One of the biggest challenges for a business manager is figuring out how to keep track of how employees are doing in their work without micromanaging or checking on them too often. Who can do their job well if someone constantly looks over their shoulder? On the other hand, if a business needs solid proof of how employees spend their time, they are more likely to have to deal with the consequences.
Time tracking software has become an important tool for many businesses because it gives them reports they can use to keep teams on track to reach bigger goals and help the bottom line grow. A simple time tracking system downloaded to each employee’s work device will let you see where company time goes. The software keeps track of a lot of information to help business owners make plans based on important facts. If you want to use time-tracking software to help you manage projects better, you should start by planning how to use it to help your team do its best work.
Let’s say you’re implementing time-tracking software into your business for the first time. In that case, it’s important to tell your employees what’s good about it and how this information will be used to improve their work. After all, time tracking software is mainly used to improve productivity, boost performance, hold people accountable, and get an overall picture of how your team is doing, not to look over employees’ shoulders.
How to Select the Right Time Tracking Software
There are many different kinds of software for keeping track of time on the market. A business owner should think about which solution will meet their needs. Look at your needs to find the best time-tracking software to meet them. There are many ways to use it, such as:
- Businesses can use time-tracking apps to monitor in-office employees, remote employees, non-salary employees, contractors, and freelancers.
- Employees can be held accountable for misusing time or taking unnecessary time for any task.
- Managers will be able to report accurately to the top management about their team members’ productivity levels and working hours.
The reports provided by time tracking can be a real eye-opener for the leaders to help them maximize their ability to observe progress and assign tasks accordingly.
Discover Insights and Make Improvements with Time Tracking
When you manage a team, do you know how much time your employees spend in meetings, answering emails, or browsing the web? Having a timer on your employees’ laptops makes tracking every minute of their work time easy. Also, when employees know their manager is watching them, they are less likely to scroll through social media or do other personal things. In short, time tracking holds your workers accountable and makes them more productive.
With a time tracking tool, you can look at several charts showing how productive a team is. You can see how long your employees are working and how the work is coming along in real time. You can also put all this information into a graph to see all the work. This graphical information also makes it easy to see how efficient and productive each employee is, among other things. Time-tracking software is also great because it keeps track of the time you work and waste. So, when an employee doesn’t work for a certain amount of time, the software records this time as “idle time” and the total number of hours the employee spent doing nothing. So, you’ll know exactly who is working on what, when, and how hard they worked on their task. If you know what your employees are doing, you can change where needed.
While time-tracking software captures the work activities of employees in detail, as a business owner, your focus should not be catching minor issues. You should know that employees will take short breaks or get distracted while working. If you question your employees about all these minor issues, it may cause stress and result in burnout. So, when you have a lot of data, you should know how to use it to organize everything better.
Setting Clear Policy and Goals
Implementing an employee time-tracking app will bring outstanding results for project managers. With valuable insight and data, you can run your team more efficiently. When managing a team, start by being upfront about how you plan to finish a project or other tasks and take advantage of a time tracker to meet the deadlines. Discussing openly with your team members about the reason for time tracking and monitoring employees goes a long way toward maintaining morale.
There is no doubt that time-tracking software plays a powerful part in keeping employees on track, but setting specific goals also plays an equal role in motivating employees to work productively. When you set clear goals and stick to them, it becomes easier for the employees to perform and show great results. While setting goals, keep in mind that every employee has their way of approaching their workload and distributing the tasks accordingly to result in more successful and cost-efficient projects.
Tracking time is the first step to bringing better results for your team. Along with careful planning, long-term goals, and transparent policies, time-tracking software supports the entire team’s productivity. While many options are available, CloudDesk’s employee monitoring software is an all-in-one solution to track employee working hours across projects, attendance, breaks, idle hours, and project progress. It is the best time-tracking software integrated into a fully featured project management and team collaboration solution to help you succeed in your business. CloudDesk offers a free trial option to help you understand the software better. Try it to learn more about the many benefits of CloudDesk software and find a plan that works for you. The clock is ticking!
