California Hilton installs Ingersoll Rand's Hand Punch system

Longtime readers will recall a short item from the summer in which we described a city employees union in Long Island City that was hopping mad about having to clock in and out by inserting their hand into a wall-mounted electronic unit. “For me it’s demoralizing, degrading,” said one city employee, referring to his office’s recent purchase of a Hand Punch 4000 console, a product of Ingersoll Rand Recognition Systems. “They trust us with multimillion dollar projects, but they don’t want to trust us with the time issue.” The HandPunch takes a three-dimensional reading of the size and shape of a hand and verifies the user’s identity in less than one second.

Now we hear that Ingersoll Rand has another client for the technology: the Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort in beautiful Huntington Beach, California. Hotel management installed the system to defeat employee attempts at buddy-punching, the disgraceful attempt by some to have coworkers punch them in at work when in fact they are not at all in the office. (We recently reported that this was a major problem at Miami International Airport as well.)

“Since employees can’t lose or forget their hands, these biometric readers eliminate the need for employees to carry a badge, thus purging the problem of lost or forgotten badges. This also saves us time and money,” explained one satisfied hotel executive. “It is easy to operate. With its help, we can produce all types of payroll reports. Right now, we are using the HandPunch for five different pay rates, but our possibilities are unlimited. The HandPunch is also helpful in tracking employee meals, which we need for tax reporting purposes.”

Culture note: the Hilton considered using finger scans but decided against it because its employees considered it too much like fingerprinting — a major problem for employees who may either not be legal immigrants or who resent such intrusions on principle.

-read more in this SecurityInfoWatch report