4 smart ways to implement employee time tracking

Time tracking is an aspect of a business’s day-to-day operations that can be a bitter pill to swallow for many employees. It’s necessary to meet the government’s timekeeping requirements and its benefits to productivity, when implemented correctly, are well documented. Yet, it’s often met with objection, skepticism, and sometimes even outright refusal.

This is evident in a survey exploring the time tracking habits of employees. The majority of respondents revealed that they are only recording their time once a week, resulting in low accuracy.

Employees are not fond of tracking their time. It’s not uncommon to see employees only recording their time once a week (Image Source).

Fortunately, there are concrete steps that businesses can take to change this mindset and motivate their employees to not just accept time tracking but to embrace it and appreciate its value in the workplace.

We’ve developed a simple 4-pronged strategy to help you accomplish this. You just need to remember one word: L.O.V.E. This L.O.V.E. framework covers all the critical elements needed to make your employees fall in love with time tracking instead of resenting it:

• Lay Out a Clear Implementation Roadmap
• Optimize Available Technologies
• Verify Effectiveness Through Data and Feedback
• Execute Improvements and Changes

Below are the details on how you can execute the L.O.V.E. strategy for your team.

L – Lay out a clear implementation roadmap

Starting on a positive note is crucial for any successful time tracking program. If you’re about to roll out a new time tracking system for your organization, it pays to invest a significant amount of time in coming up with an implementation blueprint.

If you already have a time tracking system in place, you can opt to do a re-launch to boost your employees’ appreciation of time tracking. This is why this component of the L.O.V.E framework is probably where you will do the most work.

What are the crucial elements of this implementation roadmap?

• Top-down implementation to build trust.

  One of the main reasons for employee pushback against time tracking is a lack of trust in the system. Employees might feel that it’s your way to spy on them. Some may think that it’s your passive-aggressive way of micromanaging.
  
  Trust is an important prerequisite to employee time tracking. One of the best ways to build trust is to start with managers tracking their time to demonstrate the system, followed by everyone else.

• What’s in it for them?

  As explained by project manager Michal Bielak: “Don’t just gather your team members in a room one day and say, “From now on, we’ll be using this IT time tracking software to see how your work is going. Click here, now click there, perfect, thanks, the meeting’s over” — that is, unless you want to bump into a group of gossipers every time you go to the kitchen.”
  
  Your team needs to know the rationale behind time tracking. More specifically, they need to see that time tracking is a win-win situation for you and for them. For instance, time tracking ensures that they are paid accurately, that they are accruing the correct number of paid time off, and are receiving any productivity-based incentives.Your team should feel that time tracking is not only a step toward achieving your business goals, but also a part of your overall employee engagement scheme that benefits them.

• Clear guidelines and initial setup assistance.

  Time tracking should be carried out uniformly across your organization. Everyone should be labeling their tasks the same way and recording them under the appropriate categories or projects.It’s important to have clear guidelines in the form of a manual to make sure you get meaningful data out of your time reports. It’s also best practice to help your employees with the initial setup so they don’t feel frustrated and waste time troubleshooting the time tracking software themselves.

O – Optimize available technologies

Digital transformation started as a buzzword a few years ago. However, now it’s a reality that is reshaping all aspects of organizations across all industries. Shockingly, time tracking is lagging behind.

A survey on how businesses use time tracking tools reveals that 25% of businesses still use paper timesheets and spreadsheets, 10% use punch cards, 7% use biometrics, and 3% have their employees text or email their hours. These methods, while they get the job done, are outdated, manual, cumbersome, and error-prone.

Time tracking is lagging behind in digital transformation as many businesses are stuck with using outdated and manual methods of tracking their employees’ time (Image Source).

Central to workplace time tracking in modern businesses is the use of the latest available time tracking technologies. This is especially important to note given that by 2025, Millennials and Gen Zers will be the overwhelming majority of the workforce. These younger employees are digital natives. Technology is woven into every fabric of their lives and they expect nothing less than the most sophisticated tools in their workplace.

The good news is that there are several available advanced employee time tracking apps you can select based on your business’s needs. Below is a quick checklist that you can use when choosing the best time tracking app for your team:

• Ease of use and intuitive interface
• Secure and “cheating proof” (to prevent buddy punching, etc.)
• Accessible across all devices
• Features for remote workers (such as geofencing, etc.)
• Integration with other HR and business functions such as payroll, costing, PTO reporting, etc.

V – Verify effectiveness through data and feedback

You can’t just assume that your time tracking system will function like clockwork. Even the most carefully planned time tracking system can have kinks and flaws when put to the test in the real world.

The only thing worse than a flawed time tracking system is not knowing that it’s flawed. This is why it’s important to verify its effectiveness regularly.

How do you do this? Through data and feedback.

Look at the reports you’re getting from your time tracking software and ask yourself the following questions:

• Are these numbers giving me insights to enable me to make smart business decisions?
• Does this data paint a clear picture of my team’s productivity?

If the reports you’re getting don’t shed light on these two extremely important questions, then your time tracking system is not working.

Likewise, it’s crucial to constantly get feedback from your employees on their experience with your time tracking system. Since they are the end-users, you have to know both the positives and the negatives of their time tracking experience. Remember, the more positive the experience is for them, the more they’ll embrace time tracking (and any similar changes you’ll implement in the future).

E – Execute improvements and changes

Employees will embrace time tracking if they see that the effort they’re putting into tracking their time is not in vain. This means that the time tracking data you collect should go beyond mere reports. These numbers should be used to implement tangible improvements and changes.

This includes increasing your business’s profitability because of proper project costing and planning, reducing the bottlenecks in your workflows and processes, and proper human resource allocation to prevent employee burnout, just to name a few.

Having a clear sightline of these tangible and measurable results as an outcome of changes driven by time tracking insights allows your employees to appreciate the value of time tracking.

It’s possible for employees to embrace time tracking

The majority of businesses will have employees who are going to be uncomfortable with the idea of time tracking, especially during the initial phase. However, what’s important is being able to implement the right strategy, like the L.O.V.E. framework discussed above, to transform employees from time tracking skeptics to time tracking believers.