Beacons for Employee Time Logging

Beacons make worker check-in and check-out fast and largely hands-free. A phone or badge simply comes within range of a doorway beacon and the event is recorded automatically, so people don’t have to queue at a terminal, find a QR code, unlock a device or remember to tap anything. That reduces friction at shift changes and cuts the small but costly delays that add up across a site.

They’re built for indoor accuracy, where GPS struggles. A beacon at each entrance, gate, or zone gives reliable, metre-level proximity so you can tell which door someone used and when, rather than relying on coarse geofences or Wi-Fi presence. That precision supports clean timesheets, correct job and cost-code allocation and a defensible audit trail for inspections and disputes.

Because beacons use Bluetooth Low Energy, the hardware is inexpensive, tiny, and battery powered. You can stick them near entrances with no cabling, and the batteries typically last years, which keeps deployment and maintenance costs down. Phones barely notice the power draw, and if there’s no signal underground or in a basement, check-ins can be stored on the device and sync automatically when connectivity returns.

Beacons are also good for safety. They support live headcounts, roll-calls, and muster reporting during evacuations because presence updates as workers move through muster points. Zone beacons can warn when someone enters a restricted area or stays too long in a high-risk zone, and they help you evidence who was on site during specific windows in the event of an incident.

They reduce time fraud and “buddy punching”. Unlike sharing a PIN or flashing a photo of a QR code, proximity requires the person’s device or assigned tag to be physically present at the right place and time.

From a privacy and compliance standpoint, beacon systems can be designed to be lighter-touch than CCTV or biometrics. You can rotate identifiers, process events on-device, and store only time, zone and worker ID needed for payroll and Working Time Regulations reporting, which helps with UK GDPR principles like data minimisation and purpose limitation. There’s no need to capture faces or fingerprints, which many staff prefer.

Accessibility and usability improve too. Hands-free check-ins work with gloves, PPE, or when carrying tools, so they’re friendlier than fingerprint readers or touchscreens. You can trigger just-in-time workflows on arrival, surface a safety brief, a permit-to-work checklist, or a reminder to clock to the correct job, because the app knows which beacon you passed and what’s relevant at that location.

Beacons scale cleanly across multi-site operations. Each site can have its own set of identifiers and rules, yet the same app works everywhere on iOS and Android. You can add temporary beacons for pop-up work areas, contractors, or events without touching existing networks. Integrations into HRIS, rostering and payroll can run automatically from the validated in/out events, reducing manual adjustments and queries.

Finally, they unlock useful analytics without extra effort. With accurate in/out and zone transitions you can see peak arrivals, overtime patterns, subcontractor utilisation, and dwell times by area. That helps with staffing plans, capacity management, and proving service levels to clients.

The first step is to choose a system such as Calamari, AllHours and PeopleHR. Almost any beacon will do, but wearable beacons will be probably best.

Custom solutions are also possible when off-the-shelf systems don’t quite match what’s needed.

Using Beacons to Mitigate Staff Duress

Staff duress, also known as employee duress or worker duress, is where employees may feel threatened, intimidated, or unsafe while performing their job duties. This can occur in a variety of industries, including healthcare, education, retail, hospitality, and security.

Problems associated with staff duress include:

  • Employee safety: If employees feel threatened or unsafe, it can have a negative impact on their well-being, job satisfaction, and productivity.
  • Employer liability: Employers have a legal obligation to provide a safe working environment for their employees. Failure to do so can result in legal action and financial penalties.
  • Costly incidents: If an employee is injured due to a safety issue, it can result in costly workers’ compensation claims, lawsuits, and reputational damage to the employer.

Beacons with buttons, used with real time locating systems, can help mitigate staff duress by providing a quick and effective way for employees to signal for help in an emergency situation. These devices have a wearable or handheld button that employees can press to trigger an alert. The alert is then sent to a designated response team, who can quickly assess the situation and provide assistance as needed.

Beacons with buttons can be especially useful in industries where employees work alone or in remote locations. They can also be helpful in schools and universities, where teachers and staff members may be at risk of violence or other safety threats.

Beacons with buttons

Asset Tracking For Manufacturers

Today’s just-in-time and busy manufacturing processes means that manual tracking of pallets for inbound and outbound shipments often can’t keep pace with the speed of production. Production and assembly requires the quick locating of components. Delays and inaccuracies due to lost components lead to increased costs, employee frustration and ultimately customer disappointment.

Competitive pressures are also driving the need to reduce labour thus reducing the capacity to manually search for items. Customisation using configured options and demand-driven production is also increasing the degree of inbound component searching that exacerbates the problems.

Even those companies using legacy tracking solutions find that location is only as good as the last barcode or RFID scan. Humans get lazy, make mistakes and don’t scan, causing pallets, crates and boxes to get lost. Many RFID readers don’t work reliably near metal components. Relying on a system that can’t find just a few items can be worse that a manual system that works but is slower. Bluetooth asset tracking solves these problems because the location is automatically collected in real-time and is continually updated.

Asset tracking can be applied to items such as components, pallets, cases, tools, returnable assets such as racks and cages as well as items on loan to ensure they are returned on time. It can improve worker safety and provide alerts in cases of congestion, perimeter deviation and lone worker distress. It can ensure forklifts are being fully utilised, are taking an optimum route, haven’t crashed into racking and haven’t gone out of an area.

The real-time visibility allows connected systems to generate confirmation and exception alerts and automatically trigger shipping processes, replacing costly manual workflows. Tracking outputs also allows confirmation that the correct things are loaded on the correct transport.

A Bluetooth-based real time location system (RTLS) increases visibility and allows the manufacturing process to adapt in real-time to short term business needs. It provides cost savings, greater efficiency and business intelligence that can be used to derive larger scale changes based on data rather than gut instinct. Overall reporting of input and outputs provides input to management reporting to monitor the business.

Read about BeaconRTLS™
Read about PrecisionRTLS™

Beacons Used by Hotel Panic Buttons

Hotel Management has an article mentioning how hotel panic button solutions are being used by Curator Hotel & Resort Collection.

Employees wear a cellular wireless panic button that can be pressed when help is needed. Bluetooth beacons are placed around the hotel that allow the worker to be located.

There are other ways to implement such systems without needing expensive, extra, cellular wireless. For example, it’s possible to piggy back on phones employees are already carrying, use beacons with 2-way radio or have gateways around the hotel to detect location.

Next Generation Sign-In Technology Using iBeacons

Our customer, Ostara Systems, have added Bluetooth beacons to their Maintenance Management Solution. Beacons allow engineers to automatically sign-in and prove that they are working on site.

Beacons provide a significant improvement in the sign in process, reducing administration and providing for a quicker and easier sign in using the Ostara app. 1300 Bluetooth Beacons have been installed that are used by over 10,000 engineers.

Contact Ostara regarding their Facilities Management Solution

View iBeacons

TRBOnet 5.5 Released

A new version of TRBOnet has been released. TRBOnet is usually used with Motorola TRBO 2-way radio to provide control room facilities. Beacons can be placed across a site, the 2-radio detects them and TRBOnet plots them onto maps or plans.

This release additionally allows Android and iOS smartphones to be used as personal safety devices sending SOS to the TRBOnet control panel with location information. The app also allows push to talk (PTT) over cellular and sending of pictures to the control centre.

TRBO.SOS includes other advanced personal safety features, such as Man Down, Lone Worker and No Movement

Cleaner Staff Tracking with iBeacons

There’s a new solution to track cleaning staff that provides app and web source code to implement a cleaning staff tracking system using iBeacons:

Android screens
Web interface

Manage beacons, buildings, zones and broadcast messages. The web interface shows staff activity and allows staff to be assigned to tasks. Staff can update task status and provide notes from their smartphones.

This solution has been added to the BeaconZone Solutions Directory where you can find more solutions that work with generic beacons.

Beacons for Lone Workers and Workers Under Duress

A critical use for beacons is protecting lone workers or those that might experience duress. Lone worker solutions traditionally used RFID that required workers to manually check-in to locations. If workers forgot or were in trouble you only knew their last location. Newer systems such as Motorola TRBONet used with 2-way radios and BeaconRTLS™ used with generic beacons allow continual tracking of location.

Another usecase related to lone working is warning workers when they are about to enter a hazardous area. An example of this is Lone Worker Solutions’ Safe Beacon feature that creates a virtual perimeter. If a control room needs to know someone has entered (or left) a zone, real time locating systems (RTLS) like BeaconRTLS™ can be used to set up zones with alerts.

It’s also possible to have workers press a button on a beacon as a form of SOS when they are under duress. An example of this is HID Global’s new Badge Beacon that addresses the growing need to protect doctors, nurses and other caregivers from threatening situations that arise in the hospital environment. This can also been done in a generic way by using a RTLS and detecting a beacon button press. Simpler solutions are also possible by having a simple app on the worker’s phone detect the beacon button press and send an alert.

Read about BeaconRTLS™

Consider a Feasibility Study

Beacons and Lone Workers

There are types of working where workers work alone without close or direct supervision. Employers have a legal duty of care to monitor such employees so that they can detect accidents, illness and, in some cases, an attack.

There are some rudimentary systems in place, particularly on sites such as airports, that use short range (1cm) RFID tags that workers have to periodically ‘check in’ to. With beacons, workers don’t have to check in and much of this is now automated. It also works at much larger ranges up to 300m.

Our BeaconRTLS system maps lone workers. Alerts can be created that show when people haven’t changed zone for a configurable amount of time. It’s also possible to trigger alerts when people enter or leave zones or when they press an ’emergency’ button on the beacon.

What’s more, the system can be used to map assets as well as people and when used with sensor beacons can detect and alert based on environmental factors such as temperature, humidity or whether doors are open or closed.

Contact us about BeaconRTLS.