The working time of employees is often the greatest of costs the company incurs. This situation concerns service companies in particular. Nowadays, when employees spend their time mainly on computers, working hours can be monitored as never before.

One of the most efficient methods of computer time tracking is to use special software. As financesonline.com states, this is the most popular way of time measuring in developed countries. Quoting HR.com, almost half of employees tend to overstate their working hours. This puts into question the use of manual time counting methods – using Excel or writing down working hours on a piece of paper. A much better solution is to use automatic time tracking, which confirms the following Case Study.

Monitoring Working Time

Using a desktop application or so-called ”timesheets”, employees can mark the projects they are currently working on. In the case of companies such as marketing agencies, project managers can at any time:

• check an extent of task implementation;
• assess the profitability of work for given customers;
• assess the profitability of individual projects and tasks;
• allow employees to assess their performance on their own;
• enable employees to reduce time losses.

According to the Polish magazine Psychology at work, employees do not like to be controlled, but they need something that would motivate them to work, which can be time tracking software.

[code_snippet id=6]

However, for the implementation of such software to be successful, it is important that it is properly implemented in the company. It is because employees may sometimes feel “monitored,” which makes them ask questions:

• Did I do something wrong?
• Does the employer no longer believe us?
• What will happen if it turns out that I do not work as much as my employer would like me to?

It is worth to remove doubts before the process of implementation. The below illustrates various communication areas between superiors  and their subordinates, which will ensure proper implementation.