If someone persistently arrives late and/or leaves early, then other hard-working employees will eventually become disgruntled. At best it is a drain on morale, but you run the risk of your best staff leaving because they do not feel that their contribution is valued, whilst the bad employees remain. You then have the costs of finding and training good replacement staff – if you can find them and they are willing to work for you when your other staff aren’t up to scratch! If that happens repeatedly, your company is on the slippery slope to oblivion!
Knowing the hours people work is a vital step to assessing their productivity and working out their value as part of your company. Ultimately, this means that you can reward people suitably, helping you keep your best employees.
Similarly, the increased scrutiny of underperforming workers (as well as those who excessively take breaks or are absent) will either result in them improving of their own accord, or will give you the information you need to ascertain whether they require training to increase their productivity or if they are simply not suited for the role. In either case, you are much more likely to keep your best workers, and everyone’s morale improves when the weakest staff members leave. Good staff morale is one of the key determinants of a successful and growing business.