Attendance, shift and leave process for MEP Contractors: a daily record that follows the gang
An MEP gang may be on one site in the morning and another by evening. Attendance has to be taken where the work is, by someone who knows the faces, and tied to the site the person actually stood on.
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Share your requirementsWhy attendance, shift and leave process matters in MEP contractors
Most MEP firms keep attendance in a gang leader's notebook or a site engineer's sheet. When a crew moves, the notebook goes with the leader and the office sees a total at the month end. Then a fitter says he worked twenty-six days and the sheet shows twenty-three, and nobody can settle it.
A good record is simple. One line per person per day, with the site, the trade and the hours. It is taken in the morning at the gate or the work front, checked by the engineer in the afternoon and sent to the office that evening. Idle days, weekly offs and leave get their own marks so they are not argued later.
How to set it up
1. Choose one attendance point per site
Decide where and when attendance is taken, such as the stores door at 8 am or the work front toll. The engineer, not the gang leader alone, confirms the headcount.
2. Use one sheet for all trades
A single format with name, trade, site, in, out, overtime hours and remarks. Gang leaders fill it, and the engineer signs it every evening.
3. Mark idle and waiting days separately
When work is blocked by another trade or by rain, mark it as waiting with the reason. The owner can then decide pay for those days in advance, not by quarrel.
4. Write a transfer rule into the sheet
On the day of a move, the sheet shows the old site and the new site. Travel time and half days are noted once, so nobody splits hairs at the month end. The documentation process stores the note.
5. Match weekly before the month ends
Compare the sheet with the gate or main contractor's entry once a week. Small differences are cheap to fix on Saturday and costly on the thirtieth.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Take any fitter and trace his last ten working days across sites from the sheets alone.
- Count how many waiting days were marked in the last quarter and ask whether pay for them was ever decided.
- Ask two gang leaders how a half day after a transfer is handled today.
- Check whether the office receives attendance daily or only at the month end.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach attendance, shift and leave process in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
The gang leader fills it and the site engineer or a supervisor signs it. Keeping two people in the loop reduces disputes without needing any special system.
Write the hours worked and who asked for them on the same sheet, and have the engineer sign. Rules for how overtime is paid should be written once and confirmed with a qualified professional.
Record the first site where they started and add a line for the second, with travel time. Agree a rule for such days in advance so it is applied evenly.