Online employee time tracking can help you monitor your team’s performance, identify improvement areas, or simply track your workers’ attendance. It is also a valuable project management tool—if you want to learn more about it, check our guide about project management and time tracking (or, just project time management).
Employee time tracking offers multiple benefits for organizations. No wonder then that businesses of different sizes and operating in different industries look for perfect employee time tracking tools. Is there a time tracking software that checks all the boxes for every company out there? Probably not. But we’re pretty sure that, with a vast landscape of time tracking apps, each company can find a tool that fits their exact needs.
What will you get with this article:
This blog post should help you better understand your organization’s requirements and focus your search for the best time tracking software. The first step is to take a minute and think about the “why” behind your search.
Think: what do I want to achieve? Then, picture your team using a time tracking app—how do they do it? Which devices and options do they prefer? Finally, you can pick the features of time tracking apps you will benefit the most from. Once you complete these steps, you have a time tracking software checklist. All you have to do now is check whether any tool you’re evaluating can offer what you need.
Before you start browsing the websites of different tools and comparing their features or prices, focus on your company’s needs. It’s absolutely critical that you figure out why you need a time tracking tool in the first place.
Here are some potential reasons. Don’t feel like you have to pick one, but try to prioritize your objectives. Knowing your team’s primary motivation for tracking your team’s time will help you narrow down your search to the tools that best support this goal.
Employee time tracking software supports projects managers with:
Perhaps you have yet another reason for implementing time tracking software at your company. The essential thing is that you spell out your main motivation. Being in the market for a new employee time tracking app, you should focus on tools that bring you closer to that goal.
When thinking about the understanding of project management, firstly we should go for the Project Management Institute (PMI) definition. As the Institution suggests, project management is about using competencies, skills, maybe talents, knowledge, devices, instruments, software, techniques, processes, methods, and whatever it takes to deliver “value to people”.
The phrase “value to people” – because of its ambiguity – encourages us to think that result of project management can aby anything – from chairs to even social movements, including the religious ones. Anything which is useful for some number of individuals.
But when we use the Association for Project Management (APM) definition, an understanding of project management will be more conservative but also it helps with dividing just management from project management. As they say:
Project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the project acceptance criteria within agreed parameters. Project management has final deliverables that are constrained to a finite timescale and budget.
When we compare both definitions, we will see some similarities. In both, we see that project management is – let’s say – about running things and using knowledge, experience, methods, processes, and procedures to get the job done.
But only the last definition is businesslike. In the APM’s definition are three aspects that don’t appear in the PMI’s understanding. They are the time, budget, and a “project acceptance criteria”. As we know, in the business world, each project has its purpose. Whether it is an internal or external request. And each has to be done at a particular time, within budget, and by acceptance of the commissioner.
And here is the main difference between management and project management. According to the APM, the difference between the two terms comes down to time. The time when the project is ready to execute or already executed. While management is a continuous operation, project management has its final outcome provided in a finite time span.
Having above in the mind, a connection between a time tracking software and the project management process gets quite obvious.
Let’s summarize the above-mentioned. We are already aware that in the business, in the project management, team and employee performance analysis are an essential part when working on projects. And the goal of tracking performance is, according to the PMI
performance management is a systematic approach to improving and developing individuals and teams performances and capacities in order to increase efficiency throughout the organization
You already also get to know what’s the difference between project management and just management. It’s about the budget, acceptance criteria, and – of course – time. From this standpoint, here are the indicators used for tracking and improving employees’ performance and productivity.
It’s the most obvious and most popular indicator. If you know how long different phases take, you are able to forecast the time and budget of future projects. And you can increase budget estimates and project resource management.
This KPI shows you the overall ratio of directly profitable work to internal cost each employee engages in. Different companies have very different stances on the value relationship between “billable” and “non-billable” time, and we’re of the opinion they are equally important. However you view it, you need to see how much time your team spends on non-billable time to be able to price and plan work competitively.
A useful indicator to evaluate the well-being and health of your employees. An excessive overtime per employee rate means that you should consider hiring more staff so that your current employees are not overworked.
This metric is interpreted in a few different ways. For example, to understand employess’ health — both in terms of physical wellbeing and engagement. Sometimes as an indicator of employees’ dedication (but you have to be aware of the presenteeism phenomena because it doesn’t mean good work quality or enthusiasm. If your team is continuously performing overtime, maybe it’s time to increase the workforce.
Employee capacity is a great measure of productive performance. Similar to overtime, it shows you who is close to burnout and who has room to take on a little more work. It’s super helpful for distributing work evenly across your team and understanding who needs extra support.
Advertising agencies and construction companies may have the same time tracking software but use it very differently. It’s crucial that the tool you end up picking is well suited to the needs of your employees. That’s why you need to picture them using it as you get ready to shop for a time tracking app.
Will your team members need to use their phones to track time, or are they sitting with their laptops most of the days? Does it make sense for your employees to use an automatic time tracking solution (some tools recognize the apps and websites employees visit and create timesheets based on this kind of data), or do they want to enter their time entries manually?
Getting a clear sense of how your team would use time tracking will help you pick a tool your employees quickly adopt. Otherwise, you risk paying for an app that is inconvenient and time-consuming for people to use.
Now that you’re well aware of your company’s objectives and your team’s needs, you can look at particular features of popular employee time tracking tools and figure out which ones are useful for you. Creating such a “shopping list” of sorts will make you less likely to get swayed by convincing salespeople or marketing copy. You’ll stay focused on your needs and choose software that actually meets them.
Below you’ll find a list of features that you can find in different employee time tracking apps. Which of these do you need?
Hopefully, this blog post helps you identify your time tracking needs and pick the best tool for your company. Time tracking tools are definitely not “one size fits all” types of software, so we recommend researching your options carefully. Last but not least, we want to give you a quick overview of the time tracking tool we’ve been building over the last five years—Teamdeck. Perhaps it’s the app you’ve been looking for?
Teamdeck is a project resource management software, meaning that, on top of a time tracker, it also offers project and resource scheduling tool and leave management system features. Essentially it’s a one-stop app for your team where you can plan their work, monitor their performance, and see their availability.
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If you feel that Teamdeck might be something that checks all the boxes for your team, but you want to see it in action (as you should!), you can schedule a call with Aniela, our customer success experts. She’ll answer all of your questions and show you how Teamdeck will benefit your team.
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