Company culture and employee morale are highly dependent on the accurate and efficient management of time. Time tracking software can help managers and employees stay on top of their workdays.
According to market research, with a CAGR of 20.40% from 2021 to 2028, the global market for time tracking software will increase to an estimated 31.88 billion in value. It’s an indication of how quickly businesses are adopting time tracking software.
Time tracking software makes it easier to maintain a close eye on how long a project is taking, so that it doesn’t exceed its budget or schedule. If a project runs over budget, it may need to be renegotiated with the client or rescheduled for an earlier date in the future. Thus it is a crucial part of making sure your team is productive and on track.
Along with employee visibility, there are various reasons why you might consider implementing time-tracking software. It can be used to identify areas of improvement and prevent errors before they happen. Having a complete and accurate record of each step of your project can ensure that future instances don’t repeat the same mistakes made during past projects.
In other words, time-tracking software has many benefits over simply relying on notes or time sheets to record field work – it’s more effective. The best time-tracking software should be easy to use, integrate with other systems, and help you get the most from each project.
Unfortunately, time-tracking implementation isn’t always successful. You can avoid common pitfalls that lead to failure, even if you don’t have a dedicated effort to track time in your team or within functional areas.
Time tracking software failures can occur due to various reasons, such as inaccurate data entry, user error, software glitches, and poor integration with other systems. To avoid such failures in 2023, consider the following tips.
Before we get into the tips, let’s look at the causes behind time tracking software failure. Here’s what you can learn from the biggest mistakes made by companies with time tracking software.
- Micromanagement or Project Management?
Time tracking software is a great way to improve employee productivity by providing the employees with the means to track their hours. However, this tool has been met with resistance from some employees in the workplace due to the picture it paints.
While most of us will agree that there should be some form of accountability for an employee’s time, there is no doubt that micromanaging can cause anxiety and frustration among supervisory staff.
The fear of being micromanaged by managers is an uncomfortable feeling. And no wonder without educating employees about its implementation, many employees consider it micromanagement. But that’s not what it is.
Time tracking software allows employers to effectively plan and schedule their resources while also keeping a check on their time. With the right tools and training, employees can feel more comfortable with time tracking.
During the time tracking implementation process, it’s important to discuss its benefits, importance and why it’s needed. Furthermore, ensuring that there will be no invasion of their privacy and turning off monitoring during non-work hours will ease their anxiety.
- Wrong Time tracking Software
The purpose of introducing time tracking software is to reduce the manual efforts of time and attendance. The software records the time employees work, how long they’re on break, and when they use paid time off. This information may be used in payroll processing, project management, compensation plans and benefits, inventory management and other business processes.
Many time management tools offer both a web interface and mobile apps for tracking time in the field. But when it comes to taking the guesswork out of workload planning, these tools often come up short.
For instance, without alerts and notifications, field employees can forget to clock in/clock out and may end up requesting time edits every day. Such scenarios end up adding an extra layer of work. Thus, instead of cutting down on manual work, you end up having more.
If you do not select the right software, it will defeat the purpose of having it in the first place. Thus, from recording employee time and attendance to creating an overall report for each employee, the process should be automated and simplified.
This is where allGeo advanced time tracking software helps you with automating your workflow. Challenges like missed punches, buddy punching, timesheet errors, etc will be eliminated with advanced workflow automation.
- Tracking on billable hours
Organizations do not track their time in the way they should. Failure to track non-billable time is a common problem that companies face. For example, some companies only track billable hours by monitoring their employees’ device for records of work performed and then billing for those hours.
But this type of tracking does not consider the amount of non-billable work that is completed by employees each day. Most common problem with time tracking tools is that they only track billable hours. This not only understaffed your business, but can also lead to missed opportunities down the road.
To avoid this, you need to track everything your employees do during work hours, whether or not it’s billable. An advanced time tracking software can easily add a record for every minute you spend on your clients’ projects. However, not all of those minutes are billable and there are many additional opportunities customers never get to see.
This level of accurate reporting is critical for your business to grow and succeed over time. Thus, it’s important to include everything in your timesheet — that means not only working hours and billing hours, but also non-billable time.
A solution like allGeo can help you quickly and easily track both types of work so you’ll never miss an opportunity again!
In fact, research shows that while almost one in four B2B businesses reported time spent tracking regular work, only 20% reported time spent tracking non-billable activities such as meetings and training.
- Non uniform time and attendance practice
Most companies fail at time tracking because they don’t feel it’s important enough to track. When your team doesn’t see the value in time tracking, they might have a hard time staying motivated to track their time.
They fall into the trap of believing that time is something that “just happens” and that they will always have enough time. But time is not infinite, and no matter how efficient your organization may be, there will come a point where you need to start planning ahead for what will be coming up.
It might be hard to see when you first start using a tool like allGeo, but once you get into the rhythm of utilizing time tracking software from recording time and attendance to job scheduling, you’ll probably find that things get more organized than they ever were before.
If you want to encourage your employees to track their time, begin by telling them the importance and benefits of using it. Lay out the points explaining how it will help them become more productive in figuring out what they’re working on and how long each task should take.
Ways to Avoid Time Tracking Software Failure
- Educate your employees
Not every company uses time tracking software and not every employee is a fan of it. In fact, a lot of employees are wary of the idea of being watched over by supervisors or managers. That’s because there exists a significant amount of misconception about the purpose and limitations of this type of software.
But in reality, time tracking is a great way to accurately monitor your employees’ time. It can help businesses save money, because it allows them to more accurately calculate invoices and bills. Thus, before implementing the software into your organization it is important to make your employees understand its benefits.
- Choose the right time tracking software
If you’re taking your first steps into the world of time tracking, it can be a bit overwhelming. It’s not just about finding the right software for your needs — you also want to ensure that it’s going to work for you. Choosing the right time-tracking software is a decision that can have a big impact on your business.
Begin with understanding your business requirements, whether you need something that runs on your existing tech stack, or something that’s flexible enough to grow with you as a business.
When you know what to look out for, it’s easy to find the right time tracking solution. Each of the software applications contains certain features that are useful for different types of teams and businesses..
While shortlisting the softwares that might be the right fit for you, try not to get into a long-term contract without running a free trial. Try-before-you-buy is one of the best practices to understand whether the selected software is the right fit for your business.
- Develop an implementation plan
The implementation plan is one of the most important parts of a successful software rollout. Plan a predictable implementation rollout for your software that includes bringing awareness to your employees.
It ensures that upon implementing a new software, things go as smoothly as possible with as few hitches as can be. Follow the below tips for a successful implementation:
- Choose a reliable time tracking software with positive user reviews, a proven track record, and an intuitive user interface.
- Provide adequate training and support to ensure that all users understand how to use the software correctly.
- Establish clear and consistent policies for time tracking, including the required level of detail and the consequences of inaccurate data.
- Regularly monitor and review time tracking data to identify errors and anomalies.
- Implement integration between time tracking software and other systems to ensure data consistency and accuracy.
Conclusion
Perhaps the most important piece of advice is to remember that it’s not just the efficacy of your time tracking software that matters. You also want to evaluate your internal processes so you make the most of your investments. If you can build a culture in which your field team knows how and why they’re being tracked, and use their time well, then your software will become an asset throughout the organization instead of a hindrance. Using the above tips, it won’t be difficult to successfully implement and rollout time tracking software with appropriate – and effective – functionality.