Tracking time at work is a routine that allows team members and their leadership to understand the best way to distribute tasks.
Tracking work time is an issue that still raises questions among many HR professionals and employers. There are many businesses that have few employees or that have only recently had to think about how to track employee working hours, which can be challenging when done for the first time.
Table of Contents
What is work time tracking?
Tracking time at work is a routine that allows team members and their leaders to understand the best way to distribute tasks on a daily basis. Widely used during project development, time tracking is also a way to assess whether the organization of teams is working according to each person’s time availability or needs to be adjusted.
A well-done time tracking helps determine how long certain activities take to be done and helps estimate the workload of employees so that no one is overwhelmed. It is also an essential practice for service providers, companies that have hourly employees, and even for businesses that have outsourced employees.
What are the ways to track work time?
There are numerous ways to track work time, but despite this, not all of them are effective or practical for companies. Some businesses choose to use electronic spreadsheets, such as Excel, to manage their employees’ working time, in addition to using this “manual” control to calculate overtime, time banks, and days of absence.
This tool, however, can be ineffective for companies that have several employees (and, if the company has external employees, management is even more complicated!), as there is a lot of information to concentrate on in a spreadsheet.
In addition, this method is not as secure as digital work time tracking solutions, because while digital systems record hours worked, delays, absences, and overtime automatically, manual recording allows information to be entered erroneously and even fraudulently.
Therefore, the best way to track work time is by investing in online time attendance and digital employee management solutions. WebWork, for example, is a complete digital time and attendance tool to facilitate employee management in all types of companies. With the tool, employers and HR professionals can manage their employees’ work routines in an automated way, as employees clock in via cell phone, tablet, or computer.
What are the benefits of time tracking?
Working time tracking is a practical and smart way to track employee performance and productivity levels. By organizing the teams’ routines and thinking about the best use of time, projects tend to be developed with more efficiency and focus on deliveries. Thus, both leaders and employees can identify the strengths and points to be improved in the day-to-day work, in addition to pointing out if the team needs more participants to cope with the volume of tasks. The management of working hours allows companies to adapt their management according to the different work formats of employees. In the end, information about each working day can be easily organized with a work time management system and this helps the company to evaluate its employees and overall progress.