Time tracking is a great way to keep your work streamlined and save time on filling out timesheets. However, the greatest benefit of time tracking tools is increased productivity.
Accurate time tracking can help prevent the wastage of money and resources. The right time tracking apps when used correctly improve employee productivity by giving you more insight into how they work.
In this article, we see how time tracking impacts employee productivity. Let’s start.
How Time Tracking Impacts Employee Productivity
Time Tracking Balances Your Work
Time tracking impacts employee productivity positively. That’s because, with the right time tracking tool, you get an overview of where your team stands. It helps you see who’s working overtime, who completed their task before time, and who needs to spend a little more time on a task. Time tracking, therefore, results in high productivity because everyone supports each other to finish their work on time.
Always Keep Your Priorities Straight
Time tracking helps employees see where most of their time is spent. Employee time tracking apps show what you’re currently working on and for how long, and let you keep your priorities in check. You can see if you are actually working on your most important tasks and whether you dedicate enough time to them. This helps you keep your priorities straight.
Spend Your Time Well
When you’re tracking time, you’re actually seeing where it goes. So it gives employees an incentive to finish a task in its due time. Additionally, it helps them see how much time they typically spend on a task. This gives them more autonomy and ownership over their work. In this way, they are also aware of how much time they’ll need to spend on a future task.
Helps Your Prevent Multitasking
Sometimes in order to get more done, we start multitasking. Quickly switching focus from one thing to another is not a great idea because the cerebral cortex can only pay attention to only one thing at a time.
Research proves that multitasking can drain up to 40% of our productivity. Not only are they huge distractions but also cause context switching. With the right time tracking software, you’ll know where and how much time employees spend on a task and analyze if they’re constantly context switching.
Protection Against Burnout
Burnout due to overworking is one of the leading causes of lower productivity. Working intensely for extended periods can lead to disturbed sleep, stress, anxiety, and depression. When you block time in your calendar for specific tasks and stick to it, you reduce the chance of burning out.
Additionally, these tools help you distribute all your work evenly across the week by creating days of varying intensity and pressure. That in turn allows employees to work more effectively without overworking.
Helps You Take the Break You Deserve
Breaks during work are important. The right time tracking tool reminds employees to rest during work to prevent exhaustion. Not taking breaks is also another reason for low productivity.
Beat Procrastination Like a Pro
Sometimes not being able to prioritize can lead to procrastination, a huge productivity killer. This is where time tracking tools help you see how often you procrastinate and how long you spend on unproductive tasks.
These were a few ways in which time tracking impacts employee productivity positively.
Is there a negative impact on productivity? Let’s find out:
Time Tracking’s Negative Impact on Productivity
Effects Employee Morale
“Your employees sometimes feel like Big Brother is watching.” —Dan Quillen
When a time tracking tool is implemented, employees feel they’re being spied on. This ultimately affects their morale, their productivity and makes them feel you don’t trust them enough. Managers should therefore clearly communicate why they’re implementing a time tracking tool.
Nobody Likes Being Micromanaged
Employees fear nitpicking from their employers. With a time tracker measuring where every minute of their go, they start feeling micromanaged. This can be one reason employees may feel less productive. However, feedback based on their efficiency and their shortcomings may not be mistaken for micromanaging.
Wastage of Time and Money
Although time tracking solutions are meant to help you save time, they may sometimes do the opposite. This happens when you don’t use the right tool to track time or implement it wrongly. Not only does this reduce employee productivity but also wastes your time and money.
Reliability on the Time Tracking Tools
Using time tracking tools for all your tasks makes you rely on them. If the system goes down for a day, you might lose information on a crucial project. This in turn can have a massively detrimental effect on productivity.
The Bottom Line
Research shows that time tracking is a great way for you to improve your productivity and increase revenue. However, although time-tracking tools have incredible potential, they aren’t an all-in-one solution, nor are they guaranteed to have only positive effects. Ultimately it all comes down to using the right time tracking tool that helps boost employee productivity while implementing it correctly.
Meet AttendanceBot
If you’re looking for the right time tracking solution, meet AttendanceBot. It is an all-in-one solution to track time off, self-reported time tracking, shift planning, availability, and hot desking.
