Time Tracking Without Wasting Time: An Essential Project Management Tool

You’ve probably heard the phrase “remember to track your time” enough that it’s ingrained in your head and possibly may even cause you stress.

The Bad News: Time Tracking is Essential

Quantifiably knowing where people spend their time is critical for any business. And the benefits far outweigh the perceived challenges.

Essentially, time tracking allows any employee to understand how much time they’re spending on everyday tasks. It helps accurately forecast production workload, and glean insight needed to create efficient business workflows.

The Good News: It Doesn’t Have to be a Time-sucking Chore

Yes, time tracking is necessary, but it doesn’t have to be evil. Here are our top three best practices for getting even the most hesitant team on board:

Take a stand

Every minute wasted on inefficiencies can translate to a customer, patient, or other individual waiting for help. By taking a stance and making tracking mandatory, you’re implementing a level of accountability and focus for your team.

Leverage existing processes

The easier you make time tracking for your team, the more likely it is they will do it. Our app allows you to track time from multiple places: from your Salesforce screens, on the Salesforce mobile app, and on Outlook.

If your time tracking tool doesn’t necessarily gel with your team’s workflow, you can set your own rules, for example, that time tracking must be updated daily. Do what works best for your team. One marketing communications company linked a time tracking system to their beer fridge so the fridge wouldn’t open on Friday until everyone tracked their time!

Find software that makes it easy

Salesforce is a highly customizable tool that we’ve leveraged at Resource Hero to allow you to easily track time from desktop or mobile—anywhere, anytime. Whatever app you choose, you’ll want to find one that’s:

• Well-designed and easy to use
• Capable of exporting and compounding time tracking data with other data (such as forecasted hours or profit margin)
• Able to track both billable (client paid) work as well as non-billable (internal non-paid) work

Be a Time Tracking Advocate

Bringing the idea of time tracking to your manager or project manager is an excellent way to show you’re looking to push your team towards efficiency. Highlight tangible deliverables like:

• Insights based on historical, personal, and business data (not hunches)
• Realistic projects schedules based on past data
• Profitability metrics by project and resource

The bottom line? Time tracking can make the difference between an overworked, stressed-out team, and a well-oiled project machine!

Want to hear more about how Resource Hero can help you track time in a way that works for your team? Schedule a demo with us.