Self-employed, side hustlers, or founders with no employers also known as Freelancers, go by all these aliases. And they are present in numbers around the world. It is predicted that the major workforce in the UK and US will be freelancing by 2027. In 2019 alone 39% surge in freelancers was recorded in the UK. … Continue reading Is Staff Timer App the One Tool Missing from your Freelancers Inventory?
Self-employed, side hustlers, or founders with no employers also known as Freelancers, go by all these aliases. And they are present in numbers around the world. It is predicted that the major workforce in the UK and US will be freelancing by 2027. In 2019 alone 39% surge in freelancers was recorded in the UK.
There has always been a question for opting freelancing as a permanent source of income or should only be opted as a side income. The Fiverr and Upwork Union, however, disagrees with this proposition, they claim that freelancers consider themselves safe as compared to people working on day jobs.
So since one thing is established pretty much that freelancing is permanent and not going away anytime sooner, that is if it goes away. Since this being a permanent situation and companies now opting to hire remote help freelancers are in for a ride. With freelancing being very profitable there are still cons attached to it and freelancers often end up on the wrong side of deals. So here are our prospects that will tell you why Staff Timer App is essential in a freelancers war chest:
Payroll for freelancers
Let’s talk about the biggest hassle in a freelancer’s life: payment and service charges. There never seems to be an agreement of charges and services more than often employers change the terms of payments and many more.
Staff Timer App provides an innovative solution to this very common predicament. Payroll allows you to fix the payment per hour. This saves time and gives your employer a fair idea of expenses. This rules out any miscommunications between you and your employer who hired you for the job.
Make yourself productive
Mostly freelancing requires you to work at odd times an hour before sunrise 2 hours past midnight. There are no timings, the client requires results and they want it quick or they are moving on. So you need to be on your toes at all times. Regardless of the fact that if you have not seen your bedside for 48 hours, the deadline matters and must be met at all costs.
Time tracking is a feature that allows you to track not only your time. But also your progress over the said task, coupled with a payroll feature, your hard work will not go unobserved.
Working 10 hours a day is something admirable but not something you should be looking to do constantly. For you to be productive and meeting deadlines your day needs to be planned and divided professionally. Spending too much time looking for music is not productive.
Manage several projects at your fingertips
Freelancers seldom spend some free time, they always have something on their plate. Their day is divided into servicing clients of different sectors. It becomes hazardous at times and messing up the final product is never too far away.
With Staff Time App you can manage projects by adding them in the app and you will never be lost with data. You can add as many projects as you want and keep the data separated. This simple tool can change the way you function and make your work a whole lot easy.
So now never get stuck with a project and reject others because you cannot manage, with the Staff Timer App you can manage everything.
Meet deadlines effectively
Managing deadlines over deadlines are something that everyone struggles with. Freelancers or Side Hustlers as 14% of the self-employed youth likes to call themselves, have real issues with meeting deadlines. It can sour an entire process if deadlines are not met. The client will not return which is an unhealthy habit.
You can mark the deadline while creating a task with the Staff Timer App. This will help you keep up with your work and be done before the deadline. Hence your clients won’t be leaving you for a long long time.
Create your own team of freelancers
A real innovative feature of the Staff Timer App allows you to work in a team and form an entirely new team. So from freelancing, you can expand your horizons with StaffTimer App and start your own company providing services to clients. This will help you expand your affluence and you can become the top draw of the industry for anyone looking to get something done.
So these are a few pointers on how you if you are working as part of the $1 Trillion Dollar industry also known as freelancing, can get the maximum out of a management app. So for you to take the next big step in your career it is essential that you have a tool that can help you in your endeavors. Staff Timer can certainly push you that extra mile you have been lacking.
All along our professional lives, we have been pushing to explore and expand our skills. Every guru and ted talk experts talk about developing our skills and Life-Hacks. Which under the circumstances is not bad advice, enhancing skills makes your portfolio diverse. This only helps you build a confident outlook and more likely to grab more and more clients.
However, there is always a clever hack. Remember back in business school or in graduation, when everyone in the cafe used to talk about only one thing: skills, skills, and skill development. The gist of the story is that as long as you have the right skill or better yet the required skill, you will be earning a big buck. This is not entirely untrue but the fact is there are jobs and ways that can help you earn without having any true or real skill.
All you have to do is to know for fact those ways that can help you earn a big buck while not being special at anything, this doesn’t mean that you would not need to expand your profile at any time. All of us need to realize that making money from home is not an issue even though you might be skilled as a novice.
Here are a few hacks that can help you in your pursuit of happiness:
Blogging
So most people who are working on the blog are either expressing their creativity or their views on some matter. Blogging doesn’t require any real skills other than making a sentence and pretty much everyone can do that these days owing to social media.
So how do you earn from a blog that is a question? Many blogs hire freelancers to write a blog post or do a special piece, but since you are neither a top-notch freelancer nor a big writer. However, there are several ways you can start your own blogs. Simply go to WIX, or write for a blog simply by signing up to Fiverr and start earning money through freelance work.
Here is how you can earn money from starting a blog or writing a blog. Writing a blog needs nothing more than a general sense of a topic and some general knowledge this is where Google comes in handy. As they say “Google is my best friend” let’s put the friend to a test. Google has almost everything. So if you have just a knack of research you can get paid per word and keep doing it over and again would certainly improve your writing style.
The other way to earn through blogging is by a lot of writers who have earned a fortune from writing on blogs to becoming multi-million companies such as the Huffington Post. Once acquiring a good enough audience the next step is to start running paid advertising and reviews and all you have to do for this is: to be able to write a good enough passage that would make sense.
Choose a broad enough topic like Health, Finances, Culture, and so forth. After you have built a reasonable readership or earned their trust, you are ready for the next step.
So no real skills required other than working on google docs or simple MS Word.
Content Marketing
This one here is a really nice one and in a morbid way we should be thanking the pandemic for this. Owing to a nice and reasonable boom in social media marketing and the pandemic which has flooded millions and billions of data into the system, Content marketing is something that you can do easily.
What is content marketing as the name portrays “content” and “marketing” it means to market or sell the content, but you are not actually selling it. You are merely selling a product through your content. Got lost? Here is how it works if you are a freelancer you will be writing articles and blogs for several products, An average freelance writer gets paid around $5,000 a month and that’s just the start. All you need to do is to be creative now. This is not that hard trust me on this
I know what you are thinking, what if you are not creative? The answer is simple: keep reading the blog.
Become the middleman
Now thanks to Hollywood you might think it as a bad thing to do, but trust me this is no El-Dorado all it requires is know-how. You don’t even have to be creative. All you have to do is make the client meet the service provider and you get the commission or fees of your advising. So if someone needs a good enough real-estate dealer and you know one or two you get them to meet and become the host.
So you are basically working as a consultant and basically this what the consultancy firms do. There are several companies asking for remote workers who could work as affiliates or can be a source of Referral they pay a certain percentage if you could bring them a client it is really easy and effective.
No real skill, just hustle.
Freelance
Freelance is a business that will never go out of demand. The smart move would be to a part of this never-ending industry. Freelancing is the fastest growing industry only in the UK 4.8 million people are self-employed or freelancers. There is one thing for sure that it will only grow due to the remote working phenomena now becoming the new normal.
Freelancing allows you a unique way of earning money on your own terms, you don’t need the next “Guy Ritchie” to land a new project. A freelancer is more likely to get work in 24 hours as compared to another employee. With automated payroll now a reality it makes your life easy and payments don’t really stop.
Just make an account with Fiver or Upwork and start working, not only this you can provide your services through the conventional social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. A regular graduate can obviously do a school assignment of the 8th grader and with online assignments now in full swings, you can easily work and get paid.
You can always join groups on Facebook and other social media outlets that post regular gigs. Linkedin is another good source to get work without having to deal with a lot of codes, just connect with the right person and start working
Reviews
This is another way to earn money without having some real skill or anything, product review, and comparison writing. This is the best thing you can do on your own social media accounts. People are quite attracted to controversial reviews, especially on social media. There is nothing wrong with providing people with material that they want to read, obviously the content shouldn’t be abusive.
For your content to break the barrier it must be good or controversial enough to be recognized by everyone. The first few reviews might even be free but you will never be a long way off from actually getting paid for it. Instagram and IGTV can help you a lot getting your content viral constant re-shares eventually gets you noticed.
Product reviews or comparisons will never be out of fashion and out of demand.
Making money online
This really does not require any skill or special tools, all you need is enough time to actually make it happen. There are several ways to earn money from home and get your life moving. There are so many ways to do that, read through the list again you really don’t have to travel anywhere. So all of these solutions are actually a smart way to say them.
Conclusion
Skills and money-making walk hand in hand, however, skills are by no way prerequisite of having a good payday. All you need is a smart way to get paid, there are many ways to get paid through the home.
The smartest way is to remain active online, keep searching for solutions and projects that make you feel comfortable. There is no way that in this day and age you cannot find work if you have access to a mobile phone or internet and a computer you can make a good payday from anywhere in the world. All you need is good enough conviction and you are ready to get paid and be a part of the productive population.
“Time is of the essence” a famous enough line used in puns, movies, and even on serious occasions. The origin of which is hardly known but it gives away the message. Have you ever thought that if someway you could record every minute and hour of the day? It will not only give you a heads up for the next day but also provide you with an analysis of how you spent your day. Like how much time you were staring at your phone or working or checking out Jennifer Lawrence on google. This is where timesheets come in hand.
What exactly are timesheets, why does one need timesheets, what do they do? All these are common queries regarding this useful piece of paper. To understand the concept behind the timesheet one needs to look no further but just look closely at the word. It is made up of two words “time” and “sheets”, much easier isn’t it.
So we have reached the conclusion that timesheet records time of the individual, weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, or however one wishes to record. This little tool is a real hornet’s nest when it comes to maintenance, but we will get to that later.
The Medieval Way of Timing?
Now even in modern-day recording, every day’s effort is an essential thing, to begin with. It gives you a clear idea of what the employee has been up to if he or she has been getting off early or is putting in extra work. For an employer, it is nothing less than a necessity as they know which of their employees deserve a raise or should be promoted.
So to mainstream employee effort, it is necessary to have this tool. It keeps the connection between employer and employee honest and rewards the incumbent for the extra effort. So you won’t have to go around asking about Mr. Dev Patel’s progress last month you would have it right in front of you.
The Hornet’s Nest
Now the title might be a little misleading as, but it truly represents the issues with recording a timesheet. Timesheets have the recorded data of each employee for each day they have worked. Now imagine this, that you have to do it by hand, yes or hire a person just for the entries, nothing less than a hassle isn’t it?
This is also one of the reasons organizations have moved to a much expensive biometric system which not only counts attendance but also the entry and exit time giving a good idea about the working hour.
So from one hassle, the bigger organizations have moved to a far more expensive solution, now with remote working both of these solutions can be rendered useless. So what to do now?
According to a study, 80% of the employee timesheets need to be corrected as they are poorly maintained.
Life Made Simpler
Like so many other complex issues there is always a simpler solution and a nonexpensive one too. Staff Timer App offers a simple solution to this predicament, with its automated timesheets feature now you won’t have to manually fill in boxes for overtime. Whenever the user logs in the timesheet will start recording the time for the day in an hourly manner, so you can have a look at the employee’s work hours and how he or she is spending that time in the form of a CSV sheet.
Now couple this feature with other features of the App like real-time monitoring, payrolls, attendance, and daily work videos, now you have an entire record of every employee and you can make effective and smart decisions.
There is a lot of things that timesheets can help with
It helps in reducing or mitigating the time wastage, with a detailed description and division of the person’s work so it mitigates time wastage form both the employee and employer who otherwise would’ve spent hours checking the stuff.
Billing accuracy is another advantage often looked over by people when they discuss timesheets since Staff Timer App is already integrated with the payroll feature having timesheets only reaffirms the billing accuracy.
Equal working hours is a premise with which timesheets are actually working. There are no more hidden hours being spent up by the employee this not only provides equal opportunity to everyone but also it is effective with data security.
How to View Timesheets in the Staff Timer App
Viewing timesheets in Staff Timer App is perhaps the easiest thing you will ever do in your entire working career, and here is how you can do it:
Click on the ‘Reports’ in the top navigation bar
In the reports section, click on ‘Timesheets’
In the sort and filter group, apply filters to check out the data based on
designation, total hours, progress, date, and/or members
Find Color highlights right below the sort & filter section to see the standard working hours in a day
A four-step guide to using this innovative feature.
Conclusion
Timesheets might be looked upon as a thing of the past, but the truth is contrasting. Timesheets are actually very helpful however recording them manually or asking the employee to do that themselves is no less of a job. An automated timesheet is also a great tool of transparency between employer and employee, a recent study revealed a shocking fact: at least 10% of business owners take time off the employee timesheet which costs the employee $14,00 to $6000 per annum this sums up to around $22 billion. So in all essence, it is important for everyone to track attendance.
Stafftimer app presents a unique package of having all the business necessities in a single app so that the user won’t have to switch for every minor demand. The App being user friendly doesn’t require you to be tech-savvy to work it.
Families nowadays have grown apart amid pandemic where we thought lockdown will help us bond better with our family; it really has not happened. We spend most of our days on laptops or smartphones. Children are invested in gaming and their limited activities are affecting their health similarly is the case with parents.
Consol-less gaming is gaining attention and is getting good enough traction. A study revealed that 44% of gamers globally would subscribe to an online game every 6 out of 15 teenagers exhibit behavior that can be described as addiction in the video game genre. This addiction might not be considered as dangerous as hash or weed but it still is. Video game addiction can cause social isolation, anxiety, frustration leading to anger.
Comparing this to the industry itself independent research dictates that in 2020 alone the gaming industry in the US alone amasses $18,194 million. The annual revenue, however, is reported to increase in the US by 1.0% which would add up and project a total of $18,197m by 2024.
So the usage of online gaming is expected to only increase. The growth compared by the annual increment of a percent shows that it will only increase. Looking at the perceptive dangers of online gaming many countries have decided to ban online games owing to complaints.
Another aspect of this multidimensional issue is the propagation of a sedentary lifestyle among teenagers which is growing rapidly all over the globe.
“Excess of everything is bad”
A famous quote calls for limited usage and limited excess, and for a fact excess of something is bad for health, personality, and everything else you can think of.
One of these famous online games is the ever famous PUBG or Player Unknown Battle Ground.
Launched in 2017 March 23, it became a pandemic. After amassing around $26 million in revenue it became the biggest and most visited and played games around April. These numbers are enough to get a strong idea of the impact it has had on the global culture.
However, only recently many countries moved against the online game calling it “violent” especially China, and banned the game. PUBG has been banned in India, Nepal, China, Pakistan, and Iraq, even recently in Jordan.
The UK however never banned the console-less game, whereas the number of games banned by the UK is no less either Carmageddon, Manhunt 2, and The Punisher were banned for being too violent. These games were afterward released in censored versions. Prince Harry, the millennial prince himself, has been calling for a ban on Fortnite as it is “irresponsible”.
So in a manner of speaking there seems to be some similarities regarding the concerns nations have over video games or activities their youth is involved in.
These countries have done this on the wish of their telecommuting authority after receiving complaints regarding it. There are however a few contributing factors to the ban or proposed ban of a game in the country:
Addiction
It is no secret that a game that has no end is addictive in its nature. This leads to a phenomenon called Game Addiction which is a serious issue for teenagers in current times. Addiction can be foreseen if any of the symptoms are present in the person:
Feeling bad about not being able to play: the gamer often resents the idea of not playing the game
Thinking about the game all the time: the gamer will keep on repeating the scenarios of the game and there would be a serious lack of focus and slack in performing normal functions during the day
Projecting moods on the game: this is a common trait amongst teenagers with video game addiction, they project their feelings on the game, show extreme anger or play to feel better.
These are a few traits that can easily tell you if your child is experiencing game addiction or not. It is estimated that 1% to 9% of all gamers irrespective of ages are viable.
Violence
Another reason for countries to be banning PUBG or any other games of the same traits is the use of excessive violence. Business Today reported the reason for a strong ban of PUBG in India for being: violent and low grades for students. Continuous use of such games develops a behavior in teenagers when they act according to these behaviors and develop traits.
Whereas PUBG specifically had been under scrutiny for being a violent game and these bans do confirm suspicions. However, after a short period, the game was unbanned.
It must be noted that showcasing violence has been attributed to video games for a long time. From blaming NWA for violence now we have started blaming the video games.
Health issues
A sedentary lifestyle is becoming a common trait and it is becoming increasingly common among teenagers. The lack of activity has pushed people towards obesity which is one of the largest reasons for heart disease. Constant stress situations while gaming leads to weak mental health making one vulnerable to anxiety and depression. A person becomes socially in-active and isolated which further leads to depression and all sorts of mental health issues.
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”
A student’s life is an interesting time in a person’s life. It is riddled with questions, distractions, and books. Mostly we don’t associate healthy life with mental health. Mental health and a balanced life walk hand in hand. For a student to be effective in their life they must to resort to a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Overwork and negating personal needs for mere exams and assignments are commendable but something that is not advisable for the sake of your health.
Time management
The second step is to manage the time accordingly. 16 hours of the study shows tremendous stamina but has a lasting effect on your mental health and also on your health. Divide time for each subject or assignment, divide assignments also on the basis of importance so you have ample time for yourself and co-curricular activities.
Set goals
Remember the easiest way to feel accomplished this season is to set up minor goals that are achievable and do-able. Do not set overly ambitious goals like finish an entire subject in a day, take things slowly and achieve little goals you set. This will give you a sense of accomplishment and makes you feel good about yourself. Which is essential for self-confidence.
Now we cannot go all out against games now, can we? Here is another interesting situation where the Staff Timer App can help you get a grip of the situation, grounding kids and shutting off their internet is not the solution. It will only rekindle the rebellion in them so with the Staff Timer App you can monitor the amount of game time they have, maybe start to restrict and cut it down by 45 minutes, and so on and so forth. This way you will be controlling the screen time and the kid won’t feel a need to “relapse”.
Payroll and gaming industry
Simply with a payroll feature you can make your hours worth it, all around the world millions of people play for teams and participate in tournaments like the DOTA, Fortnite, and many more. If you really are going to play a game for someone one at least make it worth your while.
Staff Timer App allows you to set an hourly payroll now even if you are spending 12 hours a day in the “virtual kill land” you are at least getting paid. So maybe just maybe if you have a good enough team you might be the next PewDiePie or the Tom Syndicate. Who knows?
Helping parents battling addiction and sedentary lifestyle
Most people think about how not to interfere in the lives of children. This is, however, the wrong approach a child needs protection and requires constant communication for you to be able to understand how he or she feels one must interfere in their matters and take interest otherwise they will fall in a conundrum of self-doubt. Parents at all costs must eradicate this self-doubt and preserve self-confidence by empowering them and trusting them.
Time tracking
Another addition to your inventory would be the time tracking, you can track the screen time of your children. Giving you an exact idea of how much time they spent upon that Physics homework that is due tomorrow. Or are they spending too much time playing games. Once you have an entire day planned a time table is made, all the child has to do is follow it and the Staff Timer App will help the kid fulfill his or her duties.
Screenshots
Taking screenshots every minute or after several intervals will allow you to see if your children are browsing unnecessary stuff or are they actually researching. This will help build trust between parents and children. Also, it will also give you a clear idea of your kid’s company and their activities online, you will know when they are being bullied online or are being abused and you can take the required action.
These are a few solutions that can help you battle video game addiction taking up our youth and teenagers rapidly. These measures are not only affordable but also practical. Now you won’t have to go through last week’s “browsing history” of your child to see why he or she failed the maths test. So get staff timer for free for fifteen days and keep your child safe from scams, spams, and video game addiction.
Human civilizations have made an incredible journey from the barter system to bit-coin, one can only marvel over this journey. It cannot be ignored that this journey over the course of centuries has been made by one and only one motivation and that is to integrate technology into everyday business and life.
Business and technology have evolved from paper to sheets and from sheets to automated systems. This has also not changed overnight; it has been a constant effort with one goal to provide maximum utility to not only the client but also the service provider. It is only fair to provide easy solutions to customers which would otherwise take hours or even days.
So in this article, we will explore the impacts automated payrolls will have on our business, but first we need to understand what a payroll actually is?
What is Payroll?
Remember, back in 7th grade summer holidays when we used to work for the local comic book store getting paid enough to buy an ice cream on the way back and putting the rest in savings?
Remember that, yea same concept but a lot of money involved, freelancers and even employees nowadays are too informed to be misled on payments. Payroll basically is the agreement of payment per hour. It is an agreement through which an employee works for an employer.
The Grey Area with Payroll
Now we know what actually is payroll, so why do we need an automated system for payroll processing? The reason for this is that there are a lot of grey areas associated with payrolls from social inhibitions to unclear contracts that need to be addressed and an automated payroll can solve a lot of headaches.
According to a recent study, it was revealed that every woman makes $0.98 for every $1 a man makes; this might not be a big number, however, with payment by hour a woman is losing $0.02 for every dollar she makes for an hour.
These figures alone are enough to uncover the glass ceiling that “high-jacks” businesses. So an automated payroll addresses this issue and it is no secret that equal pay is not an incentive but a right. Now, this was one of the examples of social restraints that automated payroll not only challenges but also provides a practical solution.
Now let’s jump to another employee who is often unhappy with their agreed fees and payroll is a great way to provide facts. Automated payrolls provide reports so everything is recorded and the apple of discord between teams is dead.
Manual data extraction requires a lot of time. It is tedious and strenuous, a combination that no one wants in their life.
What Does Automated Payroll Bring to the Table?
So in an era where time and task tracking or employee monitoring apps are the part of the industry now and with remote working in effect. It really makes no sense to not have an automated payroll system because manual payrolls are much prone to mistakes and are a tedious process.
For employees that are to be paid by the hour. Automated payroll makes life easier for both the employer and the employee as it mitigates any mistakes while preparing the payslips.
Freelancers are in for a huge relief, no more fighting over project prices, and an automated payroll will only help freelancers. They can focus on their work without being worried about total payment.
Collecting data, this is perhaps the most arduous task in the history of finances. The data coming in is not in any single format, converting that data into a readable format is one thing, and classifying it is another. Automated payroll really takes away the pain in data collection and everything associated with it.
There is another blessing in disguise for this automation, no more spending days checking the spreadsheets against the name to validate the data. In short everything strenuous associated with data validation, collection, and payment release has been reduced to knot.
American payroll association reports that automated payroll reduces cost on payroll processing to no less than 80%, staggering it means it is almost free. This shows the efficiency of the system coupled with the cost reduction and every smart business owner would want that to happen.
Staff Timer App is Ahead of its Time
Now that we have an idea regarding the uses and benefits of payroll automation, guess where it is available? Yes! Staff Timer App aims to become not only user friendly but also to share the burden of the organizations that are overrun with data.
Now with the automated payroll feature, your finance department can take a breather and your efficiency will only increase. Payroll reports are also included. They provide detailed reports not only individually but also collectively. So you remain on top of any issues that may arise from payments and pay agreements.
How to set payroll in your Staff Timer App account?
It is really simple to set the hourly rate in for an employee in the Staff Timer App all you have to do is follow these little steps and your payroll related issues are all wiped from the face of the earth:
Click on the ‘Team Members’ tab in the top navigation bar.
Click on the calendar icon displayed on the panel with the name of the team member.
Add hourly rate and click ‘update’.
A simple three-step process that can save you no less than 3 hours at the end of each month. So quit waiting and get the Staff Timer App and make your life easier.
Staff Timer App Automated Payroll Reports
So payroll integrated with the Staff Timer App is a real innovative thing there is a whole lot you can do with it. You can simply go to the ‘Reports’ section of your account back office and see complete payroll reports. Reports can help:
Get the exact billable hours for each employee separately and mitigate all payment related issues. Save precious minutes that you would otherwise spend on making payment sheets.
Automated payroll for freelancers and outsourcing is a really handy tool, you don’t have to keep on checking them for work and you don’t have to pay extra either. The hourly rate only comes in when the member is logged in the app. So a person working with another company will not hustle you for payment.
Now with the automated payroll feature our finance department won’t have to go through lengthy summaries and sheets to see the annual increment or collecting detailed reports, with Staff Timer App you can get a detailed report of the Payroll. So instead of manually updating everything, you will have a complete automated record of the employee or employees. It really does streamline a lot of grey areas in finances.
The Bottom Line
A study by a Hackett group found out that about 90% of the companies have paperless automation, which means a mere handful are left. It is not beyond imagination that the idea of automation may feel intimidating at first because it includes a lot of factors that a layman is not fully capable of understanding. However, stats disagree and provide only positive factors which include cost reduction and easy data extraction.
It is always wise to move with the era, you cannot keep on maintaining log sheets and pay registrars in 2020 when everything is increasingly becoming automated, it is only right that you also move in the same direction as the rest of the world.
The general discussion regarding a monitoring app is usually negative. Employees consider this as a breach in privacy, interestingly, however, 64% of employees say that they visit social media sites during work. It only gets interesting from here on. Out of the 64%, 29% claim to spend about an hour or less on it. Keeping in view these stats a task-tracking app should always be the first on the checklist to be acquired.
Every industry has a few essentials to function properly. Staff Timer App is essential for all the industries that you can think of, even freelancers. However, in this blog we will be pointing out a few factors why it is crucial to have the Staff Timer App in your inventory while you establish your first software house and start your dream journey.
Before jumping straight into facts, let’s rewind a little where we were still at offices enjoying the office life seems like prehistoric times now. In that era, you might feel like it is an extravagance to employ an app that keeps your life’s work safe, risky, but understandable.
Now let’s start with an actual discussion that why is it necessary to have Staff Timer App apart from the obvious reasons so let’s start:
Transparency
Since the start of the pandemic according to a survey, 60% of the workers that transitioned from office to home reported better work-life balance. Let’s resort to the very first stat we posted about the number of employees that visit social media sites for recreation in an office demanding a strict eye for the sake of better working. This is a clear indication of time-wasting and turbulent productivity.
To counter this behavior it is better to have a solution that keeps tracks of employee’s tasks all the while calculating the idle and total worked hours. Staff Timer App provides you with the opportunity to do exactly that, equipped with Real-time monitoring. Now you can see what your employee is up to and how much time they spend upon each task.
Data Breach Cessation
Data is the “Achilles heel” of any software house and consequently the industry. It must be protected at all cost no matter what. U.S Department of Justice defines a data breach as: “loss of control, compromise, unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized acquisition, access for an unauthorised purpose, or other unauthorized access to data, whether physical or electronic.
According to a survey, the average cost of data breaches globally is $3.9 Billion (IBM).
It only gets worse from here on CSIS in 2018 reported that nearly 1% of the total global GDP of $600 billion are lost to cybercrime.
In these times the importance of employee monitoring cannot be ignored, coupled with live screen monitoring makes your data a whole lot safer than it was. This little inexpensive solution can save millions and billions of fines paid under the data breach rules. Staff Timer App allows the employer to access the employee screens in real-time, meaning no more hiding any secrets and putting an end to a data breach.
No more Freelance Hustling
Most of the resources working with software houses are remote, amid pandemic it is a norm now. During 2019 $1 trillion came solely from freelancers into the US economy. This stat alone is enough to show that big industries are dependent upon freelancers for getting jobs done.
With hiring freelancers come the process of hustling, freelancers usually charge by the hour but a way to count those hours is indeed a necessity to keep some sense of transparency.
Developers alone charge $15-$50 per hour while freelancing.
Staff Timer App is the solution you need with its billable hours and task tracking mechanism, the app not only counts total hours worked but also calculates idle time. Hence you will only be paying for worked hours, not for idle hours, consequently monitoring progress at all times.
Primary Solution
This is a simple one! Ever since the world has been engulfed in the pandemic, major businesses have moved remotely or are permanently moving remotely. A survey claims that about 5 million people in the US already work from home. Also that the number of remote workers has improved massively and is close to 40%.
Keeping this in mind it is not entirely beside the point that some of the companies or software houses permanently go remote. Going remote is not only a smart choice but the choice that needs to be made owing to the plight of our environment.
Staff Timer App encourages and advocates remote working for more than one reason. 86% of the employees suggest that they work better when they are alone, hence remote work is the future. With technological advancements and tools now readily available a home office is easy to set up, it cuts off cost and is environment friendly.
Project Safety
Software houses are working simultaneously on projects with most of the time a limited number of resources. The threat of a colossal mess-up is never far away. Mismanagement is a disease that most of the software houses are infected with.
This is where the Staff Timer App comes in handy, it allows you to work on different projects at the same time and assign different people to a specific project and a task. So your team never misses a detail and you don’t end up with too much to do.
Assign tasks and projects, make a team lead, and view reports daily or even hourly. Staff Timer App allows you to do all this at a very affordable price.
The Bottom Line
The software industry is a growing industry. It will hardly ever reach a slump as long as people are working and they need solutions. A software house will always be the cornerstone of any advancement.
Only in 2018, the software industry contributed $456.1 billion in the US economy which is expected to increase to $507.2 billion by 2021. Whereas in Europe it could only mount up to $114.5 billion which will also increase to around $127.4 billion by 2021, showing healthy and consistent growth in the market.
Staff Timer App is essential for any industry and especially the software industry with simple and practical solutions. It allows you to go remote, save billions, make data secure, and multitasking possible in such strenuous times. Pandemic will pass but what we need to understand is that remote working is the absolute future.
The world’s environment has somehow become better. There is a total of 25 drops in CO2 emissions, however, this only totals to 1% of the annual decrease in the emission. What we need to understand is that there globally we can work from home and we have for the past 7 months. With Staff Timer App this remote working can be made exceptionally easy and a norm.
The best way to solve a problem is to trace it back to its origin, you would agree, right? So the loss of focus amid work from home situation is a problem, but to trace it back to its origin might not be as simple as Brad Pitt’s WorldwarZ script, we will still give it a go.
Let’s go over a few things that have happened during this pandemic, apart from an uncontrollable hike in the virus, we have seen major industry shutting down and remote work taking its place becoming the new normal.
Before the entire industry migrated to remote working, 38% of the total American companies were still using punching machines for attendance. With this “new normal” came new issues for the employer and for the employee subsequently. One of these issues was a distraction that sub-divided amongst many other hurdles workers were facing while continuing work from home. So before we move further let’s just do a recap or a re-visit to a few popular issues faced by employees and employers while pursuing remote working:
Distractions are real
According to a study carried out in 2018 about 34% of the employees use social media in order to relax during work. Whereas 51.4% of companies do allow social media usage in their offices.
The mother of all issues while remote working is: inevitable distractions. Keep in mind it is not only the kids or pets, but it is also everything and everyone you have in your surrounding that is essentially disturbing. Including smartphones and social media, which contribute the greatest towards distractions, all the apps we have that we use contributes to distracting us from our real tasks and there really is no shame in admitting it.
The Lazy highness
This here is an issue related especially to being locked down in houses and not being able to leave, the more we stay indoors the lazier we become. What happens when we become lazy? We lose creativity, we start finding shortcuts and we plagiarize stuff which ultimately gets us caught. But that’s for another topic, let’s stick with the former: loss of productivity.
Loss of productivity
Now we have already traced the reason for productivity, and we find laziness a big contributor to it. Loss of productivity refers to the inability to do simple tasks efficiently and important tasks with care. This situation breeds frustration and anxiety.
Burnout incoming
Oh yes, this is important, running on full cylinders and exhausting routines do eventually cause burnout. The simple reason for this is turbulent mental health.
While working from home anxiety and frustration can creep up sometimes due to pressure other times due to a monotonous routine and never-ending work. These two symptoms piling up are detrimental to mental health, couple this with lack of communication with the office, and voila you have yourself a dose of potent burnout.
Wake up already!
Sleeping at 3 waking up at 3, a common issue these days. Sleepless nights and sleepy days eat up productivity and creativity making you nothing more than typing zombies. So no sleep at night can be considered as the core issue for all other issues to take place.
Less or no sleep means the body is tired; the recuperating time of a body normally is 8 hours, which is also the amount of sleep a person needs, coincidence I think not. So no sleep means, starting the day late, inviting pressure from peers, going through tasks rapidly with no real conviction and just getting stuff done. Repetition of this cycle can and will cause burnout.
So after going through the previous predicament, we can establish a course of action for the future that would help not only you but people around you dealing with similar issues all the while enhancing your productivity and bringing the positive vibe back in your life. A brief introduction of the common factors impacting performance and focus during remote working, let’s get to the point of dealing with them one by one.
It is important to notice a few pointers regarding remote working before we further explain how Staff Timer App is exactly what you need. During this Pandemic 39%, fewer people globally visited their offices making remote work inevitable. So for you to get your focus back on track here are some pointers from the best remote working solution: Staff Timer App.
Go to sleep
According to the sleep association in the USA, they report 37.09% of 60 million Adults, with sleeping disorders, report unintentional falling to sleep during the day. It only gets dangerous from here on, 4.09% of that population reported falling asleep or dozing off behind the wheels.
Remember the lullaby back when we were toddlers, go to sleep, we need that right now. Remember your entire life depends upon how you spend your night, no puns, so try sleeping on time. The reason for that is you need a full 8 hours sleep to function normally and at full capacity. Also when you spend your entire day staring at your screen it is better to give your eyes rest because 10 hours of screen time is by no means a healthy habit.
Eat healthily
Now before we enter the tech and other areas of the discussion it is essential that one keeps full track of their health, being at home puts us at an extra advantage that we often take for granted, we have “food at home”. Yes so say goodbye to the oily chicken burgers from the office cafe. Eating healthy food, fruits and nuts are essential for enhancing brain activity Vitamin C, B3, B6, and B12 are an absolute necessity to increase focus and there is only one way you get this in abundance, fruits, and nuts. So eat healthily
Now here we are to the technical aspect of the discussion where we uncover simple tools that can help you focus and push your burnout farther ahead and keep you fresh Staff Timer App here is how simply an app can keep you focused and keep you fresh and take care of all your worries regarding work and productivity.
Distraction disabled
Since the pandemic struck us down 88% of the companies have encouraged their employees to work from home or remotely. Whereas in contrast prior to the pandemic 3.4% of the U.S population works remotely already.
The first and foremost issue we uncovered was the advent of countless distractions ever since we’ve moved to remote working, now how do you disable them? The answer is simple, staff Timer App: it calculates the total hours worked minus the idle time. This feature keeps the user on toes regarding idle time and also keeps him or her away from social media apps and other distractions.
The other efficient way to deal with this is to choose a workplace that has less or no distraction, no TV work beside a landline you are already logged into the Staff Timer App you don’t need a smartphone for communication.
Break the habit
Quit taking breaks after every twenty minutes of writing an application or blog. The best way to deal with it is by taking a regular break during the work for an hour or an hour and a half. In this hour you can carry on with everything you have a habit of, jump on the couch, watch TV or scroll through your feed, have lunch, relax in this time and continue working afterward it will freshen up your perspective and give new ideas.
Never ignore the need for a break. It is important not only for you but also for people around you all that pent up frustration and anxiety needs to be let go of to get a focus on the task at hand.
Run baby run!
Prior to any ideas that you get reading this, it is just to capture attention. Exercise is the key to focus and self-discipline and both these qualities walk hand in hand. Exercise keeps your body healthy and minds fresh, how so? There is an entire science behind this. When we exert ourselves in certain or exercise we increase the intake of oxygen hence increasing the run of oxygenated blood from lungs to all parts of the body and especially the brain providing the brain with fresh ideas and enhancing focus keeping yourself healthy too. So bottom line exercise helps with focus. Now the app might not measure calories burnt, for now, but it allows you to have sufficient time for yourself.
Now this here is a tricky one: remember the sleeping issue? This is where it comes in handy. Sleeping early or even in time gives you a great advantage. You can start your day early and the 8 hours of your work can begin at 9 if you like giving you ample time in the evening to be with your family and friends and spend time with your loved ones.
Although we have mentioned it previously it is important to understand the effects it will have on your day. Start your day early login and start your StaffTimer App to get through to the pending tasks first thing in the morning. This will leave you with only the major tasks or urgent tasks.
Get productivity back
In a Gallup survey of 7,500 full-time employees reported burnout and an additional 44% felt burned out also.
Now the biggest challenge is to get the quality without initiating the burnout. This is highly unlikely if there is no way to measure productivity or results. Luckily the Staff Timer App measures the mouse clicks and keystroke all the while showing an idle percentage so that the user and the employer are on the same page. This is how you stay productive throughout the project or day.
Communication is the key
Most issues happen because of lack of communication of clients with the team and team lead with the team itself, so all it does is create uncertainty and tasks start getting pushed away and the lack of transparency and the absence of the team lead front causes issues and serious slack. Staff Timers App’ 2-way in-app audio communication resolves this issue with constant and instant feedback so there is no lagging and everyone is focused on the work that has been assigned to them.
So these were a few techniques that could actually help you during these distressing times, remember we all are frustrated about the monotony of our routines and since we all feel locked up but there are ways to counter any self-harm thoughts. There are help centers and anon chat rooms designed especially for this. If you feel too much work just stop and relax. Take a day or two off, relax, sleep, walk bare feet on the grass to make yourself feel better, and always remember we will get through this.
Staff Timer App understands that during 2020 a global recession will be in effect and the situation is not getting better anytime sooner not at least for these 12 months. So to facilitate the business community we now offer free services for 7 days. With this impending recession, one thing must be considered above all others that remote working is the future. It is our job to make it essentially easy and do-able, 56% of the total companies are already working from home.
Now we all are somehow frustrated regarding the ongoing situation, the lockdown, the work from home, and no respite in vision from the grinding routine. Even though having the best possible environment in the form of a family we still are lacking in giving our best for the position.
The greatest issue that every team has faced over the last few months even though the remote working phenomenon has taken over the world and is literally the most profitable move for businesses worldwide cutting in on the office expense and all. However after a few weeks of the boom; the productivity levels have indeed been negative.
The productivity charts have gone drastically bad. There seems like nothing can help you get those graphs up and your work seamless, now we are not going to say that the Staff Timer App magically makes everything better we are just going to tell you how having this app has helped the productivity stay constant, or better yet how about I tell you how we do things the “Staff Timer App” way?
I like the latter question, so here is how we at the Staff Timer App make sure the productivity remains constant and always grows upwards:
Looking to boost your productivity while working remotely? Sign up today!
Informed Tasks
The best gift you can give your employee is not a raise, which by the way is a very good gift, in the case of work is to let him or her know the targets or goals for the day, do not let him or her wander about in the abyss of countless possibilities and leave them on their own.
This not only hurts productivity but also hurts the organization and if you are working remotely it is total time wastage. We make sure our employees our well-aware of their duties and tasks at the start of the day.
Effective Communication
Now, this here is the core of many solutions to your remote teams. Communication is the key to a relationship. Remember your employee is dependent upon you for feedback and report checks. So make sure you get to their query first and after that indulge in other tasks.
Employees’ productivity demands a lot upon the feedback, not the tweaks but proper feedback that tells them their weaknesses and their strengths so they can be an effective part of the organization.
Our seniors make sure that the employees get the best feedback for their work without any biases so they can ace their work and achieve the daily targets efficiently.
Give them Time
No good has ever come from rushing to a conclusion we all agree, similar is the case with a task once you have given a task to an employee, understand that not everyone knows everything, so for them to do a task it requires time.
They are already under pressure to nail a task, so be patient with them. We understand this issue and that is why time tracking is a great option. You are up to date with the progress of a great little trick we employ at Staff Timer.
Respect the Breaks
Yes, people read the heading; respect the break. Make sure to respect the breaks. When our employees are on break for lunch or running any other errands. We understand that not to disturb them or bug them constantly asking them over and over again for the tasks assigned to them.
Breaks are important, they help deal with burnout and essential for mental health. Too much of anything is dangerous, and too much screen time is essentially bad. So letting them relax will freshen up the approach and a sudden burst of energy is good for overall productivity.
Work only in Working Hours
Condone overtime at all cost, condemn it and avoid it. Overtimes are a hassle and a killer of productivity so try and finish work within hours, anything done over time will reflect hastiness and blunt edges.
The simple reason for this is that the human mind can only function at full capacity for 8-10 hours after that it requires rest and we ourselves become tired so the work done after working hours is not as polished as the work done in time.
So here are our exclusive 5 pointers that keep Staff Timer fresh and productive. We always wake up with new dreams and we have a team that can reach those goals and fulfills those dreams.
All because of these little things we take care of and not to mention the Staff Timer Aap itself which always keeps us ahead of the curve.
Industries and ideas are interlined with a simple component, no not by the letter “i”, it is the ability to design a campaign potent enough to capture the attention also to communicate essential knowledge about the product and the industry it represents.
It is not enough to design a flashy banner and an elaborate social media campaign to launch a product on the platforms and their viability has not only expanded but also the consumption pattern by the audience.
So like ingredients of any cake, formula or any other “magical potion” campaigning also is a mixture of several things and requires several ingredients for it to be successful. So here are 10 ingredients to design a potent campaign that will leave your rivals gasping for air and audience at the same time:
Theme a dream
This is where all campaigns start from, from a piece of paper and a lot of scribbling, countless brainstorming sessions and a dustbin filled with wasted paper and take-away food.
Your entire campaign is going to represent only one thing i.e. the theme you decide, so make sure your theme is emotional, common knowledge and something people won’t have to google in order to find out the meaning of. Simple one word or a single phrase may do it for example we see Adidas’s recent campaign called “create”, rebranding themselves as a creative sports brand. One word that delivers the message.
A story to tell
Getting the story out of the mind onto the piece of paper is a simple part, here comes the hard part to shape that theme and present it in a form of a story that is acceptable and also fits within the restraints of your cultural and political realm.
Creating a controversy only raises questions however a message to address that controversy is something that will help you lift up your product. A campaign would not do any good if it is banned for the message it portrays.
Get the right man for the job
Not the marketing team but as a brand name, remember for your campaign to be successful you need someone who can represent it for you and specifically a person who resonates with the population.
Such as James Bond actors were a high priority for watch brands and Rolex back in the day. However it is understandable that budget constraints can be a hindrance in achieving this target fret not there is always an alternative.
Use social media platform
Now this is a common one, everyone uses this, but the problem is a lot of people are using it wrongly there are too many products that want to bring in traffic and to make content viral.
During the pandemic times social media is over-flooded with content it is a miracle that your page even comes up in random searches of hashtags. To address this issue you never use a single platform and never be restricted on the noted social media platforms such as instagram, Facebook and twitter. You need to look for other platforms also such as Quora, Youtube, Spotify, Tiktok all these platforms are essential for a campaign to be successful.
Always cross-promote your campaign and make sure to use alternative social media platforms to bring in traffic for your main social media content.
Estimate how much resource and time you need for each campaign. Sign up today.
Bit of humor doesn’t hurt anybody
This is a bit funny and unconventional way to campaign, there are certain memes that are evergreen and are sure to provide traffic, use those memes to create identity and also to stay relevant. This adds a comical persona to your product and to your campaign.
Add human touch
Most campaigns use a lot of vectors and spend too much time on designing posts, which is not wrong either but for a campaign to be successful it must have humans in it, faces that people can relate to, not some doodles that have no or little resonance with masses.
Use scripting and short-films
This is a bit of a tidbit used essentially by BMW when they launched their BMW films advertising their brand with Clive Owen being the talented driver and BMW being the indestructible fast vehicle.
Although constraints are a real thing but it is something interesting that can be looked into if your campaign has enough mantle and you are willing to do the hard work this is perhaps a great way to uplift your sales and your campaign.
Never let go of the basics
Yea these are a little boring and repeated but they still work a charm if done properly the basics of campaigning still remain the use of pamphlets, banners and brochures and they are effective and billboards too.
During the FIFA world cup 2014 although ADIDAS was the event sponsor what NIKE did was filled RIO DE JANEIRO and other Brazilian football neighborhoods with banners of Nike through and through everywhere they could. What it did was that it led to upscale Nike in Brazil and with Neymar being a Nike ambassador there plan worked massively.
So missing out on sponsorship from the World Cup did not essentially hurt Nike.
Never disappear in thin air
Starting a campaign is by far the easiest thing in the world. The near impossible thing is to find out a way to end it effectively, however ending a campaign abruptly is not a good way to do it, it loses everything all your hard work goes down the drain.
The appropriate way is to plan ahead and start working on the next campaign simultaneously and announce the arrival midway or somewhat down the road. What it does is: it starts building anticipation of the next campaign and you can end the campaign one you start the next campaign.
Timing is of the essence
Every campaign in history happens within the realms of political and ideological realities of surrounding. Make sure your campaign is not ahead neither behind the time in which you are present. No one wants to listen to an ad that has 1940’s color scheme sell your products and campaigns in the present
These are a few ways to uplift you campaign game and really hurt your rivals these are some of the most simple steps which when followed will yield results of unmatched calibre.
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