As businesses are getting more competitive than ever, managing time better is one advantage that can boost productivity. The more your workforce is managed, the more work gets done, and you can increase profits faster.
Employee time tracking is one way to manage the workforce for maximum productivity. You are missing several benefits if your company is not tracking employee time.
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What is employee time tracking?
Time tracking is the process of keeping track of the number of hours employees work so they can be paid accurately at the end of their payment cycle.
The benefits of employee time tracking are not just for the workforce, but employers also get meaningful insights that help them track and eradicate malpractices like time theft, excessive overtime, and regular absenteeism.
There are many more reasons to ensure your organization has accurate employee time tracking arrangements. Let’s take a closer look at some of these benefits.
8 Benefits of employee time tracking
1. Helps to increase staff productivity
It is common to find employees working casually even when a deadline looms. Also, when employees are not encouraged or motivated enough with a sense of urgency to deliver, there can be a severe lapse in company productivity.
What might seem like your employees are slacking off might be an unorganized workforce in the absence of time tracking. Scheduling and work allotment issues can arise without employee time tracking. Employees take ownership of their workload by tracking their time; they are much more organized.
Time tracking helps them identify how long they take to complete a particular task. It also helps them gauge their performance. Overall, with employee time tracking, you can help boost employee productivity.
2. Bill clients for the exact work that has been done
When you track time for employees, you are in a better position to bill clients for the actual work that has been done. Estimated invoices for work done aren’t the same as an accurate log. You can’t bill clients accurately if you are not using tools for employee time tracking.
Missed minutes can accumulate to severe losses. For instance, if a job takes 20 minutes longer than estimated and your company completes ten assignments weekly, you are missing 170 billable hours every year. By accurately timing, you will get the revenue you deserve.
3. Track time across different devices
One of the benefits of time tracking software is that you can maintain consistent time keeping across multiple devices. For companies where workers are distributed over a larger area like mining and construction, keeping track of employees with a single machine is difficult.
Cloud-based employee time tracking apps like Truein help workers accurately record attendance and work hours irrespective of location.
4. Review employee performance
Reviewing employee performance is necessary to ensure that their performance is not lacking. When HR managers have to conduct annual performance reviews, the data from employee time tracking is a great reference source.
It is easier to compare an employee’s performance to other employees. Such analysis can help employees to evaluate their performance. If they are inconsistent with their attendance, they can be warned with evidence.
5. Accurately report hours
Companies must abide by the labor laws and compliance provisions to ensure workers are not exploited. For HR managers, it can be a tedious task to compile the report at the end of each month or quarter to share with management.
But if the employee time tracking is done accurately, it’s infinitely easier for managers to create a report. One of the benefits of time tracking software is that it allows you to create reports periodically and automatically. With employment time tracking, compliance can be done in minutes.
6. Prevents employee burnout
Without proper employee time tracking, it will be hard to schedule shifts or to identify if any worker is overextending themselves by working too many shifts. If HR managers create a too hectic schedule, they can burn out the workers. It can negatively impact productivity and can disturb the work-life balance of employees.
One of the benefits of employee time tracking is that it can create a great working culture that allows employees to balance their well-being. With time tracking, managers and supervisors can know when and where employees are working and what tasks are being assigned.
7. Automate payroll process
Payroll calculation is essential to pay employees accurately. With employee time tracking, it is easier to monitor the number of hours an employee has worked at the end of the pay cycle. Companies with a large workforce can imply cost savings in payroll management.
Erroneous paychecks are an additional overhead for the managers to correct. It also affects your employer’s brand negatively.
8. Easy calculation of employee overtime
According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), unless exempt, employees working over 40 hours in a workweek must be paid overtime at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay. Also, as per Indian law, companies must pay twice the average pay rate to workers for overtime hours.
If you are not tracking overtime accurately, you will have a substantial financial burden that can affect your profits. With accurate time tracking, overtime can be managed, and you can ensure no worker exploits overtime policies within the company.
There are several benefits of tracking employee time, but how do you track time efficiently?
Let’s see the common ways to track employee time.
What are the different ways to track employee time?
1. Paper timesheets
The most traditional way of timekeeping in companies is paper timesheets. It is a simple format sheet with a table with the Date, Day, Time-in, and Time-out fields. While paper timesheets are easy to create, they are not sustainable when managing a large workforce.
Furthermore, managers are forced to calculate the work hours manually, which is prone to errors. It results in inaccurate pay that can hamper employee morale.
2. Excel timesheets
These are similar to paper timesheets used to track the punching time of the workers, the only difference being that these time sheets are created with the help of software.
While Excel timesheets offer a level of automation for calculation, they are still complicated to manage. All the data must be entered manually, which takes a lot of time. The chances of human error are higher. Also, you cannot create productivity reports using Excel timesheets automatically.
3. Time tracking software
The best tool for employee time tracking is time and attendance management software. With the help of these tools, you can entirely automate workforce, schedule, and payroll management.
When you use time tracking software, managers and supervisors don’t have to waste hours or even days managing timesheets and conducting payroll. These tools include additional features such as automated report generation, shift scheduling, invoicing, etc.
Truein: The Ultimate Time Tracking Software
Truein is one of the most comprehensively created AI-powered face recognition-based employee time tracking software used by several companies across industries. It is a cloud-based time tracking and attendance software that allows companies to track employee times accurately. It also features overtime tracking that ensures workers are paid only for their work hours.
Furthermore, it provides geo-fencing and GPS-based punch-in for onsite workers to ensure they are at the destined place when they record the attendance. You can create overtime work policies within the software and enforce them for employees. This ensures that there is an even distribution of work between employees.
The software manages employee attendance, overtime, and leave data within a centralized database that managers can access at any time to create accurate reports. Truein easily integrates with most of the payroll software that companies use. This allows seamless automation of payroll management.
Conclusion
We hope this article informed you of the benefits of employee time tracking effectively. For any company, employees are an essential resource. Employee time tracking can ensure that workers are rewarded for their work ethics and performance. It also adds to your employer’s brand when workers are paid accurately on time.
