Time tracking might not be the flashiest part of HR — but it’s one of the most foundational. Whether it’s managing PTO, monitoring tardiness, or keeping up with training compliance, attendance data gives people teams critical insight into employee engagement, organizational health, and operational efficiency.
Templates offer a low-lift way to maintain consistency, reduce manual errors, and establish documentation protocols. But while spreadsheets are great for quick fixes, they have limits — especially as your organization scales. Below, we break down the most popular employee attendance tracking templates, what makes each one useful, and how to level up your process with a tracking tool like Lattice’s customizable, intuitive people management software.
Free Employee Attendance Tracking Templates
Employee attendance templates are purpose-built spreadsheets that help HR and people managers monitor who’s present, when, and for how long. The right template can serve as a stopgap solution when full-scale HR systems aren’t available — or provide backup documentation in parallel to your tracking system. Here are six of the most helpful templates to consider.
Daily Employee Attendance Tracker Template
A daily tracker is ideal for workplaces with specific work hours, such as rotating shifts, flexible scheduling, billable hours, or high variability in attendance. This spreadsheet-style log helps managers and HR teams monitor who’s in, who’s out, and when — all in real time.
Why use it: Daily tracking helps create accountability, especially in environments where attendance directly impacts output — like customer support, manufacturing, or logistics.
Benefits:
- Tracks staffing, punctuality and time-on-task metrics.
- Supports attendance audits and policy enforcement with labor laws.
- Allows quick identification of trends like habitual tardiness or time theft.
Key elements:
- Date and day of the week.
- Employee name or ID.
- Check-in and check-out times.
- Notes or comments (e.g., reason for absence or late arrival).
Weekly Employee Attendance Tracker Template
Weekly tracking strikes a balance between granularity and usability. It’s especially handy for part-time staff or hybrid teams that follow a predictable cadence across the week.
Why use it: For managers who run weekly team meetings or submit regular reports, this format makes it easy to correlate attendance with employee productivity and team engagement.
Benefits:
- Offers a snapshot view of employee absences and attendance.
- Easier to analyze than daily logs.
- Reduces administrative overhead.
- Helpful for syncing with weekly payroll processing.
Key elements:
- Week start and end dates.
- Daily attendance indicators (Present, Absent, PTO, Sick, etc.).
- Summary of work hours per employee.
- Notes section for anomalies or comments.
Monthly Employee Attendance Tracker Template
Monthly attendance reports are ideal for organizations that align time-off reporting with payroll cycles. These are also useful for HR teams that want to consolidate daily or weekly logs into a higher-level report or single attendance system.
Why use it: Monthly data can reveal trends like mid-month absentee spikes or excessive use of unpaid leave — and can flag potential morale or burnout issues before they escalate.
Benefits:
- Helps correlate absenteeism with performance issues.
- Supports balanced leave management.
- Useful for reporting and compliance documentation.
- Helpful for syncing with monthly payroll processing.
Key elements:
- Full calendar month layout.
- Employee roster.
- Attendance status codes.
- Totals for present, absent, and sick leave days.
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Meeting Attendance Tracker Template
Used for recurring team meetings, all-hands, or departmental syncs, this template is a lightweight way to ensure participation and accountability.
Why use it: Especially in hybrid or distributed teams, tracking meeting attendance ensures everyone is staying aligned — and helps identify gaps in communication or engagement.
Benefits:
- Verifies meeting participation for compliance or documentation
- Reinforces team norms around engagement
- Useful for project management and follow-ups
Key elements:
- Meeting date and time
- Agenda topics
- Attendee list with presence status
Training Attendance Tracker Template
This template is essential for learning and development (L&D) teams that need to verify compliance and monitor participation in internal training sessions.
Why use it: From onboarding to upskilling, training attendance often correlates with performance and growth — and can reveal where additional support or outreach is needed.
Benefits:
- Ensures regulatory compliance and audit readiness
- Tracks completion of mandatory trainings
- Supports performance and development planning
Key elements:
- Session titles and dates
- Trainer or facilitator name
- Attendance status
- Certification or completion verification
Event Attendance Tracker Template
From company town halls to DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) workshops, event tracking provides valuable insights into engagement outside of day-to-day responsibilities. It’s less about when employees clock in, and more focused on who is engaged and involved.
Why use it: Events are opportunities to connect cross-functional team members, foster belonging, and build culture — but only if people show up. An attendance system helps measure that impact.
Benefits:
- Gauges employee interest and engagement in optional events
- Informs future event planning and budgeting
- Supports inclusive programming by identifying who’s missing
Key elements:
- Event name, date, and type
- RSVP and actual attendance status
- Department or location filters
- Feedback or notes field
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✅ Get Everyone on the Same Page About Attendance
Use Lattice’s free employee attendance policy to help everyone at your organization understand and abide by attendance expectations
Improve Employee Attendance Tracking With Lattice
Excel spreadsheets and CSVs are a helpful starting point to track time and attendance — but they require constant, time-consuming upkeep, they’re not user-friendly, and they risk costly errors. Managing multiple versions, chasing acknowledgments, and manually compiling reports slows down people teams and introduces risk.
That’s where Lattice clocks in. The Lattice People Management Platform helps standardize and automate attendance management and other processes across the entire employee experience. For attendance tracking, that includes:
- distributing company policies via a centralized hub
- confirming employee acknowledgment with built-in time tracking
- enabling employees to clock in and clock out efficiently
- automatically syncing employee hours with payroll
- surfacing data to inform manager one-on-ones and engagement strategies
With Lattice HRIS, people teams can connect attendance patterns to performance reviews, track training completion in Lattice Grow, and view participation insights alongside broader engagement metrics. Templates help you record what’s happened. Lattice helps you act on it — faster, smarter, and with your people at the center.
Request a demo to see how Lattice’s attendance tracking software can elevate and centralize every part of your people strategy and programs.
✨ Disclaimer: This content was developed with the help of artificial intelligence, though reviewed, edited, and approved by (real) humans.
