the time clock became commonplace in the American workplace, the Bundy Manufacturing Company merged with various other companies. It eventually became the International Time Recorder Company (ITR). In 1911, this business was incorporated in New York State as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which was the forerunner of IBM (International Business Machines Corporation)… (now you know!)
- As manual punch clocks grew more common in the American workplace and across the world, not much changed throughout the mid-1900s. However, a few circles started to buzz about special calculating machines called computers and how they could revolutionize our society.
- When computers started showing up in every home and business, the market expanded from a few select companies to millions of people across America. The software industry changed dramatically to the creation of tools sold for small amounts to large audiences, a model most SaaS companies still follow today. As the market for software evolved, developers created time clock tools that companies could buy and install on their computers, moving employee time tracking out of history and into its digital form.
- One man, in particular, created an invention which many small businesses use today to balance their books and employee time sheets. Richard Mattessich is credited as the pioneer of the electronic spreadsheet, which allowed other develops to create some of the first mainstream accounting tools.
- In 1978, Harvard Business School students Daniel Bricklin and Bob Frankston developed an interactive visible calculator called VisiCalc that could be used on personal computers. This way, anyone who had this computer and this program about track data and manipulate it for their accounting and analytical needs. While paper spreadsheets have been around for centuries, the digital option made it easy for accountants to enter data and have it calculated automatically.
- In 1991, computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee debuted the World Wide Web. This “web of information,” was meant to do more than send files. It was supposed to provide information to people and connect data from all over the world.
- Over the next decade, the Internet would continue to grow. Dial-up modems became the background noise of homes, more companies would start using computer technology, and people started to share information by a communication tool called “e-mail.” With these changes in technology, employee time tracking evolved, too. Microchips and employee identification cards meant team members could swipe in instead of physically placing a punch card into a machine. In some companies, employees could even clock in via computer.
- The invention of the internet meant that employees could clock in online from their own devices instead of downloading software or using hardware in the employee break room. As long as team members had access to the web, they could clock in or out. This is all so convenient today with our current “at home” workforces.
- This opened the door for remote workers to check in wherever they are — whether they are working from home or calling in from a villa in Aspen. In 2018 about 70 percent of workers reported working remotely at least one day per week – (today that’s likely about 99%).
- Modern technology continues to change how we work, but a few things remain the same – such as employee time tracking as long as people get paid by the hour. Employee time tracking is certainly transitioning, especially as more employers embrace BYOD (bring your own device) culture and mobile time management, but the core of the employee time clock will remain the same.
- With the mass market proliferation of mobile devices (smart phones, handheld devices), new types of self-calculating time tracking systems have been invented which allow a mobile workforce – such as painting companies, truckers and construction companies – to track employees ‘on’ and ‘off’ hours. This is generally accomplished through either a mobile application, or an IVR based phone call in system. Using a mobile device allows enterprises to better validate that their employees or suppliers are physically ‘clocking in’ at a specific location using the GPS functionality of a mobile phone for extra validation.
- Biometric time clocks are a feature of more advanced time and attendance systems. Rather than using a key, code or chip to identify the user, they rely on a unique attribute of the user, such as a handprint, fingerprint, finger vein, palm vein, facial recognition, iris or retina. The user will have their attribute scanned into the system. Biometric readers are often used in conjunction with an access control system, granting the user access to a building, and at the same time clocking them in recording the time and date. These systems also attempt to cut down on “buddy clocking” or ghost employees’, where additional identities are added to payroll but don’t exist.
- Wonder what the future holds … I guess time will tell. (sorry, I had too…)
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DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I. Love. My. Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good. :-))))
Have fun!!
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