Tag: Time Tracking Software

Time tracking for Attorneys

One of the most lucrative and prestigious professions besides medicine is the practice of law. However, with increasing pressures and numerous changes in the legal world, the workload is rising at an unprecedented rate. 

The most important part of an attorney’s professional life is time. There is severe competition to meet the required number of billable hours. Usually, an attorney needs to complete 12 billable hours on average for every working day. 

Many attorneys lose track of time. This slowly becomes detrimental to their productivity levels. If they keep track of their time, their attention will divert. This is bad because their whole focus needs to be on their clients. 

Let’s first understand some key responsibilities of an attorney. These include:

    • Advising and representing clients in courts or government agencies.
    • Researching and analyzing legal matters.
    • Assisting and communicating with clients.
    • Drafting legal documents for lawsuits, deeds, contracts, etc. 
    • Preparing to defend clients in courts.

The above-mentioned responsibilities may not encompass the entire set of duties attorneys perform. But, the important point to takeaway is that with these excruciating pressures it becomes hard to track time. 

How time tracking app can streamline processes for attorneys?

Some of the ways in which time tracking tools can help attorneys include:

More time for clients

When an automated system like Stafftimer app is monitoring time for attorneys, they can spend more hours dealing with their clients without the hassle of manually filling timesheets. In the end, every minute matters when you are practicing law. 

Time monitoring is not left in workspace 

Yes, you can use Stafftimer even in a court or some meeting with a client. Its screenshot feature is optional. This means that you don’t need to worry about accidentally capturing case proceedings. Attorneys just need to enter a task, and get liberated from the stress of calculating time. The tracker shall keep counting it for them. 

Daily work reports

An attorney will not need manually filled timesheets since Stafftimer provides them with daily work reports. These reports can serve as verified proof of their billable hours. 

Accurate invoicing

Staftimers calculate work hours in an immaculate manner. No need to worry about getting inaccurate invoices and wasting your hard labor. The app provides effective solutions for these situations. 

Clients can receive bills with the proof attached. Don’t worry about bothersome tasks like payroll and making calculations for invoices. An attorney’s every minute counts and Stafftimer takes great care of it. 

Intelligent reporting and real-time monitoring

As an employer or a partner in a law firm, your resources are not getting wasted. Why? Because Stafftimer is taking care of them. The app provides employers with daily reports. These reports can tell how much time an associate lawyer was spending on each task or window. 

With real-time monitoring, employers know how much time an attorney is taking on each case as it live-shares their screens. This way, employers always know who has the chance to progress further and who is struggling.

Cost-effective solution

When an employer knows who is productive and who is a dead fish, they can save their resources by eliminating unproductive employees. Legal practice needs aggressive competition between equally capable persons. It can’t afford to carry someone around.

Team members’ hours can be tracked to plan budget costs. This data can then be used to accurately bill clients.

Offline tracking

If attorneys are out of the workspace and lose connection to the internet, Stafftimer will keep on working. It will update from the back-office once the connection is restored. 

Female lawyers

Ambitious lawyers who are also mothers will find it difficult to split their time. Either they can spend quality time with their kids or focus most of their attention on their practice. Seeing this complicated predicament for their female lawyers, some major law firms are offering flexible work options. 

This means that they can choose to work from home on certain weekdays. However, the real challenge is how to ensure that they are actually working? And how many hours they are spending on work? Stafftimer solves this problem by keeping track of time. This way, everyone gets paid according to the number of hours they’ve put into work.

Conclusion

Employee monitoring software is a crucial need for the legal world. Their work, routine, and progress all revolve around billable hours. Therefore, it’s necessary for them to use a time tracking software that can monitor their time. This lets them pursue their commitments without any worries. 

Boost Productivity With Top 4 Employee Monitoring Tools

Ever been torn between the ultimate choice of Employee Monitoring Tool for boosting productivity?

This article is definitely going to help you out and decide which one is the best tool for you. Some of the primary factors, that we will be looking at for the purpose of this article are:

  • Affordability
  • Features
  • Services
  • Ease of Use

1. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is currently the industry leader in when it comes to remote monitoring, time tracking, invoicing and billing solutions. Founded in 2012, Hubstaff since then has seen an upward growth trend in terms of the services being offered as well as the customer base.

There are a total of 3 pricing plans offered by Hubstaff – Free, Basic and Premium. The Basic Plan starts at $5 per user per month and goes up to $10 per user in the Premium Plan.

Hubstaff is not just a timekeeping software but has expanded its features to become versatile. Also, include online timesheets, employee scheduling, payroll software, and employee monitoring. Followed by productivity measurement, GPS tracking, online invoicing and project budgeting.

They offer a wide range of features, which can be overwhelming for people who just wish to use a few of those many features. Many people have faced issues with their timekeeping functions and how it relates to the payroll system.

2. TimeDoctor

TimeDoctor is one of the leading timekeeping software(s) that helps employees monitor their team’s productivity. It helps them boost the numbers by tracking time and progress. It was established in 2012. Since then has expanded operations to over 23 countries and works fully remotely.

With the pricing of TimeDoctor starting at $5.00 per month per user and going up to $9.99 per user per month, it’s pricing is not very different from Hubstaff.

TimeDoctor offers a number of features like time tracking, screenshots, powerful reporting, billing, off-track reminders and even tracking breaks.
It is yet to add integration with mobile phones, which would really boost the ease of use of the application.

3. StaffTimerApp

Staff Timer Tracking software is an AI-driven time tracking solution that uses artificial intelligence to assist employers with real-time team monitoring. It also offers advanced and intelligent reporting and task assignment via voice clips. Staff Timer Application is a relatively young one into the market but has caught on to the ongoing trends quite quickly.

When it comes to the affordability factor, they offer its basic plan from just £2.99 per month per member and goes up to just £5.00 per month per member. It’s the most inexpensive of all the time tracking solutions in the industry. It’s a perfect fit for freelancers, small, mid-sized and large teams.
They offer four main features that include:

  • Real-time reporting
  • Voice recording tasks
  • Image and video proofs
  • Screenshots after every minute, and
  • Daily work videos, created from all the recorded screenshots.

Staff Timer App is simple and easy to use with the option to manage multiple companies and projects using a single platform. With a lot of upcoming features like invoicing, task-wise billing, payroll management, etc. It sure is a promising app in the market.

4. Toggl

Toggle is one of the rising stars in the time tracking industry. It allows people to manage their teams and track productivity. It was founded in 2007 and has made considerable progress since then.

With an affordability score of around 3 on 5, Toggl offers 3 pricing plans. The first of which is the free plan with limited usability. The paid plans start from $5 per user per month and go up to $49 per user per month. With this pricing,

Toggl ranks more expensive than the two industry giants, Hubstaff and TimeDoctor.

The services offered by Toggl include time tracking, flexible and sound reporting, automatic timesheet management and business intelligence reports. Although a bit pricey, Toggl supports integrations with most devices (laptops, tablets, phones, etc.).

10 Ways Time Tracking Helps You Make The Most Of Your Freelance Employees

Time Tracking for freelancers is quickly gaining popularity in the remote work industry. As more and more companies go virtual with respect to their teams and work practices.

Many companies are functioning with distributed teams that are spread out globally. The issue, most of them face, is regarding fully utilizing the freelancers they hire for different tasks.

Most are not able to do so and are generally overpaying in return for the output they’re receiving. Here are 10 ways in which you can make the most of your freelance employees and save the company’s resources using a time tracking solution.

10. Track Time for Increased Productivity

You can carry our time tracking using time tracking solutions. Many are available in the market and have multiple features and prices.

Integrate time tracking solution with your company’s platform and track your freelance employees’ productivity using that.

When working remotely, the freelancer can start the timer for a certain task they are about to work on, pause it when they take a break and end it when they are done with the task.

9. Remote Monitoring to Ensure Correct Work Track

Monitor your remote employees using a time tracking solution that supports real-time screen sharing and takes screenshots of the freelancers’ computer screen every minute.

Those screenshots can then be combined as separate frames and used to create a complete workday playback video. That way you can know exactly what your employees are working on and how their progress is going.

This will also make sure that you and your freelance team are on the same page when it comes to how tasks are attempted and what direction a project is supposed to take.

8. Implement a Schedule via Time Tracking Solution

Design a schedule for your employees and make sure that it is being followed. Considering they are freelancers and will have other tasks, the schedule must be a personalized one for each employee, fitting to their personal chores and tasks as well.

Furthermore, it must align with the work hours of the company so remote employees are available for coordination, discussions or meetings with in-house employees, whenever needed.

Productivity heat-maps for each individual must be an important consideration while creating the schedule.

7. Task-wise Billing Using A Time Tracking Software

The payment structure for freelancers is best when done task-wise or hour wise. For this, you can integrate an invoicing solution with your time tracking solution. So the billing can be done according to tasks completed and the hours worked.

The time tracking solution will have a complete record (with proofs) of the work completed by the employee. That way you can be sure that you’re not overpaying the freelancers.

6. Intelligent Report to Get Value for Money

Many leading time tracking solutions in the market offer the option of advanced reporting. Some remote employee monitoring software offers intelligent employee reports. Where the day’s screenshots are automatically categorized according to the active windows in those images, clearly telling the employer what the freelancers spent most of their time working on.

This increases transparency and if there are any wasted minutes, the employers can get to know about those within a matter of a few clicks.  

5. Task Logging to Estimate Work Done Through Time Tracking

Make sure that your freelance employees log each and every task they perform. Whether it is a task already assigned to them or a task they performed.

When a task is logged, a record is maintained that lets the employers know how much work was actually achieved by the freelancer. Whether they are putting the best of their efforts into the work or not.

4. Clarify and Align Company’s Goals with Freelancers

In order to be sure that the employees work the same way that you expect them to, it is essential to make it clear to them what they are working for, what is the end result supposed to look like and what are you trying to achieve.

Once the goals of the company are aligned with the freelancers’ goals, then the workflows will be regulated on their own. Productivity will increase and the employees will put their best foot forth.

When the employees know how their work is going to impact the common end-goal. They will have a clear idea of the value of their work and their value as an employee to the company.

This is essential for boosting the morale of employees and pushing them to work harder.

3. Rule of Thumb: Work Smart, Not Hard

Taking up this rule will make tasks easier for you and your employees, both. Working smart saves time, energy, resources, gets things done much faster and makes searching for information much easier.

Automate timesheets instead of manually maintaining logs for each hour or each task. It is much easier to start and stop the timer with a single click, rather than manually making each entry to a timesheet.

Furthermore, it makes the job simple when all work done during the activity time is recorded and gets divided into separate categories, creating automated timesheets.

This way, your freelancers spend the majority of their time working on the actual tasks instead of logging entries manually.

2. Improve Communication via Audio Clips

Team communication impacts employee productivity and plays a major role in how your employees perform. Merely assigning them tasks using a project management tool or a time tracking software isn’t enough.

Nothing can beat the power and impact of face-to-face communication. If you cannot communicate with them in-person due to geographical boundaries, then feel free to conduct a Skype Business Call, or use a platform that helps.

You can assign tasks in the form of voice clips and allows the freelancers to respond back using voice clips as well. In case they have any query and wish to clear it prior to attempting a task.

Clear and quick communication is always verbal and enables workflow-streamlining when the teams are on one page.

1. Trust your Employee to Get the Job Done

If you’ve hired a freelancer, trust that they can get the job done as well. There is no point in hiring them otherwise.

If you try to micromanage your employees, directing their every move and telling them how to go about a task, even when they might be suggesting better ways to do it, they will simply be exhausted and irritated.

Build a certain trust level with your employees, and believe in them. Have a solution that monitors their work activity by giving you an idea of their sincerity and dedication to their work.

If they work hard, waste no time and have the required level of productivity, then let them be, sit back and let them deliver the assigned work to you, on schedule.

Employee Time Tracking with Screenshots! Is it really needed?

With every passing day and a step closer to becoming more technologically advanced every day, newer ideas and technologies are making their way into the Corporate World as well. The use of employee time tracking software is a new trend has emerged recently in the Modern Corporate World.

It is the universal goal of all the businesses to increase their profits by minimizing their expenditure. And the executives and managers are relying more and more on technology to get closer to this goal.

A large chunk of organizations is making use of software tools to manage the employees and to optimize their productivity. Some of these tools also capture the snapshots of employee’s screens to help the employee monitoring practice. But we cannot deny the fact that it does raise some brows!

Screenshot capturing: Illegal or ethical?

There are no legal regulations that protect employees from screen monitoring. So monitoring the employees through screenshots is definitely not illegal.

But is it ethical? This is an ongoing debate in the Corporate Sector and there is a wide variety of viewpoints on the subject.

Read more: Rational and Ethical Employee Monitoring
It is widely agreed that screen monitoring would be a lot more acceptable by the teams and employees if it is publicly declared and clearly defined.

Why is it becoming a trend?

It equips the managers with remote employee monitoring capabilities

Most people who work an office job require a computer with an unfaltering internet connection to carry out the daily tasks. And we all know that it is typical human behavior to get distracted from time to time. Getting distracted once in a while is acceptable in most situations but too much of it can be unacceptable for the employees.

But it is hard to keep a watch over the online shenanigans of all the employees all the time. And this is where a time tracking solution that captures employee screenshots comes to rescue.

Screenshot capturing facilitates the employers by bringing records of employees activities directly to his screen.

It lets the supervisors know about the progress of the employees

When your supervisor and the employer can see your work activity, he would know about your progress. Your productivity will be communicated to the leaders through those screenshots. On the same lines, the lazy employees cannot dodge the screenshots as well.

The employers would know which one of the employees is actually productive and which ones are not so much.

The screenshot monitoring also informs the team leaders about the progress of an ongoing project.

It helps the remote employers

Many small and medium business owners love to hire talent from across the oceans at competitive costs. But this is not so easy.

There are many hurdles in the way of managing remote and distributed teams effectively. Distance happens to be the biggest one of them. However, applications like StaffTimerApp, which capture screenshots and informs the remote employer about the progress and productivity of the employees, help a great deal in managing and minimizing the impacts of these hurdles.

It fosters cooperation amongst the team members

Screenshots build a relationship amongst the remote workers. Since the colleagues of distributed teams are situated very far away from each other, there is a deficit of cooperation and lack of communication.

To help with this problem, a software that uses screenshots can be very helpful.

By viewing the screenshots, the manager of a distributed team will be able to review the way the employee is working. He will be aware of all the glitches that he faces. The progress of the employee will also be visible to him. These insights are very useful for fostering a human relationship.

Software like this lets people connect in a better fashion.

In this day and age, many companies are dealing with tremendously large data sets. And more often than not, the data sets have sensitive information, the breach of which can result in lethal financial and legal troubles.

Constant surveillance of the employees work activities is also a facade of employee monitoring. And this one is particularly useful especially when there are so many intelligent hackers out there and a small loophole In the work management can end up in an unforeseen disaster.

Conclusion

Screenshots might seem like an unnecessary hassle in many cases. But in many more, they are quite mandatory considering the current landscape of the Corporate World. Use a Time Tracking Software with Screenshots to discover many more advantages of using one!

Is capturing screenshots, ethical or not? We would love to hear from you.

Why do you need a Time Tracker for Work?

Using a Tracker tool sounds annoying! Do you really need a Time tracker for work? Are the bosses being unreasonable and irrational with their demands of using a Time Tracker? Well, the truth of the matter is that Time Tracking has proven to be fruitful for businesses. That is why many managers and bosses are adamant about the use of a Time Tracker.

Why do you need a Time Tracker at work?

Do you get distracted and feel lazy like many people? Do you lose your focus during the work? If you’re anything like most professionals around the world, you most definitely need a Time Tracker at work.

Time Tracking Software might seem intrusive and slavish, but they have help organizations achieve a lot in a relatively shorter duration of time. People who use these tools report that they have been able to get more out of the standard workday. In comparison to the time when they did not use a Time Tracking tool.

But to give optimum productivity, finding and deploying the right kind of tool is the most important task.

What makes a good Time Tracker?

A quick Google Search clarifies that there are dozens of Time Tracking Solutions out there in the market. And it is normal to feel overwhelmed. But it is very important to choose the correct Time Tracker for work. An unsuitable tool can cost you time and money.

Look for the following qualities in your potential Time Tracking Software.

 

User-Friendly Design

It is really important for support software like Time Tracking Software to have a user-friendly design. A time tracking software should not be the reason that you waste time at work. There are some tools that are so detailed and comprehensive that the user wastes time while tracking time.

The UX and UI should be self-explanatory and help the user in navigation through the application and usage.

Flawless Functionality

The main purpose of the Time Tracking tool is calculating the time that is spent on work. Results devised by these systems become the basis for planning, decision making, budgeting, and many such important decisions. For these decisions to be sound, it is imperative that the input data be flawless as well.

Therefore, the time monitoring tool that you use should be flawless in what it does. Calculations of work hours should be perfect. The estimates of activity levels and productivity levels should be realistic. Incorrect tools can be detrimental to the business!

Non-intrusive features

Since a Time Tracking system is mostly used for tracking the time and productivity during the work hours, it is important these tools are strictly non-intrusive. There are some time tracking tools that send off notifications from time to time. For example, a Monitoring Software might intimate the user that he has been using Facebook for too long or the system has been idle for too long.

These notifications might sound useful. But in reality, they are quite intrusive and get in the way of the workflow.

The ideal software will be completely automatic. It should not require the user to log work hours again and again.

Rational Pricing

A large marketplace suggests that there are diverse pricing plans and subscription plans. This calls for careful analysis of the prices and the plans that are offered.

Look for a tool that does exactly what you need. If you are looking for a simple Time Tracking Software, opt for a product that is a Minimum Viable Product.

This way you will get the desired functionality at low cost. If you just need one or two features and you choose an extensive Time Management System, you will lose money since all the offered features will not be used. You, most likely, will also waste time by tangling in a complicated system that you don’t really need.

On the other hand, if using a comprehensive system helps you, then, by all means, go for it!

Dependable Customer Support

Although software developers try very hard to make their products function without any glitch, it is an inevitable reality that many times, products and services produce unforeseen bugs and errors.

To cater to this issue, dedicated and dependable customer support is very important. Make sure that the Time Tracker that you select for your daily use has a good Customer Support history. This way, you will always have someone to go to, if the system starts misbehaving and producing erratic functionality.

Which problems are solved by a good Time Tracker?

The market for Employee Monitoring and Time Tracking is on the rise. It suggests that the tools are actually useful and hence in demand. There are many common work-related problems that are solved by Time Tracking. Some of them are discussed below:

It saves you from distractions

It is very normal for professionals to feel distracted while working. Using a tracker can, however, save you from the distractions. While using the software, you will be conscious of being watched for the most part of the day.

This realization will stop you from getting distracted by your thoughts, office gossip and frequent snacking.

These activities might seem trivial but they are big time wasters, according to studies.

It keeps you focused

With fewer distractions, you will be more focused on your work. A good tracking tool helps weed out activities that leach on the valuable time. You will waste less time on Facebook and Instagram. You will not wander the internet aimlessly for a long duration of time. Getting rid of all these bad habits will make you more focused on the tasks at hand.

It makes you more productive

Imagine that you are in a zone where there are no distractions and you stay completely focused. How productive that zone would be. Tracking the time would make your work similar to that zone.

It has been observed that employees that use Time Tracking tend to be more productive. They waste less time, dedicate more time to work and produce better results. Since they spend high-quality work hours at work, they are more likely to produce high-quality results as well!

It highlights your efforts

Most of the time, Tracking the time is a demand of the management. Though it might sound intrusive, it actually benefits the employees in numerous ways.

A Time Tracker for work extracts transparent statistics about the time spent on getting the work done. It also clearly shows the efforts of employees to the management and lets the employers and managers know how hard the team works to achieve the collective goals of the organization.

It optimizes the teamwork

Time Tracking can be a great tool for optimizing teamwork. When the management is on top of all the tasks that are done and the time that is spent, the project management practise becomes smooth. The tasks are managed and delegated according to the expertise and capacity of the employees.

It keeps you free from stress

Honest and transparent statistics enable the management to come up with realistic project planning and deadlines. When the management is completely aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their human resources, they will plan their business activities accordingly.

Realistic deadlines are a great friend of the employees. This is because they save employees from overwork and stressful work situations.

An example of a reliable Time tracker

To save the readers from excessive research, I will review StaffTimerApp, it is a very useful time tracking and employee monitoring tool!

It uses Screenshots

Most Time Tracking applications make use of Keystroke logging and URL tracking for the purpose of tracking the time. This is where StaffTimerApp stands out. It captures the screenshots of the employee’s screens and then processes them to estimate the time spent on work-related and non-work related activities.

It gives a breakdown of how the time is spent

The application uses Screenshots to get a breakdown of how time is spent during the work hours. Those screenshots are then categorized by using sophisticated artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. Users can conveniently see how much time is spent on work related and non-work related activities.

This breakdown is the backbone of successful Time Management.

It is sensitive about user Privacy

Since the application only uses Screenshots, it does not access a lot of user information. It totally relies on the screenshots to calculate billable and non-billable hours. With no keystroke and mouse activity tracking, the passwords, pin codes, credit card information is safe and not logged into the system. Therefore, the application is sensitive to user privacy!

Conclusion

Use a Time Tracker to boost productivity at work. Use a Time Tracker for your team to manage the projects better! This is because effective Time Management can be very beneficial for the business and can help in reaping lots of profits!

Top 3 Time Tracking Apps for Remote Workers

Many people around the world have welcomed the trend of Remote Work. It is exciting, it is diverse and it is a great experience. Thanks to the innovative tools that were born out of the recent technological advancements that this new trend persisted.

Tools like Online Project Management Software and Time Tracking Apps have helped people connect, collaborate and work together no matter how far they are located physically.

A quick Google search reveals a plethora of Time Tracking tools. We have used the following 3 applications extensively and analysed them to find out their strengths and weaknesses.

The List | Top 3

The following applications are extensively used by Freelancers and Remote Workers all around the world. They all have many great features and solve many problems for the distributed teams. Here, we have covered these applications and mentioned the Pros and Cons for the users to decide which application sounds best for them.

 

FreshBooks-All-In-One Small Business Invoicing and Accounting Solution

Freshbooks is a cool tool for remote employers. Its features range from Time Tracking to Online Invoicing.

Pros

  • It is a simple employee monitoring app that requires the users to log hours manually or with the help of a timer.
  • It presents a simple and yet elaborate invoicing system. The users can bill directly after tracking the time. Since this software provides integrated time tracking and invoicing, the clients do not need to use multiple applications for tracking their time and Invoicing.
  • Freshbooks has a major focus on Invoicing. Hence, it provides a lot of payment options for users. This feature comes in handy especially when your remote team belongs to different regions of the world and have different banking preferences.

Cons

  • The application requires manual clearance of all the invoices paid through various payment gateways.
  • Freshbooks gives a lot of leverage to the Employers and not so much to the employees. It gives employers the option of declaring an invoice ‘disputed’. In some cases, this resulted in payment fraud.

Staff Timer App – The time tracking solution for remote workers

Staff Timer App is the perfect time tracker app for remote workers. It has a lot of features that have been designed keeping in mind the growing trend of remote work.

Pros

  • The application is completely automated and it uses Screenshots to calculate the time spent by the user on all the activities done during the work hours. The employer gets an estimate for the time spent on work-related and non-work related activities.
  • The application is very simple to use. It is a minimum viable product so there are no unnecessary frills. Just the features that are absolutely important!
  • The remote monitoring features like Instant Screen Capture and Real-Time Screen monitoring are vital for a remote manager.
  • The low price is a very strong point for StaffTimerApp. At $2.99/user, it provides a lot of useful features and services.

Cons

  • The application is in the development phase and the design needs some improvements.
  • The Snapshot that is acquired through instant screen capture is not saved and accessible for later use.

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is one of the most widely used Time Trackers in the market. And it truly deserves the top spot.

Pros

  • The interface of Hubstaff is very appealing. It is simple to use and the UX is pretty self-explanatory.
  • The application captures the screenshots of the employees randomly. These screenshots are very important for Remote Employees.
  • You can view the Time with respect to projects, team members, and tasks. You can see the breakdown very clearly. This feature gives a lot of clarity to employers with extremely detailed reports. They can view the number of hours spent on each task.
  • Hubstaff offers a flexible payment system. It lets the employer choose individual payment plans for all the team members. The employers can choose from a vast array of payment gateways.

Cons

  • It is a mix of Time Tracking, Time Management, and Invoicing Software.
  • The customer service of Hubstaff is not its finest quality. The CSRs take a lot of time to reply and more often than not the replies are useless.
  • The activity level statistics can be misleading. For optimum activity level, the user needs to log keystrokes all the time. We know that in the real world, it is a very bad indication for calculating productivity.

Conclusion

All these applications have some amazing features and all of them have some loopholes as well. It is really important to pick the right time Tracking Software that is fit for your needs. The right choice can greatly enhance the productivity of your teams and generate better profits!
Do you have any tools in your mind that we can add to our list? Don’t forget to share it!

Like what you read? We have more, for you:

 

Increase Your Productivity at work | 5 effective ways to make big changes:

There are a number of automated tools available in the market either for communication or collaboration or employee task monitoring. But before we move on, let’s define employee productivity.

Best Employee Time Tracking Apps for Mac and Windows: 

Employee time tracking app for Mac and Windows are becoming a necessity throughout the business world. But is time management that important? Everybody gets the same number of hours to work every day i.e. 24 hours. Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mahatma Gandhi, Julius Caesar– all these great men only had 24 hours as well.

Why is Employee Motivation more Important than ever?

What is Motivation?

Employee Motivation is an abstract entity. It is the stimulus that triggers actions in individuals and a driving force behind all the wonderful advancements that we experience today. Moreover, motivation is the intrinsic quality that makes individuals get up goals for themselves. It is also the drive that pushes the individuals towards attaining those goals.

Researchers identify two kinds of motivation:
Intrinsic Motivation: This type of motivation pushes a person to achieve a goal because it is personally rewarding. As a result, the person feels happy and satisfied.

Extrinsic Motivation: This motivation results in a drive to do something in order to achieve a tangible goal or to avoid punishment.

Why is Employee Motivation more Important than ever

A few decades ago, employee motivation and satisfaction was not really a top agenda for Management. But today it totally is. And the reasons are the following:

Competition is fierce

Today, the competition is fierce. A slight loophole and neglect pave way for the competitors to barge in and steal your clients. No business can afford that.

This is exactly why businesses need motivated employees all the time— the kind of employees who live and breathe your mission. 

Motivated employees will not only treat your business as their own but also will increase profitability.

Individualization is the new trend

Due to the mushroom growth in nearly every business domain, there are way too many similar products and services. How do businesses make themselves distinct? How do they stand out? The answer lies in individualization.

Today, all businesses try to build, manage and retain an individual identity and this individual identity helps them stand out from the crowd. Additionally, it also helps the brands attract and retain clients who relate to brand identity.

Motivated employees play a great role in building a positive brand image. They contribute to the brand image and help in retaining it. If your employees are demotivated, imagine the kind of energy and message they would be permeating to the world.

Human Resources is the greatest asset

There are a lot of resources that are required for an organization to function properly. But Human Resources are by far the most important resources that an organization possesses. The reason is that it is the employees of the company that uses their knowledge, expertise, and skills to take the mission of the company forward.

Without the right kind of employees, the organization cannot do anything. And with demotivated employees, it cannot do much either. Motivated employees are the greatest asset to a company. People who feel motivated about achieving the day to day tasks deliver amazing collective results.

Employee Motivation brings out results

The Rat-pellet experiment by B. F. Skinner proved that rats tapped the button because they believed that they will get a pellet. The motivation stemmed from the expectation of reward and hence the rat made an effort. We all can learn from this experiment that motivation drives us to make an effort and bring out results.

Employees who are motivated to keep up their performance. They make efforts to deliver even better results because they feel that their performance is appreciated. And this cycle of motivation— efforts— outcome — appreciation is never-ending and it brings great profits to the organization.

Employee Retention is very important

Employee motivation is like an investment. With the passage of time, an employee learns the craft and becomes a very valuable asset for the organization.

After spending a considerable amount of time, an employee becomes equipped with the right kind of knowledge and expertise. Replacing this employee is not only very costly but finding a perfect replacement is not always easy. This is why corporations spend so much time and money on their retention policies.

It is very easy to retain a happy and motivated employee. The employees want to stay at a workplace where they feel valued. So if you want to hold on to the good people, keep them motivated.

How to keep the employees motivated

The Entrepreneur suggests great ideas about keeping your employees motivated. It suggests that

  • The employees shall be allowed to maintain their individuality and a sense of freedom.
  • Empower the employees with the right kind of tools so that they do not feel handicapped.
  • Invest in employee development. Ongoing learning and development boost employee morale.
  • Let the employees know that their efforts are acknowledged and thank them.
  • Reward your employees for the good work that they do. Sharing profits helps them feel connected.

Conclusion

Motivated employees are an irreplaceable asset to a company. They are the reason that an organization grows and reaps profits. Many organizations around the world invest a lot in keeping the workforce happy and motivated.

Infographic: Guilty of wasting Time at work? We all are!

We all are guilty of wasting time at work. Some of us are more than others. But I am sure that none of us can claim to be an angel with no fouls. Wasting time at work is a universal problem that plagues all the organizations around the world. And it results in a loss of billions of dollars! Lots have been spent on research and innovation to minimize the time wasted at work and to come up with tools that help employees in staying more focused.

Why are Employees Wasting Time at Work

It is innate human nature to be lazy and to lose interest after a certain amount of time. But sometimes the circumstances make people more prone to wasting time. These circumstances could be handled and controlled. And in turn, the time wasted at work could be minimized.

Some of the problems that push employees towards wasting more time are the following:

  1. A work environment where there is no break culture makes employees waste time. Employees need to take breaks during work hours and rejuvenate their minds. But if the environment doesn’t allow, they would find backdoors to relax.
  2. If the employees are not happy, they will become a lot less focused. They will feel angry and have harbored resentments. They will be passive aggressive and will waste time as a revenge.
    Slack employee monitoring policies could also result in loss of focus. It gives the employees the liberty to make use of the time as they like. And more often than not, this could result in wasting of time.
  3. Unnecessary meetings and informal socialization at the workplace can result in a lot of wasted time. Water cooler gossip is a common reason why a lot of time is wasted at work.

How to Minimise Waste of Time

There is a lot that the management can do to minimize the waste of time. The most common issues in the workplace that cause time wastage can be easily addressed by the management.

  1. Make your employees happy. Find out why they feel inclined towards non-work related activities. Small acts on the part of the organization make employees happy. For example, a pay raise, good food, a leisure trip—all these efforts can make your employees much more loyal to the organization. And they will tend to be more productive at work.
  2. Take into consideration the human psychological and physical limitations while cultivating the work environment. If you have a culture that is flexible and understands the employee psychology, the employees would become much more productive.
  3. Use the right tools to make your team more productive. By using applications like Time Tracking and Employee Monitoring Software, you can boost the focus of your team and push them towards achieving maximum productivity.


Conclusion

Managers can save a tremendous amount of time by using the right employee management strategies. And in turn, an insane amount of money as well.

Increase Employee Productivity at work | Effective ways to make big changes

Do you know that studies tell us, the happiest people in the world are consistently very productive?

We are in the era of cut-throat competition. There is no time to slow down or take a break. All these things are more than true for the Corporate World.

Businesses do not want to compromise on progress and productivity at all.
But the irony is that being lazy and unproductive, at least for a small chunk of time, is the reality of most employees around the world. What makes us more productive in the workplace is definitely a hard nut to crack!

There are a number of automated tools available in the market either for communication or collaboration or employee task monitoring. But before we move on, let’s define employee productivity.

Defining Employee Productivity

Business Dictionary defines Productivity as ‘A measure of the efficiency of a person, machine, factory, system, etc., in converting inputs into useful outputs.’

So we can say that increasing employee productivity would mean achieving higher outputs with the same resources or accomplishing more from limited available inputs at our disposal.

Achieving higher productivity is directly proportional to the increased productivity of human resources at hand. Motivating employees to increase their productivity is quite a challenge. Implement the following strategies to increase productivity in the workplace.

Four Quadrants of Eisenhower’s Matrix

The key to becoming more productive is prioritizing the tasks and getting them done at the right time. But how do you know which ones should be done before the others?

Eisenhower’s Matrix is the shrewdest tool to categorize and schedule the tasks. By using this method, you would find yourself impeccably organized and never in a deadline crisis.

Eisenhower’s matrix was conceived by Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States of America (1953-1961). He was a leader at the dawn of the Cold War and hence was busy all the time. To prioritize his tasks, he came up with the Urgent/Important Matrix.

An urgent task is the one that requires swift action. A failure to provide immediate attention to the task can result in adverse outcomes.

An important task is one that is inevitable for smooth performance and functioning. Neglecting important tasks can have short and long-term disadvantages.

Discovering Advantages & Disadvantages:

  • Urgent and Important
    Urgent and Important tasks are the ones that are either left to be dealt with at the last moment. Or they are the ones that come up out of the blue. Customer Support is also an Urgent and Important task because Customer Satisfaction is the top priority of many businesses.
  • Urgent and Unimportant
    Urgent and unimportant tasks are the ones that require quick attention and swift action. They are the means to an end. So missing out on them and not doing them on time can cause distress and even loss in the long run. For example, replying to emails, data entry, maintaining records.
  • Non-urgent and Important
    These tasks are not urgent and sometimes get overlooked. But they are tremendously important for the smooth running of a business.

    If your employees are not properly managed your projects can be derailed.Some examples are the Research, Analysis, Project Management, HR management, etc.

  • Non-urgent and Unimportant
    These tasks are neither urgent nor important. They are just a building block of the Corporate Culture that we know today. These tasks often leach valuable time and productivity. Eliminating these tasks can give a boost to productivity. For example, water cooler gossip, office grapevine and other activities that employees use to waste time.

Thank you, Mr. President, for making it easier for us. We owe you!

Some of the best productivity tools for you:

Employee Productivity Tracker

These three magical words are a treat for the managers and bosses. These tools bring out deep insights into the progress and productivity of the employees. There are some tools that retrieve flawless statistics about the time spent on work-related and non-work related activities.

The use of Time Tracking tools has proved to make the employees more focused and boost productivity.

Pomodoro: Fancy yet effective

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management trick put forward by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. This technique is based on the scientifically proven fact that the human mind and body cannot generate high-quality performance for a long period of time. The gist of the technique is to work in small chunks of time with small frequent breaks in-between.

If managers take into account human limitations and implement a ‘Go, take a break’ culture, employees can become much more productive and happy.

Block Applications

Most of us are guilty of being addicted to some sort of mobile application. And this is one of the most common reasons for low productivity. If you block the applications that make you lose focus, for the work hours, you can save a lot of productive time.

There are some applications that allow usage only for a preset amount of time. For example, you can set Facebook usage time to be 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, the application will be blocked.

Conclusion

The research and innovation to – date are enough to make us very productive. We just need to implement the tricks and tools!  If you’re not taking advantage of any productivity tracking software whether you are working a full-time job or remotely, even traditional ones, you’re very likely missing out an opportunity to stay focused and organized.

Wondering whether you’re not productive enough? The answer to your question lies right here.