HR and payroll software for construction: HR for a workforce
that is never in the office.
Geofenced check-in at every site, biometric terminals at the gate, overtime measured against your contracts and WPS files covering hundreds of workers in one run.
Hundreds of hourly workers spread across sites, almost none of them near a computer.
- Site Attendance
- Biometric Gates
- Overtime at Scale
- WPS for Hundreds
- Labour Cards
- Multi-Site Projects
- Gratuity on Exit
- Project Hours
The rules a site payroll runs into.
Most of what makes construction HR hard in the UAE is written into the labour law: limits on the working day, a summer ban on midday work in the sun, and a pay deadline that does not move for a crew of four hundred.
| The rule | What it means for HR | |
|---|---|---|
| Midday break | No outdoor work in direct sun from 12:30 to 3 pm, 15 June to 15 September, with fines for each worker involved | Outdoor crews need a summer shift that leaves the break out. DenwaysHR does not stop a shift at 12:30 by itself, so the pattern has to be set |
| Working day | Eight hours a day or 48 a week, with breaks so no one works more than five hours in a row | A day rearranged around the midday break is still a normal day, not overtime, if the total stays within the limits |
| Overtime | No more than two hours of overtime a day, and no more than 144 working hours in total, normal and overtime together, in any three weeks. Basic hourly rate plus 25%, or plus 50% from 10 pm to 4 am, except for shift workers | Approve overtime per worker, against hours on the attendance record rather than a supervisor's sheet |
| Rest day | At least one paid rest day a week, and no more than two rest days in a row worked, except day workers | Know each crew's rest day, and record every rest day worked and the day given in its place |
| Wages | Due by the 1st of the following month through WPS, since 1 June 2026 | One run and one file for the whole workforce, approved early enough to fix a rejected file |
| Gratuity | 21 days' basic a year for the first five years, 30 after that, capped at two years' wage | Every exit needs an exact joining date and basic salary, which is why both belong on the record |
Worked example: one mason's overtime in July
A mason on a basic salary of AED 1,500 has a daily basic rate of AED 50 (1,500 ÷ 30) and an hourly rate of AED 6.25 (50 ÷ 8). In July the site starts at 6 am so that eight hours fit around the midday break; those hours are a normal day and earn nothing extra.
The mason works 20 hours of approved overtime in the month, 14 in the evening and 6 between 10 pm and 4 am. The evening hours earn AED 109.38 (14 × 6.25 × 1.25) and the night hours AED 56.25 (6 × 6.25 × 1.5): AED 165.63 on top of salary. Paid as if all 20 were evening hours, he would receive AED 156.25, and the gap repeats for every worker on the night pour.
Construction
Attendance that works at a site gate
A supervisor with a paper sheet is where construction payroll disputes begin. Verified attendance at the point of entry is where they end.
- Geofenced check-in per site, not per company
- Geo-tagged selfie verification against buddy punching
- Biometric terminals at the gate, including offline networks
- An admin map view of where the crew checked in
Construction
Overtime that survives an audit
Overtime is the largest variable cost on a contracting payroll and the most common source of a dispute. Rules applied to every punch remove the argument.
- Configurable overtime rules applied automatically
- Shift patterns and shift allowances per crew
- Regularization through the approval chain, with a record
- Hours flowing into payroll without re-keying
Construction
A WPS run that does not take three days
Wage protection for several hundred workers is where a generic payroll system stops being viable. The file comes out of the approved run.
- WPS file generation for the whole workforce at once
- Guided run with a pre-payroll checklist and validation
- Missing IBANs and MOHRE codes named before the file is built
- Bank reconciliation report once payments are recorded
Construction
Documents an inspection will ask for
Labour cards, Emirates IDs and passports for hundreds of workers belong on records, encrypted, not in a filing cabinet on site.
- Labour card and government IDs on the employee record
- Identifiers encrypted at rest
- Asset tracking for equipment issued to crews
- Full audit trail on every sensitive change
Three sites. One payroll.
Contracting companies do not fail at HR because the work is complicated. They fail because it is spread out.
At the gate
- Geofenced check-in per project site
- Biometric terminals, even offline
- Selfie verification for shared devices
In the office
- One run covering every site
- Overtime already calculated
- WPS file ready to submit
On the record
- Labour cards and IDs encrypted
- Gratuity calculated on exit
- Audit trail behind every change
Questions
Construction questions, answered.
Can attendance work at sites with no reliable internet?
Yes. Biometric terminals connect through an on-premises connector agent, so devices on a local network with no route to the internet still feed attendance. A phone check-in needs signal at the moment of the punch, so on a site with no coverage the terminal is the channel to rely on.
How do you stop one worker clocking in for another?
Geo-tagged selfie verification captures who is checking in, and biometric terminals tie the punch to a fingerprint or face. Administrators also get a map view showing where each check-in came from.
Does it handle several hundred workers in one payroll run?
Yes. The run is a guided workflow with a pre-payroll checklist, validation, lock and approve, then release and record each payment, and the WPS file is generated for the whole workforce from the approved run rather than assembled per site.
Can we run each project site as its own unit?
Yes, through multi-branch support on every plan. Each site manages its own employees, policies and reporting, with branch-scoped visibility so a site manager sees their own crew rather than the whole company.
How is end-of-service handled for a large hourly workforce?
Gratuity is calculated automatically from service period and salary under UAE law, and flows into full and final settlement alongside outstanding leave and deductions. There is a free calculator on this site if you want to check a single case first.
Can we cost labour against a project?
Partly. Approved timesheet hours are reported per project and client, priced at the project's hourly rate when it has one. That is separate from payroll: site punches and the payroll run do not produce labour cost by site or trade.
Keep reading
Bring your whole workforce onto one platform.
See how DenwaysHR handles HR, attendance and leave across the GCC, and payroll with the WPS file in the UAE.
