The Top 16 Benefits of Time Tracking
Time tracking has many benefits. From boosting your productivity to allowing you to increase your hourly rate - there is a lot of scope for improvement. Why is time tracking essential for employees and for business owners? Discover the top 16 benefits of time tracking in this post.
Technology and time management tools have helped business owners become more productive. It has made business management easier and allowed individuals to stay organized. But it can do much more.
Time tracking services and tools are one of those perfect examples.
Why Time Tracking
Time cost calculators and time tracking software can facilitate lots of work processes by providing you with custom, user-friendly options for your business and personal life.
Multiple benefits of time tracking software make the importance of time tracking unquestionable.
Aside from paper-based timesheets and time tracking spreadsheets, there is a great choice of time management apps ranging from those with minimalistic design to advanced time tracking tools.
The latter ones are remarkable for their sophisticated functionality and integrations with tools for perfecting employee workflow.
Time tracking is the process of recording and monitoring time spent on specific tasks. This is typically done by software that can be used as an employee time clock in a business or as a personal productivity tool.
Businesses can use employee time tracking for the improvement of 4 main business areas and benefit from implementing time tracking in 16 ways we list below.
For Business Efficiency
Increase in employee productivity
Time tracking allows employees to see exactly how much time employees spend on each project, thus helping them to most effectively manage their workloads so that they stay productive while performing the assigned tasks.
Besides, when employees work on projects or tasks outside their job description, they often don't realize how much time the said task takes. Time tracking lets optimize time utilization on various task categories and improve accountability.
Single tasking for clear vision
In the absence of time tracking, you run risks of falling for multitasking, which is harmful, to say the least, as it causes feeling busy rather than productive.
Furthermore, it results in a higher likelihood of cumulative stress.
Using a time tracker with the task management functionality pulls loose threads together and enables employees to focus on one task at a time and allocate time according to priorities.
Employee monitoring
Lots of businesses have started using time tracking software to monitor their employees. It helps:
- identify the areas of improvement
- facilitate HR work.
Time tracking data can also assist in making better decisions about hiring, firing, billing, and many more, which makes time tracking applications very convenient for businesses of any size.
Work prioritization
What if there was an option that could instantly direct your efforts to goal achievement cutting on distractions? For anyone who has ever been held accountable for their time, the benefits of time tracking in this particular domain are clear.
Knowing how you prioritize your time every day is essential in a business setting. This information can help you improve your productivity, create better workflows and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.
For the Sake of Money
Billing efficiency
There is a connection between time tracking and higher company profits. If we look at it carefully, the real cause of this great result is not just the activity tracking itself but options to bill properly as well.
Accuracy in tracking billable hours translates into billing efficiency.
Streamline of payroll
By using time tracking software, a business will be able to reduce the cost of the payroll process since time trackers automatically keep the time for the employees. It’s more accurate and reliable because it does not have errors compared to the manual tracking system where there are chances of making mistakes.
The business owners can expect fewer rejected timesheets that cause delays and problems in the payroll processing. Time tracking also benefits HR as they can see where every employee is spending their time so they allocate work according to the company’s priorities.
Calculation of employee compensation
With proper analysis of time tracking data, HR can make future plans, calculate employees' compensations, perform business operations in compliance with legal norms, determine which department is underutilized or overworked and increase productivity using suggestions in implementing digital monitoring tools during the work process.
Hourly rate estimates
If a business is willing to use time tracking technology, it provides them with time allocation data. Such data are necessary to calculate accurate costs because in different cases companies may have to pay different rates (for example, hourly rate, fixed monthly fee, or simply a percentage of the whole service).
Time tracking allows businesses to calculate their employees' hourly rates with precision. It is important because it helps avoid production delays and saves money in the long run.
For Impeccable Project Management
Project cost optimization
One of the advantages of time tracking is that it enables you to run reports on project time and budgeting. This can be used for project cost optimization purposes, or simply for analysis of your team activities and more effective time allocation in creating value.
Projects profitability at a glance
Time tracking, when done right, allows devising a clever protocol for understanding complex processes within a company including its project profitability and upscaling models.
Tracking project progress
For businesses, automated time tracking systems have become an essential tool for measuring employees' performance and evaluating project progress in real time. For example, when employees are working on different projects, it is important to know how much time is being spent on each activity for calculating the cost and forecasting the business outcomes.
Better team management
Utilizing time metrics contributes to improving team communication and gaining valuable insights into the task and team management.
Time tracking also helps you avoid distractions by making them easier to spot and eliminating them altogether if possible. Business owners will know exactly where team time is going and be able to schedule project-related activities accordingly so every team member can get the most out of their day.
For Physical and Mental Wellbeing
PTO tracking
The easy entry of daily work time helps in creating job records which can be used for planning work time as well as time off. The transparency it creates amongst employees will also reduce the number of questions related to any person’s schedule.
In this way, more productive use of manpower at a workplace is possible. PTO tracking and time off calendar visibility enable managers:
- to provide equal workload distribution
- to empower employees with means for schedule flexibility
- to plan remote and hybrid work in a stress-free way.
Employee burnout prevention
Almost any repetitive task performed on a computer can be automated. Work time calculations are no exception: automatic time tracking completely removes the burden of keeping records and logging timesheets.
Additionally, with the option for easy-to-make requests in Time off module of a time tracker, employees get empowered against burnout and overwork.
Maintainance of work life balance
While a little stress may be good for your mental and physical wellbeing, too much can result in anxiety and frustration.
Using time tracking at work will let employees:
- learn how to better manage their working time
- organize it effectively
- set boundaries on work and life
- track productivity
- allocate free time and have more of it.
Benefits Of Using A Time Tracking Software
As listed above, time tracking has many benefits for businesses and individuals alike, including increased productivity, better budgeting, and better awareness of what tasks are taking up your time.
The first step to implementing time tracking is identifying the reasons you want to apply it and finding a good software solution that fits your needs. On the example of TMetric, we show what groups of professionals can benefit from using time tracking practices in their work and how they can do it.
For Whom
- Marketing agencies
- Consultants
- Law firms
- Designers
- Developers teams
- Small and medium businesses
- HR and virtual assistant services
- Sales teams
What makes it a universally applicable solution for professionals?
It works across any stage of project management starting with goal setting. Since time tracking removes friction between time and effort from the picture, goals become easier to achieve.
Why TMetric is tried-and-true
- TMetric time tracking software as the tool for boosting company productivity and getting insights may be used in the web, mobile or desktop version. It is especially important when you have a remote team, and you cannot monitor their activity on a daily basis.
- It offers advanced functionality for employee monitoring and various reports which show your team’s activity in real time and makes it possible to filter employees by project, team designation, and other criteria.
- It monitors employees' activity. When the time tracking software is installed, supervisors do not need to keep an eye on employees' daily activities and run risks of micromanagement. Time tracking keeps logs and information on work and activity levels, which creates accountability on both sides.
- Benefits of employee time tracking are linked in TMetric capability to determine how much time certain tasks take, which will be useful when reviewing timesheets and planning future projects.
- It's also advantageous in gaining insight into how much time to allocate to different tasks, so you can stay on track, have detours brief and avoid wasting time. This helps employers run business more effectively.
- TMetric is a great boon for startups that seek benefits of time tracking software for small business.
- Time off tracking with TMetric facilitates HR activities and works as prevention against employee burnout.
- TMetric delivers an experience of unbroken workflow with rich integrations. For instance, its JIRA integration enables teams to track how much time they spend working on sprint tasks.
Conclusion
Deciding which time tracking software to use can be a daunting task. There are tons of options online, and all of them are different in their approaches to tracking timesheets.
If you’re looking for something that will help increase your productivity and boost your business efficiency, it’s important to find a tool that fits your needs as well as one that you’re going to actually stick with (for more than a few months).
Industry experts and time tracking veterans have raved about TMetric, so that’s what we wanted to introduce as a great productivity tool that generates benefits for everybody.