What are the key problems faced by companies during the process of time tracking?
- The employee starts preparing the timesheet only at the end of the week, providing no detailed information, and using big margins.
- No comments are provided to the rows in the timesheet because the author is not able to remember all the performed operations. As a result, the approving person won’t understand the nature of the performed work, thus having no chance to evaluate the validity of the timesheet.
- The employee is trying to fit his work into general rules, which have nothing in common with the real situation in the company.
High-quality time tracking means access to a precise and real image of the working time allocation.
- Implement a check-and-balance system, which will operate during the process of approval. The supervisor is responsible for the allocation of resources in the department, that’s why they are motivated to allocate time to billable projects. The project manager wants to decrease the number of additional expenses in the project, thus he’s not interested in the allocation of additional time to the project. By implementing a system of multilevel approval with the project manager and the supervisor, one is able to achieve a balance.
- We recommend demanding detailed information from your employees and rejecting their timesheets if they do not contain the required comments and details. Such comments help employees to evaluate their own work, while the approving person is able to understand the nature of the activities of each employee.
- The information about the allocation of the time has to be real, reliable, and useful. It shall be used, for example, to calculate the resource utilization in order to adjust motivation and manage the project’s KPI.
- One needs to avoid artificial obstacles and limits, e.g., not allowing allocation of more than 8 hours per day. By doing so, the employee has to use information which has nothing in common with the real situation.
- It’s recommended to track all types of the time, including time off, idle time, and administrative tasks. A good timesheet is a timesheet with full and precise information about the working time of the employee.
What is the idea of time tracking in general?
The key goal of the process is to obtain precise information about allocated working time on a daily basis through the lens of clients, projects, and tasks with information about the billing rate (for T& M projects) and detailed comments (in order to improve the overall understanding of the nature of work).
Furthermore, information about the allocation of time provides a basis for critical processes performance in the field of professional services:
- calculation of utilization;
- obtaining information about the prime cost of work;
- evaluating the overall load of the employees;
- implementing client billing;
- hourly calculation of salaries and wages.