Having a program to track employees’ time seems to be the next big fad in the corporate world. Everyone’s going crazy about it - business owners and managers are implementing it left and right, and tracking companies are all in your face claiming that it’ll optimize your business, boost employees’ performance, improve working hours compliance and a dozen other things that are supposed to make you want to get your very own time tracker.

But, you might ask, will my time clock app really be able to do all these things and, even if it will, do I truly need it?

Well, yes to the first part of the question. As for the second part, that’s what this entire article is going to be dedicated to.

In order to get to the bottom of this, we’ll give you a couple of questions about your business processes and try to explain why giving affirmative answers means you should seriously consider implementing an employee time tracker in your workplace.

So let’s get right to it!

Is Your Employees’ Work Mostly Computer-Based?

An increasing number of job roles demand using a computer for at least a part of the daily activities. With this high probability of nodding your head in answer to the above question, it’s safe to assume that many industries are eligible to benefit from software employee time tracking.

For example, if your company is specializing in human resources and uses computers for organization, onboarding and so on, you can get HR time tracking software. If, on the other hand, you’ve got a team of designers who do their tasks and keep their files in digital format, you’ll be happy to know there’s design time tracking software for you. And the best thing is - those two are the same thing.

So if you want to track time spent working on a computer, regardless of the type of job or industry, you’ll most certainly find value in a time tracker.

Do You Need to Oversee Employees’ Tasks?

If everyone on your team works individually, there’s no chance of task overlapping and you also trust that each employee will do their part of the work on time, there might not be the need for a time tracker (at least not for this particular reason).

However, most teams work as, well, a team. Meaning that one employee’s task depends on the completion of another one’s. For instance, in a marketing team a lot of employees are co-dependent. A copywriter needs to write a text for an ad to be published by social media team but not before they get a visual from the designers. This is where advertising agency time tracking software can be pretty helpful.

You’ll be able to see what everyone is working on in real time, as well as how much time they’ve spent on the task so far and when they’re likely to finish. Now you have a clear overview of all the processes and tasks within a team which will help you delegate and organize your workload better.

Do You Want Project Optimization?

It’s hard to justify a negative answer to this question. Of course every manager wants the best use of time and resources on every project. And time tracking software can be one of the easiest ways to accomplish this as well as solve any timing and organizational problems along the way.

Say you have a law firm. Every project and every case is time-sensitive and there’s a lot to get done. Using attorney time tracking software will tell you how much time each task usually takes, who’s the best person for the job, which processes waste the most time and what you can do differently to be more efficient.

You can also do some testing to see which methods work best and compare the results easily and accurately.

Is It Necessary to Track Attendance?

It almost always is, for one reason or another. If you have a huge number of employees, the best way to track their attendance automatically is by using enterprise time tracking software. This is also the most convenient way to do it if your company allows flexible working hours.

Some job roles demand dealing with clients over digital media so the employees need to be at work during specific times. As an example, for technical support and call center time tracking software is essential in determining whether employees are doing what they’re supposed to do and when they’re supposed to do it. Especially considering that these are usually around-the-clock positions.

Time tracker will give you clear timesheets of everyone’s clock ins and clock outs and you’ll be able to see who runs late and who works overtime.

Do You Want to Know Which Software Your Employees Are Using?

You might not need to know all the technicalities of how to use each individual software that your employees work with, especially if that’s not your field of expertise. However, it’s always a good idea to find out what your employees need across different departments. All the more reason for it if you’re paying for the software they’re using.

Whether it be digital marketing, consulting or engineering time tracking software application, it’s bound to be an excellent resource when deciding on software acquisition. If you know you’re paying for a program but your time tracker hasn’t recorded anyone using it for quite some time now, maybe you should reconsider the subscription. You’ll end up saving a lot of money this way.

Are You Obliged to Give Working Hours Reports to Your Clients?

When dealing with clients, it’s best to have accurate and objective reports on the work you’ve done for them. It reflects on your accountability and reputation but it also ensures that you’re fairly paid for all the work done.

Having the best project time tracking software which has the feature to track billable hours as well as time on projects and overall attendance is going to provide you with reports on every employee and every task so that your client knows exactly how their time and money is being spent.

If you’re working with confidential data and files that need to be secure you can get time tracking software with screen capture as an extra layer of data security.

Do You Have Remote Workers?

If your company offers workers the opportunity to work from home, even if just occasionally, you’ve probably been faced with the problem of how to track employee hours. They can’t use keycards, you can’t see them, so you have no option but to rely on time tracking software to make sure they comply with the working hours.

The remote work software will also give you a better understanding of how they work, how much time they need for specific tasks and what their overall performance is. This gives you the basis for their evaluation, task delegation and eventually promotion.

Conclusion

If you’re still asking the ‘why use time tracking software at all?’ question, maybe you can start out small - try out a free time clock app at first or take a free trial and see if

it makes any difference. You can easily upgrade to more comprehensive monitoring software for employees once you see that it does.

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