Business owners and team managers, as well as employees, have mixed feelings about time tracking – some love it, others hate it.
Here’s why:
There’s a fine line between using time tracking for improving your team’s performance and using it for micromanaging. Employees want to be trusted and employers want their employees to feel that way, so they choose not to track the company’s time.
The truth is – in companies that value their team members, automatic time tracking has long ceased to be about not trusting the team. Today, it’s about fair pay for the work done, using your company’s time more effectively, and taking care of your employees.
Let’s take a closer look at the key benefits of why increasingly more companies decide to use time tracking.
1. Time tracking helps you charge more accurately
First things first – let’s talk money.
No matter whether you charge your clients by the hour or have a default project rate, understanding how much time is put into certain projects and tasks is crucial for accurate billing. Time tracking can help you either understand how much you should charge for the project that’s just closed, or for similar projects in the future.
Accurate billing is important if you care about the company’s revenue and profits – which, I believe, every business owner does.
If you don’t track your and your team’s time, there are two main problems you may encounter. One – charging less than you should because, at the time of invoicing, you’ve already forgotten how much effort (and hours) a task required. And two – charging less than you should because you can’t provide the client the proof of time spent on a specific project.
This is a problem many agencies and freelancers face all the time, and can easily be solved with automatic time tracking.
2. Time tracking increases productivity
Employees who use time tracking report that being in the know of how they spend their time has helped them to prioritize better, improve concentration, and significantly boost their productivity.
People often don’t even notice how a quick Facebook check turns into a 40-minute scrolling of the feed. 40 minutes a day, five days a week, and you’ve wasted 3 hours and 20 minutes a week. Realizing this can help you make a conscious decision to reduce time spent on Facebook by, for example, blocking the feed when you open it on your computer.
Teams whose time is being tracked tend to be more focused, efficient, and better at meeting deadlines. The explanation of this is quite simple: people who know they might be monitored (even if they are not) feel obligated to perform better and be more accountable. They won’t waste their work time on social media or shopping sites – not because they’re forbidden to do it, but because being monitored increases the sense of responsibility towards the employer.
3. Time tracking can help improve work-life balance
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck and companies were required to switch to remote work, many employers worried that work-from-home will make people less accountable and less productive. The reality? The complete opposite – people found it difficult to separate work from life and were therefore working more hours than ever.
Time tracking can help people realize when they work way too many hours, which is the first step to improving your work-life balance. Besides, many time tracking tools not only show how much time is spent at work but also gently remind you when the workday is over. For example, DeskTime’s desktop app changes its color indicating that you’ve exceeded 8 hours of work a day.
Good work-life balance is the foundation for a healthy mental state. The brain needs a break, otherwise, you will burn out. Burnout is a state of physical or emotional exhaustion, and usually, it’s a result of stress and lack of proper rest.
Conclusion
Time tracking allows you to make more intelligent decisions about how you charge your clients and manage your projects. It also helps you notice when someone from your team has blurred the line between work and life, and take action before this employee has burned out.
So, if you think that time tracking is all about controlling and micromanaging your team, think again. In modern and forward-thinking companies, that’s history.
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