ALL offices and units under the executive department at City Hall have started recording their attendance through the biometric timekeeping since late last month, a move generally viewed as in keeping with a similar progressive measure started much earlier by the legislative department or sangguniang panlungsod offices.

“Biometric-based timekeeping is a more effective and accurate way of monitoring the attendance of our employees, because it recognizes only fingerprints of every employee and transmits information to a database of a computer,” City Administrator Rafael Baraan said.

Baraan pointed out that because of the implementation of the biometrics, the whereabouts of the fieldworkers and the legitimacy of their field works can be verified since they will be required to submit certain requirements.

Employees who leave their offices during office hours will have a visitation pad to identify person/s visited, time of visit and purpose of visit in addition to a locator chart in each department to know the whereabouts of their employees.

Based on the general guidelines for the use of the biometric timekeeping machine, all city hall employees are divided into four clusters to address the distinct needs of employees:
Cluster A, for technical/office staff who come to work on a regular basis: Cluster B, for fieldwork personnel who are assigned on the field; Cluster B2, for field work personnel on rotation basis; and Cluster C, for work shift personnel who are working on time shifts.

All technical and office staffers are directed to strictly observe the office hours from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. A grace period of 15 minutes for timing in is given to the employees beyond which an employee is considered late.

Cluster B1 or fieldworkers are directed to time in at 8 a.m. and time out at 5 p.m. to the biometric stations designated to their respective departments. They do not need to return to the biometric station for the period of 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

Department heads and division chiefs that manage frontline offices will not log in to the biometric machine, but their attendance and absences will be recorded in proper format such as the daily time record.

Five stations for the biometric machines have been set up at City Hall main lobby (for city hall central offices), city agriculture office (for right wing offices), public order and safety office (POSO) (for left wing offices), city engineer’s office (CEO) (for CEO and waste management division) and city health office.

The Sangguniang Panlungsod, it will be noted, has been implementing the biometric based time keeping system since November 16, 2004. (Sunshine D. Robles)