Make yourself comfortable. Today we would like to take you on a journey through the history of the time clock. Because the wheel of time also turns for clocks. Technologies that we consider obsolete today were once the innovations that changed the world we live in today.
But let's start from the beginning:
Anyone who assumes that time clocks began in the age of industrialization is mistaken. After all, the recording of working hours dates back to the 18th century. To be more precise, it dates back to 1797, to the British-American physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, to whom Munich also owes its English Garden. In his office as Bavarian Minister of War, he introduced a simple control clock that enabled him to check whether police officers were performing their duties conscientiously. Contrary to the stereotype of today's civil servants, who are considered to be particularly conscientious and responsible, their predecessors apparently had to be persuaded to spend their working hours in the office rather than in the pub.
The function of the clock was quite simple: each officer had an individual identification tag that he had to throw through the slot of the control clock. Inside was a container that was divided into compartments and rotated to the rhythm of the time.
In the past, it was also common for night watchmen to patrol the city to warn of fires or thieves, for example. To prove that they were doing their duty properly, they announced the time or sang songs - the so-called night watchman calls. Inspired by the "police clock", the idea grew of having the night watchmen's working hours checked by clocks and thus dispensing with the singing, which was not always desirable at night.
With the invention of the steam engine and the resulting industrialization in Western Europe and the USA in the 19th century, a new way of recording working hours was also needed.
Where large numbers of workers enter the factory halls at the same time at the start of a shift, things have to move quickly. Technically simple time clocks such as the night watchmen's clocks mentioned above are therefore not a solution.
Instead, the inventive spirit flourished under the new working conditions. In 1879, the German Richard Bürk designed the first "workers' control apparatus", which enabled many workers to record their working hours mechanically in quick succession.
But he was not the only one who was enthusiastic about time clocks. Competition comes from the USA, for example, in the form of the
However, the largest American producer of control clocks soon became a company that many people no longer know in its original function: IBM.
And so, in the first half of the 20th century, clocking in was the norm for thousands of factory workers.
Traditional time clocks have long been obsolete in most companies. Today, the digital revolution allows companies to record employees' working hours in a variety of ways. Modern terminals, solutions via mobile applications, the integration of Outlook and browser solutions offer not only convenience but also the necessary flexibility. Are you aware of all the options that our modern time management systems offer you for time recording? If not, we will be happy to advise you and show you the best solution for your needs.