Time is one of the most precious commodities. Yet, for many, it seems to always go quickly, and if you don’t take steps to make the best of it, it’s gone forever. However, not everyone can appreciate time. That’s why some people can check off multiple tasks before the sun rises, while others barely get their day started by noon. According to a Forbes.com analysis, “69% of people say that on most days, time flies by and they don’t track where they spend every minute or hour.” So, how do the other 31 percent maintain a balanced schedule and know where their time goes?
The main difference is good time tracking skills which is what we’re going to break down in this article. By the end, you’ll know what makes managing and tracking time such a critical part of employee and company success.
What Is Time Tracking and Why Is It So Important?
Time tracking is the active process of organizing, scheduling, and recording your tasks in effective and productive ways. If done right, you will be practicing the old adage “work smarter, not harder.” You’ll get more, better-quality work done with less time, stress, and effort.
Proper time tracking is one of the best skills to have in the workplace. It’s not only beneficial to the company’s bottom line; it’s also good for employees both personally and professionally. “According to time management expert Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, the secret is in time tracking. When we track our time, we realize that we might be spending time on activities with no value, rather than prioritizing projects important to our life goals.”
If there are people with poor time tracking and scheduling on your team or working for your company, you probably have experienced or will experience some of these common issues:
- Low-quality work
- Missed project deadlines
- An unprofessional environment
- A stressed workforce
- A poor company reputation
- Lost profits/revenue
- Poor work and life balance
- A team that procrastinates
This list only outlines a few of the potential downsides. It’s important that managers and leaders in the organization remember that they need to pay attention to employees’ performance, output, and workflow to make sure they are making the most out of the time they have in a workday.
The Benefits of Better Time Tracking in the Workplace
Now that we’ve gone over a definition of time tracking, let’s look at some of its benefits. There are many advantages you gain from implementing more effective time tracking programs in the workplace. Some of the key ones include:
A More Productive and Efficient Workplace
Strong time tracking skills make better employees, which, in turn, promote a more productive and efficient workplace. There won’t be time wasted on tasks and activities that don’t matter. The key is understanding which work assignments are most important and prioritizing them over insignificant ones.
Increased Employee Performance
One benefit that can’t be understated is the increase in performance that employees will see from good time tracking and management. As time goes on, they’ll learn where the strengths and weaknesses lie. They’ll come to understand how long it takes to do their work and become better planners.
Decreased Anxiety and Stress
Nobody likes feeling the pressure of a looming deadline. Stress and anxiety lowers overall productivity and work quality. What’s more, it can also have negative effects on employees’ mental and physical health. The effects of stress can include things like obesity, depression, hypertension, heart disease, and more. With good time tracking and better awareness of the projects that need to be completed, your staff can experience better job satisfaction from knowing the tasks at hand.
Work Gets Completed on Time
An obvious benefit of good time tracking is deadlines won’t be missed and work will be delivered on time. The best way to accomplish this is by placing tasks in specific time slots and giving yourself a set amount of time to get the task finished.
If you give yourself enough time, it will give you a cushion to deal with unexpected problems that may arise.
Less Employee Procrastination
Let’s face it, people are easily distracted, and even more so when they feel like they “have the time.” If there’s a clear and defined schedule with explicit goals and priorities, then people are less likely to procrastinate and get right to work. Furthermore, a set schedule will give you more control over your workflow.
Challenges of Poor Time Tracking and Time Keeping
Now that we’ve covered the importance of good time tracking, let’s look at some of the challenges that can arise from bad time tracking practices.
Less Employee Procrastination
One major problem that derives from a poor time tracking system involves issues when it comes time to pay your workers. This problem can find its way into your business by means of incorrect timesheets, missed punch-in/outs, simple typos, or other poor time-keeping methods that might cause the reports of time worked to be inaccurate. “This is why tracking in real time is important, and 46% of [Toggl Track] survey participants agree. Teams that track in real time report to saving 5x more than teams adding time manually – the way traditional timesheets are done.”
Time Theft
Another problem is time theft, which is when a company pays an employee for time they actually didn’t work. According to the American Society of Employers, roughly “20 percent of every dollar earned by a U.S company is lost to employee time theft. Sometimes, time theft is intentional and could be considered criminal depending on the damages. Other times, it’s unintentional and results from practices like rounding up the time card or miscounting altogether.
Wasted Resources and Labor
Poor time tracking also means managers and team leaders spend valuable hours keeping everyone on track. Additionally, using an outdated time tracking system also means people spend more time physically dealing with time cards or manually checking them to ensure accuracy. That’s time they could use elsewhere for the company.
Overtime Compliance Issues
Federal law dictates how overtime is paid and managed, and there can be dire consequences for violating these laws and regulations. It’s imperative the hours worked are tracked accurately.
Toggl: A Time-Tracking Solution for NetSuite Users
Luckily, most of the challenges mentioned above — and many that were not — are easy to avoid. Using a time-tracking solution such as a Toggl is a great place to start.
Toggl for NetSuite allows you to set up automatic timesheets, organize and manage tasks across your team, and even automate invoicing.
eXtendTech offers a direct Toggl to NetSuite integration that provides all the structure of NetSuite mapped into the structures of Toggl Track. Our integration then returns the favor by sending all the time entries back into perfectly organized time entries in NetSuite.
Designed to integrate time tracking functions across people and platforms, Toggl is already used by over 5 million customers. By actively associating users, projects, and timelines with NetSuite, you can make overtime compliance a snap, all while reducing wasted time, increasing schedule adherence, and generating simple, actionable time-use analytics that sync seamlessly with your records in NetSuite.
By integrating Toggl with NetSuite, you can now experience a new front in time-use planning and time tracking that offers comprehensive solutions for your NetSuite account, especially when you have multiple stakeholders and project domains to keep track of. While Toggl can’t create more time, it can ensure that the time you do have is spent (and tracked) in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
You can even set real-time or scheduled routines to capture Toggl time tracking activity in NetSuite and automatically produce fully completed timesheets. Simply put, no more manual timesheet entries!
If your organization would like to discuss how Toggl could be the perfect time tracking solution for you and your NetSuite account, we would love to have a conversation to help you seamlessly integrate Toggl into your daily work needs.
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