If your business wants to track the amount of time staff spend on certain jobs, there are a number of techniques to use.
One of these is timesheets. In the past, to do this you needed to use paper and a tabular format—data arranged in rows and columns.
These days technology can handle the process for you in the form of online HR software. We explain how it works in this guide.
What is a timesheet?
It’s one way to keep track of your employees’ daily record. Such as hourly employee time tracking, so you know exactly what they’re doing throughout each working day.
In modern business life, digital documents or spreadsheets are typically in use to keep track of times.
You can make the timesheet as detailed as you need it to, such as if you have daily tasks that require detailing.
Or you can have one that’s for weekly record-keeping—that documents the daily start and end times for your members of staff. An employee time log, essentially.
The importance of timesheets for employees
There are many reasons why using an employee timesheet system is essential. Without one, you’ve no real understanding of what your employees are doing on a daily basis.
If you’re in an office setting, for example, without time tracking you may not notice if certain projects take members of staff too much time.
Not knowing that’s an issue can lead to a loss in productivity over months and years.
In short, if you don’t have systems in place that help you spot productivity problems, then you’ll miss them.
You can also monitor absenteeism and presenteeism. These can have negative impacts on your business, as well as the health of your employees. Tracking both can ensure you keep track of your employees’ over commitment (or lack thereof).
But it’s also important to recognise hard work and reward it accordingly.
With timesheet software, you can identify the hard work within your organisation and reward it.
For example, an employee going above and beyond with their efforts will appreciate recognition for that.
If you’re tracking their times, whether weekly or across daily tasks, then managers can identify this and reward them.
The benefits of employee timesheet software
If you use this technology, there are business-wide advantages you can expect.
From directors through to managers and employees, the data you gather provides essential insights into the activities of the business.
So, what benefits can you expect?
- Managers: Particularly useful for managers, as they help them to make better decisions for their colleagues. If you’re able to view what your employees are doing and review their time spent on tasks, it’s essential data to have.
- Productivity boosts: The understanding of every staff member’s pattern of work helps to boost your overall productivity and efficiency as a business.
- Accurate billing: For the likes of digital agencies, employee timesheets are essential for dealing with your clients. After working on projects, you should present the time spent on tasks to the client—this can then form the basis of your charges.
- Track the costs of your projects: Monitoring the time spent on a project
- Reduce operational costs: Payroll becomes more efficient, you’ll see cost visibility and can take action where necessary, plus you can automate your billing and invoicing. All of which will save you budget.
- Increase revenue: With automated systems, your business can make your processes accurate. You can pay invoices rapidly without having to consult staff—speeding up these payments can lead to revenue increases as you focus on other aspects of your business.
- Inexpensive: Setting up a system is cheap to do and easy to manage—it’s also straightforward to train staff about how to use it.
Using a timesheet app for multiple employees
You’ll find it easy to upgrade your business’ clocking system—Blip is one example.
It’s a downloadable app your staff can add to their smartphone. For your business, it makes it effortless to track their daily activities.
All you need to do is print off a QR code the app generates. You can have as many of these as you like—place them around your business in strategic locations (such as near popular entry and exit points).
Blip works as an employee timesheet system. It’ll help you to record, track, and export your employees’ data as and when you need it.
And you can access that wherever you are in the world, helping you to keep track of your staff’s schedule, whereabouts, and upcoming holidays.
Incentivising your workforce
Even if you use a timesheet or app system, can you be sure your employees will use it?
Especially in the early days of a transition to a new system, they may forget to clock in or out. Of course, managers and HR staff may take care of timesheets for you. Especially if you have a small number of employees.
However, if you use an app like Blip the incentive is on your employees to remember.
And the QR codes dotted around your business will trigger off a reminder.
You can also provide monthly rewards as a reminder, such as a reward system as part of employee motivation. You could look to offer a prize or social event for particularly productive individuals.
Again, you don’t want to encourage presenteeism here—or direct competition between departments.
Remember that the business benefits of an effective timesheet are already positive enough.
But you can take the above extra steps if you want to encourage your staff to embrace the new system.
Need our help?
If you would like further advice from an expert about time tracking your employees, our advisors are ready to take your call any time day or night. Call us on 0818 923 923.
