Co-op to monitor staff using finger scanning

Over 50,000 Co-op staff will be monitored by biometric technology

The Co-operative Group is introducing a system to monitor staff working hours using biometric technology.

A new workforce management platform will record the work patterns of 55,000 staff through in-store data collection terminals using finger scan verification - a method of scanning various points on the finger but which creates a file that bears no resemblance to a fingerprint.

Under the current set-up, the firm needs to log staff attendance data onto a system manually. This process will be phased out over the next two years as the biometric terminals are rolled out across 2,200 UK food stores.

With the new system, Co-op expects to have easier access to information on longer-term staffing trends and patterns and more efficient management of store staffing requirements. The retailer also anticipates a reduction in time spent on manual activities such as time capture, employee scheduling and absence management with the use of the new system.

Processes related to compliance with legal requirements such as maximum weekly hours and minimum rest times will also be improved with the introduction of the automated system, according to the Co-op.

“The use of the workforce management system in our stores will bring many benefits, not least of which will be the cost savings and the freeing up of management time,” said Sean Toal, drector of food retail operations at The Co-operative Group.

“The system will be able to operate across all our stores and will help them to run more efficiently."

Kronos is supplying the workforce management platform.

The news at Co-op follows privacy concerns raised when a small group of Budgens and Costcutter shops rolled out fingerprint recognition technology to monitor the hours worked by staff and to prevent staff clocking each other in last spring.

“It’s fine if people have a choice, but if you compel workers to do this, you run in to the dirty side of the law,” Gus Hosein, a digital privacy expert at the London School of Economics (LSE) told Computing at the time.