How the Right Team Hours Tracking Tool Will Improve Your Business
Time tracking has many benefits, and you can use it for improving the productivity of your business. You can use a paper or spreadsheet to log time, but that isn’t the right way to do it. The efficient way would be to use time tracking software. Your information will be centrally stored on the time tracking software, you won’t have to enter data manually, and you will be able to utilize this data as business intelligence.
Benefits of Time Tracking for Your Business
Here are some benefits of team hours tracking.
1. Time Tracking Improves Your Productivity
Often, we fail to get the most out of our day simply because we lose track of time. You can identify potential time-wasters by tracking your hours. It will also help you understand how you spend your day. By using this knowledge and eliminating time wasters, you can improve productivity.
2. Time Tracking Helps in Identifying Areas requiring Improvement
Team hours tracking not only allows you to identify potential time-wasters but also allows you to pinpoint tasks which are taking too long for completion. This will help you in identifying the factors behind this lag, and you can work on them for your overall improvement.
3. You can Focus on a Single Task
You can be aware of the time increments by monitoring your time. And you only concentrate on one task because you want to log the correct time. Working on a single task with your whole concentration is important because studies show that productivity is negatively affected by multitasking.
The American Psychology Association recently conducted a study which concluded that switching between different tasks can reduce productivity by 40%. So, you can increase your productivity significantly by focusing on a single task at a time.
4. You can Track and Manage the Efficiency of Your Employees
Running a successful company means that you help your employees grow and assign them various responsibilities. You also need to encourage positive behaviors by promoting the right employees. You also need to discourage negative behaviors shown by any employees. The time tracking software provides you a lot of the relevant data for evaluation of your employees. Based on this, you can easily decide whom to promote and whom you need to work with on improvement. Hence, you will be able to build a capable team of reliable individuals.
What Should You Look for In Team Hours Tracking Software?
The answer to this question depends on your unique business needs and requirements. However, considering the following factors will help you in making your decision:
1. The ability to integrate with Outlook
Finding time tracking software which can integrate with Outlook will offer you several benefits. The two most important ones are:
A. Improving the efficiency of your business operations
By integrating Outlook time tracking into your daily operations, you can optimize and improve the efficiency of your business operations. The software will keep track of the timeframes of projects which are currently in the pipeline. It will also track the time of your employees. If the demands or deadlines for a project change, then you will be easily able to reschedule your work accordingly. It will allow you to make sure that your employees and clients won’t face any delays.
B. Effective management of resources
You can easily find the exact amount of your time spend on a certain project via Outlook time tracking. This will allow you to prioritize the projects which offer more value for your business. Hence, you will be able to assign relevant resources accordingly. This allows you to make sure that your resources are utilized in the best possible way and that you can effectively manage them. This will prevent any waste of money, time, or effort. You will be able to deliver quality projects to your clients by assigning your best people to the critical tasks when a project is important for your business.
2. The Capability to Track Time Against Projects and Clients
Tracking your time won’t be of much use unless you can synchronize it with your projects. So, you should look for a team hours tracking software which can track time against a certain project. You will then be able to see the actual time spent on the project, possibly divided by activities or users (or both). This will let you know if you are on track and if any corrections are needed.
3. The Ability to Track Your Entire Team
If your workflows are divided between different teams and various individuals are simultaneously working on a project, then the key to productivity is to manage their time. Your team hours tracking software must enable you to have shared visibility. This will allow you to understand where the issues are and what your team has completed. For instance, if a project is behind its deadline, then you can identify the reasons for this lag and find a solution for it.
4. Clear, At-a-Glance Overviews
If you want a general overview of where you are spending your time, and which clients or projects are taking most of your time, then you should look for a tool which provides quick summaries. These summaries and overviews will help you when you estimate time on particular project types, try to improve overall productivity or guide client conversations regarding the project’s scope.
5. The Ability to Improve Accuracy in Future Projects
Everyone knows that no two projects are the same. But the more you track your time, the more information you will have for obtaining accurate results in future projects. For instance, if you are required to develop a website for a client, then you can accurately develop this website by analyzing the performance of previous projects where you also developed a website.
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