Every business owner wants to be successful and wants their business to bring profits. That's why they're often looking for ways to cut costs, optimize work, etc. One thing that is often overlooked, is the necessity of using an hours tracker.
The argument against it is that to start tracking employee time, you have to spend money. Plus, business owners claim that it will disrupt the trust between them and employees. However, time tracking can not only save you money, increase productivity, but also strengthen the trust between you and employees.
How does it work?
The main function of an hours tracker is to track time of course. It tracks time of employees that work at the computer and records what and how long something has been performed. The number of additional functions may vary depending on the company.
Some trackers for example may offer a color-coding, so managers know what projects employees are working on or what resources (applications and websites) they use. This helps to ensure that employees are working on the right projects quickly and easily without hovering over the employee’s shoulder. Some may also measure productivity of all actions done on the computer.
What can it do for you?
1. Track time to find the “time-eaters”
All companies, even those who consider themselves sufficiently organized, may have a certain amount of time wasted during the day. It may be because some employees spend too much time on lunch breaks or social networks while they should be working.
In this case, an hours tracker will help your company find out where all the precious time goes. For example, you can find out that you hold too many meetings for no valuable reason. So you might save time if you combine all meetings into a single weekly meeting.
When you are able to find wasted time, no matter how much or how little it is, you can eliminate it which is always better for your company’s bottom line.
2. Improve overall productivity
Using a time tracker you will able to find out what your employees are doing on the company time: what projects they're working on and how much time they spend. Some time tracking systems also provide an option of Internet, e-mail, and application usage. This way you can reduce Internet misuse, downloading of illegal music and distribution of inappropriate content.
Additionally, employees get a chance to manage their time and projects better, by determining what takes the most time and which actions are inefficient.
3. Reduce fraud
Besides of the fact that the old ways of tracking employee time were slow and inefficient, they also created too much space for fraud. For example, the employee could claim that they are doing more than they have actually done. Or claim that they were at work at the day when they were absent.
Such things are much easier to determine when you use an hours tracker. By monitoring employee work you:
- treat everyone equally;
- reduce fraud and save the company money;
- get timely and accurate data about employee performance and project status.
4. Provide accurate payroll data
You will always be sure that your payroll data is correct, because hours tracking makes it easier to calculate things such as overtime, time off, breaks, lunches etc.
Summary
You will find that an hours tracker not only helps to improve overall productivity and streamline the business processes, but that it also makes it possible to reduce labor costs, costs of paper, admin costs, and more.
