As a rule, an employee that makes good progress with his/her job duties and has strong professional skills is bound to get promoted to a middle manager position. While it means more perks for the lucky one, it also means new duties. They include managing front-line workers, setting goals for the team/department, motivating and training staff, reporting to top management about the results and so on.
This is easier said than done, since the person is no longer responsible only for his/her own performance, but also for the productivity of the subordinates. It also calls for certain managerial skills, like quickly detecting strengths and weaknesses of each team member and assigning tasks correspondingly.
Looks like middle level managers work in two directions. On the one hand, they are expected to fulfill some of their professional duties, on the other hand, they are to control the team of subordinates. Often, managers get so caught up with the second part of their duties that they hardly have time to attend to the rest of the work. This is the signal that it’s time to find the way to help the managers with the routine tasks and free them up for more important stuff.
Luckily, the way out is within a few mouse clicks and is called a time tracking app, like Yaware.TimeTracker. It takes a few minutes to install on each employee computer and then saves hours of work for the manager.
Difficult Made Easier with a Time Tracker
Using a piece of software to track the working time on the computer means way more than simply a record of the websites visited by a certain employee. It can tremendously ease the busy manager’s day and provide a clear view of his/her subordinates work. Here’s how it is used for the following managerial duties:
assigning tasks smarter
Finding the right people for the job is one of the common challenges for a manager. And this is key to boosting overall department/team productivity, plus improving employee motivation. With the time tracking app, a manager can analyze the way each team member works. It records all the activity by the computer as well as offline activity (like meetings), so it’s easier to define which tasks require the most time and efforts for the employee, and which are “a breeze”. Likewise, a manager can decide how productive it will be to assign a certain task to a specific person by analyzing the resources used for a similar task and the time it took. This can also be used for educating the staff by entrusting them with work they aren’t very good at.
optimizing employee workload
In the office, there are also people who arrive before everyone else and leave the last. But does it always mean diligence and the strong desire to work for the company benefit? Similarly, a person known to frequently work less than average hours isn’t always negligent. Probably, this is the question of inadequate workload.
Using a time tracking software, a manager can find out that a “workaholic” is overloaded with tasks, while others spend some time at work for personal matters. So, with this information at hand, workload can be optimized and team efficiency increased.
well-grounded employee evaluation
Assessing how well a person works is a tough task. One has got to take into account multiple factors and put the puzzle together. A time tracking app makes this task easier by providing graphical reports with the relevant information – how much the team member works, how disciplined is s/he in terms of attendance, what is his average productivity percent and which non-work-related activities s/he is involved in. It also lets define the most and least effective team member per given period and use as an extra means of motivating staff.
setting correct deadlines
Traditionally, subordinates feel under pressure when it comes to meeting deadlines since they are too close. In fact, a manager is in no easier position, trying to balance between the top management wishing the job done even sooner than possible, and the team members who aren’t wizards. Moreover, with the deadline that’s impossible to meet looming ahead the work quality gets worse. So, in order to set achievable deadlines for the team, but not let them go idle, and ground the decision for the top managers, time tracker application is a great help. It provides objective data on the time and resources used for the similar project and lets forecast the best deadline for the new one.
Bottom line
Being simple in use, an application for tracking time is helpful for a middle level manager, automating the routine activities and helping to boost efficiency. So, make sure you subscribe for Yaware.Timetracker for free to see it in action right now.
