Tag: Virtual Office Software

How to Persuade Employees to Track Time

It has been observed that employees do not like the practice of Time Tracking. This sentiment is pretty much universal all around the world. But the trends in the Corporate World suggest that the market for Tracking and Monitoring Software is growing.

This is because Time Monitoring is embraced by many organizations. And there are dozens of diverse tools available for Tracking Time. This is due to the undeniable fact that Time Tracking is, indeed, beneficial for the businesses.

But to track time, employees must be convinced that this is done in order to achieve the collective goals of the organization and not to spy on them.

Make Time Tracking a Company Policy

The first step in making Employee Tracking acceptable for your employees is declaring it an official policy of the organisation. State it clearly in the employee handbook. Make it a known fact in the company. Also, let the employees know about the levels of Employee Monitoring that is practiced at the organisation.

Making it a known fact will help the employees accept it quickly. They will also be more careful about their activities. They will spend less time on non-work relaxed activities.

Educate Employees why is it beneficial to track time

Educate your team and employees about the benefits of tracking time. Let them know that this is done in order to benefit the organisation and not to penalize the employees. Share the instances of successful Time Management and how it contributed to the growth of the organisations. Tell your employees that tracking the time helps in the following ways:

  1. It helps in Time Management.
  2. It helps Managers in setting up realistic deadlines and goals. This can save employees from stressful work conditions and burn out that often happens due to excessive workload.
  3. Tracking time can help in financial management. It reveals the work-time dynamics. This information can greatly help in making good financial decisions for the company.
  4. Efficient Tracking can reveal the efforts of hardworking employees and they can be rewarded for their untiring commitment to excellence.
  5. Time Monitoring can lead to sound estimates for future projects. These estimates could be related to employee management, finances or workload.

Declare an acceptable amount of time spent on non-work related activities

 

Man running with briefcase and money
Businesses and Organisations need to recognise the fact that their employees are human beings and not robots. Human beings can get bored, lazy and demotivated at times.

It is a scientifically proven fact that the human concentration declines after a certain time interval and taking a short break revitalizes the mind. This natural limitation often prompts people towards finding escapes. And in an office setting, surfing the internet becomes the easiest and most accessible form of escape for most employees.

To make tracking time acceptable and ease up the anxiety of the employees, organisations should declare that it is acceptable for employees to take small breaks from time to time to refresh their minds. But an appropriate time limit should be set up. This way the employees won’t fear the Time Tracking applications because they know that their infrequent non-work related activities are officially permitted and will not be penalized.

Develop a relationship of Trust

Trust is the most important element for any relationship to work out. Corporate relationships devoid of trust do not go a long way. The employers should inculcate the feeling that the employees are valued and their efforts are trusted. They are not spied on because of any mistrust. But the purpose of Track time is to help the organisation collectively.

Do not micromanage

Employees can get really annoyed if the bosses start micromanaging as an indirect result of Employee Monitoring.

The managers and supervisors need to give freedom to the employees so that they can work independently. When management becomes one-sided and employees are directed to follow the bosses to the letter, their productivity and creativity decline. This way the employees’ potential is not used to the fullest.

Hence, managers and bosses need to draw a line between Micromanagement and Employee Monitoring. They should let the employees do their craft to the best of their knowledge and ability. If Time Tracking leads the employers towards Micromanagement, it can be detrimental for the health and progress of the organisation.

Conclusion

Tracking the time of your employees is a great practice. But it will only yield great profits if done in the right way.

Why Programmers don’t like Time Tracking Software

Programming and Software Development is one of the harder jobs in the world. The professionals of these fields are knowledge workers and their job often is to think, innovate and produce while using the knowledge and experience that they have acquired over the years.

In today’s fast paced world, all businesses want to make the best use of the time at their disposal, same goes for Software Development firms. Lets see how people deal with Time Tracking Software.

Time Tracking Software in Software Development

Time Tracking is used quite a lot in the field of Software Development. Bosses use the software to know how much of the work is done and how much of it is wasted. But more often than not, developers and programmers are not very fond of tracking time and can live without it.

Why programmers don’t like it:

Following are some of the reasons why developers don’t like it.

  1. Many Time Trackers require the user to input entries again and again during the course of the day. Most software engineers and developers are too preoccupied with their tasks to make these entries. Many a times, they forget doing it.
  2. Even if the developers do not forget about making the entry, they feel annoyed about it. It breaks the natural flow of their work. They get annoyed every time they have to pause and redirect their mental energy towards making an entry in the Time Monitoring Software.
  3. Developers often misunderstand the purpose of Time Trackers. And sometimes the purpose of Time Tracking in Software Development is also misunderstood. The work day of a developer involves writing the code, analysing, thinking, debugging, some more debugging, meeting with team members, discussions, research, maintaining documents etc. Not all of these tasks explicitly end up producing the desired results. But all of these tasks definitely contribute to the production of the desired results. When developers are asked to fill in Time sheets, they often face the guilt of being unproductive. They feel that the time they spent doing the research or finding the right algorithm on Stack Overflow might be held against them as a ‘waste of time’. These negative feelings make tracking the time hard.
  4. Development is a technical and creative endeavour. The developers often feel restricted and inflexible when they are constantly watched. With filling time sheets every hour, the goal becomes producing enough work to satisfy the management. It shifts from producing good quality, creative and innovative software. So a lot of programmers feel that their productivity and creativity is compromised.

Why programmers should do it:

 

 

The practice of tracking the time is not the evil. But if misunderstood and misused, it becomes a nuisance. Following are the reasons, why developers should use track their time.

  1. Tracking the time while working on a project can give insights about how much work is done. It is a great tool for project management in software engineering.
  2. Time Monitoring can help developers stay focused. While looking up ideas online or doing the research, it is quite possible for developers to wonder off into the land of procrastination and internet memes. But if a programmer is aware of the fact that he will be answerable for the time spent, he is less likely to waste unacceptably large chunks of time.
  3. Good tracking practises can help in effective Time Management. When the managers and developers know about the time that it takes to get a task done, they can set up rational deadlines and milestones for themselves and the team. And this can effectively improve the group culture. Rational goals and deadlines save employees from stress of overwork and burn-out. Employees with good mental health are more valuable then the overworked employees.
  4. Meeting deadlines and delivering the projects timely is the linchpin of a successful software business. By tracking the time, the managers and developers can become diligent about producing good quality work and that too on time. Using a Virtual Office Software can improve the way time is spent. Prioritising the tasks according to urgency and importance can greatly help in producing the deliverables at time.

Choose the Right Software for Tracking Time

Time tracking can become a very annoying practise if you do not choose the right software for your business and team. Knowing the company culture and the limitations of your team, make the correct choice so that it gives a boost to your business. Keep the following points in mind, when you want to choose a time tracker for your developers.

Use a tool that automatically tracks time. Something that works in the background would be perfect. For example, StaffTimerApp only requires the user to start the timer and turn it off. During the rest of the duration, it automatically captures the screenshots of the screen and process them to give statistics of work related and non-work related activities. Therefore, the developer wont be bugged over and over again to track time.

Deploy a software product that is simple to use. You do not need a complex and elaborate multipurpose Time Management system for your developers. Most likely, the developers would already have a few tools that they use for Project Management. So, they do not require to master the use of another tool. in such a case, the use of a MVP like StaffTimerApp can be the better choice.

Conclusion

By using the right Time Tracking software in the right way, you can make the life of the employees easier and boost profits of your company.

Use Virtual Office Software for Sustainable Environment

Planet Earth has been heating up. The Glaciers are melting. The icecaps of North and South Pole are melting. Floods are becoming a frequent occurring. All this calls for a change in the way humans have been living their lives because this way is disrupting the ecosystem of the planet.

Although Global Warming has been a reality for more than a century, it is only now that the politicians, influential personnel and the world leaders have started taking notice. The Paris Climate Accord of 2015 was noticed all around. And it made even more headlines when Donald Trump decided to walk out of the agreement.

The agreement pinpointed ways that could be employed to cut down carbon emission. These included changes like shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. These all changes are hard to make because they require infrastructural changes of billions of dollars.

But there are some subtle ways that have the power to bring about great change for the environment. One such way is the democratization of Virtual Office Software. One may wonder how the extensive use of these software cuts down carbon emission.

Following are the ways that it would happen.

How Virtual Office Software helps towards a Greener Planet

Virtual Office Software not only makes employees happy as they can work from the comfort of their homes but it can also have a great impact on the environment. If this lifestyle change is embraced all across, it can make a great impact on the ecosystem.

  1. Teamwork’s time tracker calls for a shift from the traditional strategies of management and record keeping that use paper. Gone is the time when extensive ledgers were updated everyday for the purpose of effective human resources management. Now, most contemporary managers make use of digital software for management and record-keeping. These modern tools are not only more reliable but also have other advantages. The paper saving helps the environment in various dimensions. Fewer trees would be cut down to meet the ever-increasing need for paper. Hence, more trees mean less carbon dioxide as trees consume the carbon dioxide. Moreover, less fuel would be used by the paper production industry when the demand of paper becomes less.

  2. The advent of Time Tracking Software and Employee Monitoring Software empowers the people to do remote work and telecommuting. With this facility, the people can work from their homes. They would not need to travel every day to the workplace. Imagine! If you could save all the fuel that you spend every day, imagine the reduction of carbon footprint by your effort. If a major chunk of workforce becomes remote, collective effort by all the people would make a huge difference.
  3. When people work from their homes, the employers save the cost of maintaining a workplace. For example, electric power is used less. Now just think for a second, if half of the workforce starts working from home, so much of electric power will be saved. Less use of electric power means fewer fossil fuels are burnt to produce it and hence less CO2 is released into the environment.
  4. In the remote work environment, the communication is carried out through digital media. Since emails, instant messengers, voice and video chat options are used, less paper is consumed. There is no need for formalities like official memoranda to be sent out every day. Employees do not use notepads and paper for note taking as often. Hence, the use of paper is less. And the advantages of less paper use are aforementioned.
  5. With the use of remote employee monitoring software, less wastage is produced. The burden of office building waste will reduce. Today, most of the modern and developed countries have set up recycling plants to incinerate and recycle the waste and garbage. And these plants also expend fuel and give off heat and carbon dioxide. If Corporate Sector reduces the amount of litter produced, a major difference will be made.

Conclusion

Virtual Office Software has been a pretty awesome tool. It has made us change our work life and work habits. It has changed the way we conduct business. And more often than not, these software is advertised as a great asset to businesses and contractors and it enables them to expand their businesses and increase their profits.

These certainly are the advantages of this genre of software. But undoubtedly, the most far-reaching advantage is that these software will reduce the carbon footprint on the planet as they initiate a lifestyle change that asks for less fuel consumption and hence less carbon dioxide is produced.

Use Virtual Office Software to help your Blogging Business

During the early years of the new millennium, a blog was primarily a forum where a single individual shared his views and opinions about a certain niche.

Perez Hilton, who often annoyed celebrities with his ramblings, was one of the pioneers of entertainment blogging. But over the past several years, blogging has evolved into an elaborate field.

Today, there are many diverse kinds of blogs, covering every area one could possibly imagine. With blogging being an elaborate, innovative and fast paced field, more often than not, blog owners hire writers and authors who share the same passion and ideas as them.

Food bloggers hire chefs who have a knack for experimental cooking or a food journalist who visits restaurants and produces honest reviews. Similarly, entertainment bloggers hire writers who are up to date about the happenings of the la la land.

Since finding people in close vicinity, who have such precise qualities, is hard, bloggers often hire remote writers who can produce exactly the kind of content that they are looking for. And this is when Virtual Office Software comes into the picture.

Why the need of Virtual Office Software arose

Many writers bill by the hour and this creates an uncomfortable situation for the employers and the employees. Employees often are not sure:

  1. how much time does it exactly take to produce content for an individual writer.
  2. if the employees waste time on activities not related to work and include them in the billable hours as well.
  3. if the employees actually spent time on research or were they simply wondering over the internet.
  4. about the productivity and profitability of a certain writer.

Many of the woes of blog owners could be addressed using Remote Time Tracking software. Even though internet has been popular for more than two decades now, Virtual Office Software has only made it to the market several years ago and they are tremendously effective at helping out employers in managing their teams and giving a push to the productivity.

Writers go through many phases before a good quality article takes shape. This includes tracking information, organising the information, using software for identifying effective keywords and finally writing and publishing the article.

Remote employee monitoring can help both the writers and blog owners in getting a clear picture of how time is spent in putting up an article together.

How a Virtual Office Software helps bloggers

A Virtual office software tailored to the needs of a blogger could boost the productivity of your team and the profitability of your business to a great extent. Following features can especially help a blog owner.

  1. Remote monitoring has become possible by the Software available for Time Tracking. Now a blog owner can hire writers without worries due to inadequate monitoring options.
  2. Precise reports of work progress, productivity and time spent on a project let a blog owner know how apt a writer is. These evaluation statistics can help a blogger do the math necessary to boost profits.
  3. They can help a client in diagnosing habits of employees that cause a decline in productivity. Is the writer not very well versed with the subject and spends too much time on the internet while learning about it? It means he’s not very competent. Does the writer get distracted a lot by all the social media apps, thats a problem that could be solved by diligent tracking.

Conclusion

If you are a blogger and you want your business to become more productive, start using a Time Tracking Software!