You Will Not Improve Your Productivity Unless You Crack The Code On Time Tracking Reports

Have you ever found yourself staring off into space, caught up in your little world, only to suddenly come out of the fog and realize that a lot of time has passed? Well, it is something that a lot of us have experienced. Sometimes, time just gets away from us.

Usually, it is fine. However, it can be troublesome in a work environment like an office. For example, when multiple people are having that issue and can be found sitting and procrastinating at their desks. 

Workers doing it often do not purposefully waste company time, and it can make things harder for them in the long run because they have to scramble to get important projects done, too. 

Obviously, it is also frustrating from a supervisor’s standpoint, which is why we’re here to talk about some strategies to mitigate this sort of thing.

Unfortunately, time reporting is often misunderstood. Folks frequently conflate it with stuff you can see here: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/business-efficiency, or assume it’s an invasion of privacy. However, when used ethically for a business, it can improve productivity. 

Follow along to find out how!

What Is A Time Tracking Reporta?

Before we can start analyzing their credibility, we must understand the basics. Therefore, let us begin this section accordingly. Put simply, a time report is a summary or page that shows all sorts of statistics related to time in your business. As far as what those might look like and some examples, there are many.

Time tracking reports ensure that all the billable hours for a given client or employee are stored in one convenient place. Now, part of what specific data will be tracked will depend on the program that you are using.

Some companies try to create their own sheets or trackers. However, this often is not the most efficient way to accomplish it. There are tons of resources already available that we can touch upon, after all. For example, Get Harvest, can track bills, un-invoiced hours, etc. 

It is for both employees and clients to help keep track of received payments that need to go out. In that way, these programs can automate processes that had to be manually completed previously.

Time Tracking Reports Implementation

Understanding time-tracking reports can be a difficult task to master. In fact, workers need to go through some basic training modules to understand the whole thing. This also ensures that the implementation stage is a flying success. 

Thankfully, it should not be too complex in this case. Instead, you will just want to explain to your employees how you want them to track their hours. This can vary depending on how your business operates. If you want them to turn off tracking during their breaks (including smoke breaks for anyone who takes them), that should be explained upfront.

There are also ways to detect if non-work-related activities are happening on a computer. This can automatically shut off the tracking for hours. Of course, some folks view that as an invasion of privacy. Therefore, you must decide how strict you want to go with this. 

Once you have gotten to that point, you can review it with all employees to ensure everyone is on the same page here. An example of how that could be done is here: https://hr.uic.edu/employees/new-employees/uic-101/positive-time-reporting/.

How It Works

Again, this can look different depending on the program that you use and how you opt to implement it. However, there will be a few things to remember as you start to track this type of data. 

For one thing, you can choose between “time rounding” and not doing that. All it means is that the hours that are getting tracked will be rounded up or down, depending on your preferences.

Next, you will probably see a lot of tabs in the program that you’re using, no matter what it is. That is how we keep our data straight, after all. That said, it is not always easy to keep track of all the different labels. Hopefully, though, they will be somewhat easy to understand.

For instance, if they’re something along the lines of “tasks,” “team,” “projects,” “clients,” etc., it’s pretty straightforward.

How Does It Improve Efficiency?

The question remains: how can we improve our overall efficiency and create a more sustainable business by utilizing time tracking? You can get an idea of that in this blog, but it’s pretty multi-faceted, as you can probably imagine. 

Tip #1

The first thing to remember is that depending on how many clients you have, keeping track of the hours to bill them for can be challenging. 

Even then, taking note of the hours employees work and what to charge clients for can get sticky fast. A system to automatically do that for you can speed things along.

Additionally, it can save you and your team a lot of headaches from untangling all that data and sorting it manually.

Tip #2

Beyond that, it helps both the employer and the employees have transparency regarding their workloads and the entire process. 

There is no more guesswork regarding how workers spend their time keeping logs of it, especially when it’s being tracked with a program. 

This takes a lot of stress off both parties’ shoulders – it improves communication rather seamlessly.

Tip #3

Similarly, it also helps to increase the accountability of employees in terms of how they spend their time at work. 

Even if your policies are not strict regarding tracking, it can encourage them to re-examine their priorities and improve overall efficiency. 

All of this speaks volumes about how a time tracking program is worth investing in for a business.

The Wrap!

In summation, there are a few more benefits before we close out for the day. When you do this sort of optimized tracking, you can figure out if any areas in the workplace need more resources allocated to them. 

Also, it allows you to see places where a lot of the budget is being spent. When you have this sort of data at your fingertips, you can take charge of your business even more than you have before. 

You will know what’s happening in the office without stressing about keeping an eye on everyone all the time. Instead, you can work on meaningful projects and business partnerships and relationships – essentially, you can spend your time much more efficiently and effectively.

This is why you need to install time-tracking reports in your workplace for better efficiency and productivity.

Additional Reading:

• 5 Advantages Of Real-Time Fleet Tracking Systems
• A Digital Time Tracker Can Help Your Business But Not Your Employees. Here Is How
• Clockify Pricing Vs. Connecteam Pricing: Which Time Tracking Software Is Right For You?