7 deadly sins of time tracking
We’ve already tried to explain to you why it’s so important to track time, collect data, and use the results for improvement. Simply buying a software might be a good start, but it’s no guarantee that at the end you will make a positive change. Yes, many small and medium companies bought it, and many of them succeed to implement it; yet, some of them failed; and in this post, we will try to figure out why — so that instead of becoming one of the „some,“ you be one of the „many.“
Many data-centric companies make common mistakes which lead to situations where at best, you are collecting data that is hard to analyze, and at worst, is a total waste of the organization’s time. Likely, you could face at least one of these issues in your own company:
- Not having a clear vision
Your business is advancing, you hired more people in order to get the job done, and now you need a tool to organize all of it. Great, but why would you need time tracking? Do you have a distinct concept of how an employees’ working day should look like? Do you know what results would be „satisfying” or „dissatisfying“? Or do you just want to know what they’re doing?
Like any other innovation, this too must have a detailed strategy behind it, so make sure you don’t just leave the whole thing to chance.
- Not being transparent.
Now this is a big no-no. If you want to make a change, you need your people to change; if you want to get your people to change, you must make them know if they are wrong. Furtively “spying” on your employees’ time consumption would do you for a while, but it wouldn’t make a positive change — it won’t make your “implementation strategy” come true; even worse — it could deteriorate your company’s working culture and make more damage than good.
- Not explaining the purpose to everyone.
So you know what you want to accomplish, and you’ve announced it to everyone — great. But it won’t work out that easily unless your employees understand why they are being tracked. Explaining that you need to understand their working habits, catch a sight of potential problems, use the data for metrics — any of these would be better than simply saying “It’s got to be done.” After you get the first results and make something out of it, make sure you gather your employees for a brief review of how your new software helped and caused a positive change that would affect everyone. Try to show a single daily report — it’s even possible that most of them aren’t quite aware themselves of how much time they throw away every day.
- Not making it obligatory to everyone.
It is the productivity of people who get the real work done that you want to maximize, but in order to succeed as an organization, everyone must work as one. Employee, manager, or CEO — they all need to track their time. And it’s not just because of the effectiveness; it’s also for the sake of the morale. If the superiors shared the results with their employees, it would feel like they are all being part of the team.
- Not making a single person responsible for the project.
It could be CEO, it could be HR manager, or it could be anyone else; but the practice has shown that when everybody is responsible — nobody is responsible. Name a person in charge of creating a strategy, setting the clear objectives, communicating them to employees, collecting and analyzing the results — it is much more likely that the whole process would be a success.
- Not using the data for analysis.
The whole point of time tracking is making a positive change in your business. Keep in mind that the main goal is creating an insight of how the things are getting done; compared to how they should be getting done — not catching which of your employees plays solitaire and how much time they spend e-mailing.
- Not sharing the best practices./Not showing appreciation
Ok, this one may not be “deadly sin”, but it’s still a thing. Many time tracking software solutions have an option where Websites and applications can be labelled as “productive” or “unproductive”. They also generate detailed reports, which you can use every once in a while to compliment your best employees and motivate others. It doesn’t have to mean much, but it would definitely create a positive atmosphere to award the “hardest working bee” that spent the most working time using “productive” sites and apps with a Friday morning muffin.
