Who are the Millennial? They are the group of the largest generation, born between 1980 and the mid-2000s. They represent one-third of the total U.S. population in 2013. Most members of this generation are at the beginning of their careers and so will be an important part of the economy in the decades to come.

In this discussion I am going to examine the importance of time and attendance in a workplace and how much do this time and attendance have value amidst the Millennials or what is the perspective of the Millennials on the importance of attendance maintenance culture in the office.

Education, training and work experience may be important for a candidate to place himself in a venerated job but employers these days give equal importance to work ethics and Attendance and Time management in work is given prominence as it affects every aspect of the workplace and business. Attendance does not only mean being physically present in the office, it includes being ready to start work on time and being on the job during the workday to complete duties. Employers use attendance and leave a record of employees as an important factor while referring the candidates for higher responsibilities and job opportunities. Poor attendance appears to the employers as a lack of cooperation with the other team members and respect for the job.

But what do our Millennials at work opine about the importance of time and attendance in the workplace? Millennials are the first generation to have had access to the internet during the formative years and they are the most diverse and educated generation to date. Let’s discuss how Millennials use and expect to use technology in the workplace. Millennials are more connected to technology than the previous generation and a majority of them believe that their relationship with technology is what makes their generation unique. They intend to make the best use of technology in the workplace and value work-life balance and leisure more than money. They prioritize flexible working hours over cash bonuses.

Millennials do not give significance to the physical attendance in office; they prefer to communicate -electronically at work instead of face-to-face or over the phone. They are comfortable using their own tech devices at work and they prefer doing multitasking making the best use of technology. They are more collaborative, comfortable working in teams and potentially more productive.

For the Millennials, they will need a work environment which will allow them to virtual login to their work from anywhere anytime and they cannot be bonded by the physical attendance factor and maintenance of the expected stipulated time in office.

Now it is the employers turn to attract the Millennials and retain the best talent in the industry. For this, they could give flexible work hours and work from home as a key benefit for the millennials due to their prioritization of work-life balance. It could be offering greater flexibility in the workplace in general, scheduling of the hours worked and the total number of hours worked. But the real challenge to the employers lies in the fact on how they are going to manage the day-to-day realities of the employee’s schedule, how the hours worked can be accurately captured, how the leave and benefits are accrued. Time and attendance systems like the ‘CavinHR’ offer a successful way to manage and monitor flex time as they offer features to configure shifts and rules that reflect the organization’s policies.

Millennials value mobility in the systems they use and the devices they access. Even if their job profile does not require them to travel often if their application can be accessed from a mobile app, the workforce of the Millennial generation tend to use the application more often due to the flexibility, convenience, and security that the mobile app offer. So, constraining them by the condition of physical presence for a stipulated time and for the purpose of attendance will not help increase the organization productivity.

Employee “self-service” – a feature that empowers employees of the millennial generation to better manage time, information and productivity. Due to their ability to multitask, notifications and alerts facilitate employee action when it’s required. CavinHR is one of new-generation HR software that includes communication features for the Millennials who prefer digital communication over face-to-face interactions. It also has the Notification and Alert facility inbuilt which will streamline the communication cycle between employee and manager.

All this said we could conclude saying time and attendance are important to the Millennials but not at the cost of losing their work-life balance and flexibility of job timing and location.

What are your thoughts on the usage of flexible applications to satisfy the demands of the millennials?