The real cost of inaccurate time & attendance tracking in Events & Stadiums businesses — and how to fix it

Behind every great match, concert or festival are hundreds of people working behind the scenes to make it happen. From security and catering to cleaning and retail, it’s a complex coordination effort that depends on accurate, reliable workforce data.

Without accurate time & attendance tracking, the coordination between units can begin to falter. Missed clock-ins or clock-outs, incorrect or missing break times, and manual data entry errors might seem small. Across an entire events season, however, they can snowball into inflated labour costs, compliance risks and operational inefficiencies. For the Events & Stadiums industry, where workforces are large, flexible and constantly changing, accurate time & attendance tracking is critical.

The hidden costs of poor time & attendance tracking

Inaccurate or inconsistent timekeeping can quietly erode budgets, while also impacting both the employee and customer experience.

1. Labour cost blowouts

Unverified clock-ins and missed clock-outs can quickly add up. When you’re managing hundreds of casuals, contractors or agency-supplied staff across multiple locations/venues, even a few minutes of unaccounted time per shift can result in significant unnecessary costs.

The challenge grows when relying heavily on third-party labour hire agencies. While they provide an avenue for contingent staffing needs, they are also costly and limit the choice that managers have over who represents their business. Managers can lose oversight of who is actually working on-site, what skills they bring, and whether their hours are accurately captured. This lack of direct control not only drives labour spend upwards but also increases compliance complexity.

2. Payroll errors and compliance risk

Events and venue operators often employ a mix of full-time, part-time, casual and agency staff under different awards or agreements. Without reliable data, payroll mistakes are inevitable. Errors can lead to underpayments or overpayments, and create compliance risks under complex employment legislation.

3. Lost productivity for managers

Managers who process timesheets manually often spend hours reconciling data. This is in addition to following up missing information and approving exceptions. Those hours could be spent on anything else — improving guest experiences, checking in with employees, and much, much more.

4. Employee disengagement

Pay errors or delays can damage trust, especially among casual and seasonal staff who depend on accurate, timely payments. A lack of visibility or fairness in how hours are tracked can make workers feel undervalued, which could lead to disengagement and potentially higher staff turnover.

Why Events & Stadiums businesses are especially at risk

The nature of event operations makes time & attendance tracking particularly complex. Teams move across departments, venues and roles — often working variable hours, with rosters that change at short notice.

Manual processes or and legacy systems simply can’t keep pace. They create fragmented records, increase the risk of double handling, and make it harder to track agency staff working alongside permanent employees. Over time, those inefficiencies multiply, leading to higher costs and reduced workforce visibility.

The fix: Humanforce Time & Attendance

The Humanforce Time & Attendance solution is built to give Events & Stadiums businesses accurate, real-time insight into their workforce. It helps teams capture precise time data and provides real-time visibility to managers about who’s on-site across both direct and agency staff.

Seamless and secure clocking

Humanforce offers flexible, secure clocking options — from on-site kiosks to the Humanforce Work App — to suit every venue environment. Employers can choose the best option for their needs, from biometric facial recognition and finger vein scanning to QR codes. Geo-fencing and role-based access ensure employees clock in and out from the correct location and only when authorised. Critically, this removes the need for manual verification.

For venues using labour hire agencies, digital clocking also provides a consistent record of who’s on-site and for how long, giving back the visibility and control that’s often lost when outsourcing staffing.

Real-time visibility for managers

Humanforce gives operations and workforce managers a live view of attendance across teams and venues. Dashboards highlight who’s working, who’s late and who’s nearing overtime, so decisions can be made immediately.

When connected to Humanforce Rostering & Scheduling, managers can make fast adjustments, reallocate shifts or fill gaps according to fluctuations in demand. This real-time data ensures labour costs stay under control without compromising service delivery.

Automated and accurate timesheets

Every clock-in and clock-out automatically generates a digital timesheet within Humanforce. Managers only need to approve exceptions rather than review every entry. This saves time, reduces errors and keeps payroll running smoothly.

The data also flows directly into payroll systems, including Humanforce’s own Payroll solution, ensuring staff and agency workers are paid correctly and on time. When used alongside Humanforce Onboarding & Offboarding, the personal and banking details of new or temporary employees are captured in the system during pre-boarding, ensuring that rostering can take place quickly.

Compliance confidence

Integrating Humanforce Awards & Compliance automates award interpretation and ensures employees are paid correctly for every shift. Complex pay rules, penalty rates and allowances are applied automatically, removing the risk of manual calculation errors.

This automation gives venue operators peace of mind that their payroll is fully compliant, even when managing diverse employee types, roles and award conditions.

Workforce insights and smarter planning

With Humanforce Workforce Analytics, leaders can use attendance data to understand workforce trends and make informed decisions. Analytics tools reveal where overtime is creeping up, where attendance patterns may indicate burnout, and how staffing levels align with budgets.

Confidence and control for every event

Accurate time & attendance tracking gives Events & Stadiums organisations more than payroll precision. It brings them peace of mind; not only ensuring compliance and cost control, but automating the process to eliminate errors and miscalculations. With Humanforce, every shift connects seamlessly from roster to payroll, helping staff focus on what truly matters: creating exceptional event experiences.

About Humanforce

Humanforce is the all-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK.

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses.

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.