Agency and Contract Workers

Contract cleaning, security, hospitality and care run substantially on agency staff, and attendance technology sits awkwardly across the relationship.

Who holds the record

The agency usually employs them and runs payroll.

The client organisation directs the work and wants proof of attendance.

Both may want a clock-in, which produces two systems and two apps on one phone.

Agree which record governs for pay in the contract, because discovering it during a dispute is expensive.

Two apps, one phone

Common, and worse than it sounds: two location permissions, two batteries drained, two sets of corrections.

And the worker is caught between them when the records disagree.

Better: one system, with the other party receiving an export.

Ask for it in the commercial agreement, because neither vendor will suggest it.

The status question

Requiring a self-employed contractor to clock in at your boundary, on your app, to your schedule is control over how and when work is done.

Which is a status indicator in most tests, with consequences in employment rights and tax.

For agency workers employed by the agency this is less acute, but a client organisation running the attendance system is still directing work.

Take advice where the exposure matters, because the privacy analysis will not surface it.

What the client actually needs

That someone attended, for how long, to verify the invoice.

Not: which individual, in many contracts.

Not: their location beyond the site.

A site-level attendance record satisfies most client contracts without the client holding personal data about the agency's staff at all — which is worth proposing.

Personal phones, again

Agency workers frequently work for several clients.

An app from one client sitting on their phone has no business knowing where they are while they work for another.

Which is a strong argument for a terminal or a tag at the site rather than an app on the worker's device.

Practical arrangement

One clock-in method per site, supplied by whoever owns the site.

A terminal or a tag, not an app, where workers rotate between clients.

Records exported to the agency for payroll.

Client sees attendance at site level.

Nobody holds more than their part of the relationship requires.

One method per site, not per employer

The arrangement that avoids two apps on one phone.

Whoever owns the site supplies the clock-in method.

A terminal or a tag, so workers rotating between clients carry nothing.

Records exported to the agency for payroll.

Client sees attendance at site level, which is what most contracts actually require.

Connect policy to configuration

The practical choices behind this note can be compared with freelancer time tracking software. Keep the written purpose in control and enable only the data needed for it.

Independent reference

For an external point of reference, see ACAS. Consult the current material directly because technical and legal details can change.