According to statistics, nine out of ten startups fail, and one fails during its first year of operation. There are plenty of reasons why businesses fail and not being able to measure the efficiency and productivity of its employees is one. This is why time-tracking tools are essential for businesses.
Time-tracking tools are online tools used to keep records of employees’ work hours. In a nutshell, these tools help measure employees’ working time and give business owners insight into how much time employees spend on a particular task or client.
Using a time clock for employees will require resources from your business but using one is important due to the following reasons:
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Improve Resource Management
How long each employee spends on a specific task indicates the amount of resources required. It identifies whether a department needs more or lesser staff to complete a task or who among the team delivers the greatest value. You can acquire all of this information from time-tracking tools.
When you understand where resource demand is the highest, you can improve your business’s resource management. This means you can easily determine whether you should hire additional staff for a specific department or assign another staff to another department.
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Enhance Productivity and Motivation
The right time-tracking tools significantly impact your employees’ productivity. These tools give high-performing employees peace of mind knowing that their efforts are recognized and will be compensated accordingly. It also keeps unproductive workers in check and allows you to determine these problems early.
This information helps you determine which employee lacks motivation at work or who isn’t producing the results you’re expecting. If you have sufficient resources, you can train these employees to instill the professionalism and discipline necessary to increase their productivity levels.
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Increase Accountability Among Employees
Time-tracking tools make your employees more focused because they know someone is monitoring the hours they spend on tasks. Because of this, employees will understand that the clock is ticking and, therefore, try to be as productive as possible during the day.
Through time-tracking tools, employees will also have access to information on the trends and patterns in their work hours during the week. This will encourage them to complete tasks with increased efficiency, minimize procrastination, and hold themselves accountable for the progress of each project assigned to them.
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Streamline Payroll
Issues in payroll are a common reason why employees quit. Receiving an incomplete salary or not receiving salary on time is a huge deal breaker for employees.
Using time-tracking tools is one of the best ways to streamline your payroll and improve your payroll process. Time-tracking tools automatically keep the time of your employees, which means that you don’t have to manually compute the number of days each employee worked to pay them. This ensures accuracy and reliability as information is free from errors.
With time-tracking tools, you can expect fewer rejected timesheets that often cause problems and delays in payroll processing. As a result, payroll is processed efficiently, and the salary of your employees are given on time.
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Greater Transparency Results in Better Client Relationships
Time-tracking tools don’t only benefit your business internally, but they also help you foster strong relationships with your clients. This is critical because the relationship you have with them can make or break their decision to continue working with you.
When you use time-tracking tools, you can present to your clients accurate data on how much work your business has completed. Your clients will see exactly how much they’re paying to your business and how much time your employees spend on the tasks that they give. Over time, this will make your business look trustworthy in the eyes of your clients as you are transparent with them.
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Make Data-Driven Decisions
Any decision you make pertaining to your business impacts its operations and longevity. One wrong decision can snowball into bigger problems, which can prevent your business from operating or providing high-quality products and services.
None of these will happen when you use time-tracking tools in your business. These tools generate useful and accurate data, which you can use to make better decisions. Still, deciding on who to promote? Check the productivity levels of your employees through time-tracking tools to determine who goes beyond the extra mile. Feel like a certain department is understaffed? Use time-tracking tools to assess how long the department completes a task.
Additionally, the data provided by time-tracking tools help you plan future activities. It enables you to determine problem areas, like bottlenecks, blockers, and time-wasters, and come up with decisions to correct or mitigate them.
Use Time-Tracking Tools ASAP
Start looking for the right time-tracking tools to use. The sooner you incorporate these tools into your business, the more rewards you’ll reap!