Onboard Your Team

Employees have a natural resistance to tracking their time. It disrupts their workflow and makes them feel they are being micromanaged. So, before implementing time tracking, explain why you are doing this. Don’t just send a quick email and expect your employees to go along.

Implementing time tracking software is a big deal. It may elicit strong emotional reactions such as suspicion and resentment. Here are best practices for properly onboarding your team and communicating the benefits of time tracking:

• Organize an all-hands-on meeting. An organization-wide orientation demonstrates you see time tracking as a business priority. And it allows your employees to voice their concerns.
• Dispel their doubts and fears. Clearly explain what time tracking will not be used for, such as spying on or micromanaging their work.
• Explain the benefits to them. Show your employees how logging their hours helps them be more productive, manage their time better, and meet project deadlines.
• Emphasize that you reward performance, not time. Clarify that you do not expect them to fill every minute with work, which is unrealistic, and that they will be incentivized for how they perform.
• Show sample reports. It is easier to visualize benefits if you show them sample reports and invoices and how time tracking affects the numbers in the reports.
• Be transparent about business benefits. Explain how time tracking software can accurately track billable hours, create better pricing estimates, and keep projects on track. If you are expecting cost savings, tell them as well.

Most employees want the company to succeed and will be supportive if you are honest, fair, and upfront.

Train Your Team to Use the Software

It is not enough to explain the benefits of time tracking. You need to train your employees to log their hours and your managers to create and use reports. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Do a demo. Your employees may be unfamiliar with time tracking software and may have misgivings about using new technology. The best way to address this is to demonstrate the software. Let them try it themselves. Once they see that it’s not complicated, they will be more receptive to using it.
• Create resources. Make demo videos, tutorials, and FAQs available to your employees. It takes time to learn something new, so having resources accessible will hasten their learning curve.

Make Time Tracking Easy to Do

If your software is complicated to use or your rules are confusing to comply with, don’t expect your team to succeed in time tracking. These are tips you can do to make your time tracking system easy to use.

• Set clear rules. Explain what activities your employees should track, how they should categorize their tasks, how often and when they need to log their hours, and what to do if they forget to use the timer.
• Explain your categories. Ensure your employees use the same categories for projects, clients, and tasks. Explain which categories tasks like emails or meetings should fall under. Creating a legend of categories with descriptions will help.
• Make time tracking part of their workflow. Tracking hours can be disruptive if it requires switching apps or logging into another device. Eliminate friction by ensuring the time tracking tool is installed in the devices and browsers your employees use the most.
• Integrate other systems. Maximize your time tracker’s integrations with project management, invoicing, and customer support systems. This makes time tracking convenient if they can start or stop timers from the same software interface.

Make Time Tracking Part of Your Culture

Getting your team started on time tracking is one thing; sticking to it for the long run is another. The only way to make time tracking sustainable is to make it part of your corporate culture. These are some ways to make this happen:

• Send reminders. It takes a while for anyone to form a habit, and tracking time needs to be a habit for employees as it just doesn’t come naturally. You can email reminders and remind them during team meetings, at least in the first few months of its rollout. Your time tracker may have a built-in function that sends automated and scheduled reminders.
• Act on the data. Time tracking aims not to show reports but to turn the data into actionable insights to improve productivity and efficiency. If the software reveals a lot of time wasted on meetings, fix that problem. If it shows one team member is doing most of the work on a project, re-assign tasks to others. You can intervene to prevent burnout if you see employees going overtime often.
• Make someone accountable. There should be one person or department responsible for ensuring employees are logging their hours. When no one is accountable, no one will ensure compliance.
• Reward people. A little incentive can go a long way. Habits are formed when there is a positive reinforcement for action taken. While you’re in the early stage of implementing your time tracking software, reward teams who submit their timesheets on time and without errors with things such as free pizza or movie tickets.
• Get feedback. You can continually improve your time tracking system. Ask your employees for feedback, problems, and suggestions. Listening to them and doing something about it makes them more cooperative and do it without being prompted.

Get Your Team Started on Time Tracking

Ready to rollout time tracking for your employees? Try Time Tracker by eBillity, our online time tracker that is flexible, feature-rich, and easy to use. Start eBillity’s free, 14-day Time Tracker trial today.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Getting Your Team Started on Tracking Time appeared first on eBillity.

However, employee resistance can be a key barrier to tracking time efficiently. When this happens, you’ll have to figure out ways around this resistance if you want to use these tools in your office.

Reasons Employees Don’t Like Tracking Time

Sometimes, employees feel like time tracking software is unnecessary surveillance. They may be afraid of being judged for their productivity and how they use their time at work. Because of this, you may need to overcome employee resistance if you plan on incorporating time tracking tools into your workplace.

They Don’t Want to Be Micromanaged

Even good employees don’t want someone looking over their shoulder as they do their work. Initially, a time tracker can feel intrusive. For some employees, it can feel like you don’t trust them to do their job properly or like they need to be micromanaged.

It’s Difficult to Use Remotely

Many employees have to complete their work at home or while traveling. Depending on the tracking system, it can be challenging to track time while employees are on the go.

They Forget to Use It

It takes time to create a new habit. Many employees forget to track their time, which makes it impossible to get accurate data. Constant reminders to track time can also become annoying for team members.

The App Isn’t User Friendly

For employees to use a time tracking app, the app has to have an intuitive design. While modern employees tend to be fairly good with technology, this isn’t always the case. If an employee can’t figure out how to use the app, they may hide their embarrassment by resisting the app’s adoption entirely.

They Don’t Want to Watch a Clock

Workdays are already long enough. Some employees don’t want to track their time because they have to look at the clock frequently, which can make the workday feel like it is trudging along.

They Want to Do Their Jobs

Some employees don’t want to track their time because they want to focus on their real work. Even though it takes only a few seconds to do, they may feel annoyed about having to switch gears. Many see time tracking as a distraction from getting real work accomplished.

How to Motivate Employees to Track Their Time

Fortunately, there are ways you can make time tracking easier for your employees. By having an open-ended conversation about tracking time, you can encourage employees to use the app and enjoy the many benefits of time trackers.

1. Explain the Purpose

Children can be told what to do, but adults always want to know why. If you want to get your team’s buy-in, you should start by explaining to them how the tracking system will be used and why it is important.

For instance, many organizations track time to help them with project scoping and creating future bids. Additionally, tracking time is a great way to find automation opportunities.

2. Organize a Team Meeting

If you simply require employees to use time tracking software, you may encounter a significant amount of resistance. Give your employees a chance to air their concerns. In a team meeting, you can discuss the reasons why you want to use tracking software and how the entire system will work.

3. Send Out Reminders

It takes time to make a new habit. For many employees, the key source of resistance is forgetfulness. Even though they know they are supposed to track their time, they may forget to do it.

To overcome this kind of resistance, you can start by sending out email reminders. A good time tracking app will even let you set up automated email reminders, so your employees will automatically be reminded to complete and turn in their timesheets. Because of this, you don’t have to personally worry about nagging employees to get their timesheets approved.

4. Incorporate It Into Your Onboarding

Training employees to do something is always easier than retraining them to change their habits. While your current employees will have to be retrained, your new employees can begin tracking their time from the moment they begin the onboarding process. By incorporating this into onboarding, you can make time tracking an automatic habit.

During the onboarding process, you can give a presentation about why you want to track time and how it works. Then, you can demonstrate how it works before letting everyone try it out.

To help reduce stress, you should pick a day when everyone needs to submit their timesheets. Then, remember to send out an automatic email reminder before the due date.

5. Offer Incentives

Bonuses and other incentives can encourage team members to track their time properly. For competitive employees, any competition will get them to immediately adopt the new tracking software. If you have employees who are motivated by collaboration, you can always create a team competition and let peer pressure encourage them to adopt the new measures.

These incentives can be handed out to people who turn in every timesheet for an entire quarter. You can also reward team members for completing their timesheets without any errors. Depending on your budget and organizational goals, these awards can consist of free lunches, gift cards, or points on their year-end review.

6. Avoid Negativity

If people feel like time tracking is a negative experience, they won’t want to do it. Instead of getting after people for not tracking their time, use rewards and positive reinforcement instead. People resent being punished and forced to do something, so you should always start by using incentives and gentle reminders instead.

Effective Time Tracking Software Can Reshape Your Workplace

Tracking time can help you run a more productive, efficient workplace. To enjoy the benefits of a time tracker, you have to help your employees overcome resistance to tracking time. To learn more about the ways time trackers can help your organization, try our 14-day free trial today!

The post How to Overcome Employee Resistance to Tracking Time appeared first on eBillity.

But what’s the best way to onboard people who aren’t familiar with employee time tracking? Here’s a step-by-step guide to familiarizing new employees with attendance tracking software. 

1. Teach employees about time tracking in general

Education is a crucial piece for employee time tracking, but most companies skip a key part of the process. Before you jump into the specifics of your system, give employees context about why attendance tracking software is beneficial — to the company and to them. Create a handout or short video that explains the benefits of employee time tracking, and make it specific to your business, if you can. Ask employees to complete a short quiz on those benefits after learning about them.  

If you’re using Time Tracker, those advantages could include: 

• Faster submission of timesheets and time-off requests
• Simpler, quicker approvals or denials of requests
• An automated system that’s designed to get everyone paid faster
• Transparent scheduling that keeps managers and employees on the same page with up-to-the-minute daily, weekly or monthly schedules 
• Reporting on past projects that managers can use to ensure they’re giving employees enough time to finish a task or project, and that they’re staffing up appropriately for busier times  

While the advantages of time tracking will vary depending upon what your company has in place, the best employee time tracking solutions should have clear benefits that you can market back to your workers. And taking the time to educate employees at the outset will not only cut down on errors but also prevent time theft. 

2. Explain your employee time tracking system

Once you’ve outlined the benefits of attendance tracking software, walk employees through your system. Give them clear guidelines for tracking their time, such as:

• Whether your company uses time cards, time clocks or weekly timesheets 
• How to clock in and out
• How long their breaks should be and how often they should take them
• How to correct entries if time is entered incorrectly
• Who to contact with questions

Create a simple educational process or checklist that employees can work through to learn the basics. The best employee time tracking solutions will give you a headstart in that department. 

For example, with Time Tracker, start with the Online Help Center. There, you can find answers to common questions such as:

• How do I edit my user profile?
• How do I make a time entry?
• How do I submit entries for approval?
• How do I take back a time entry I already sent for approval?
• How do I delete an entry?

Scroll through the topics to determine which articles will be beneficial to your employees, or simply search the entire help database whenever you need it. 

3. Schedule check-ins

After you’ve educated new employees on your attendance tracking software, give them time to get acclimated. Check in briefly on day 2, day 5 and day 10, for example, or set your own check-in schedule. Whatever the schedule is, avoid micromanagement. The best employee time tracking software will allow you to take a more hands-off approach, and if yours isn’t doing that, consider another solution. 

4. Show results

Finally, don’t forget to close the training loop. After an employee’s first month, offer some insight to them on how their work is affecting your business. Pull a report to:

• Show them where they’re spending their time.
• Tie that back to company profits or productivity.
• Explain how the hours they’re working are contributing to their benefits (PTO, health insurance, etc.).

Eventually, use that information during the review process to improve efficiency and identify places to improve. At the beginning, though, focus on the positives. The best way to keep your workers engaged in employee time tracking is to show them how and why it’s working. 

Ready to try Time Tracker for yourself?

Get started with our 14-day free trial.

The post Employee Time Tracking: A Step-by-Step Guide to Onboarding appeared first on eBillity.