Business Strategies Based on These 7 Compelling Time-Tracking Stats

Riddle me this:

I can’t be saved,

Though people try.

When fun is had,

They say I fly.

They say I’m money:

I can be spent,

I can be wasted,

But never lent.

What am I?

If you’re yelling TIME at your screens, you are absolutely right!

The sand always keeps falling in an hourglass, no matter what. Time is said to be an infinite resource, yet we have a minimal amount to spend.

Do you find yourself—or your team—in a constant race against time? Then you have landed at the right place.

Here, we will discuss some of the most important time-tracking statistics to help you understand its significance in our daily lives. These numbers highlight areas for improvement and guide the appropriate pathways to do so.

So, let’s dive right in!

What Is Time Management?

In simple words, time management is the act of planning and controlling the amount of time spent on any specific task. Appropriate time management skills can help a person achieve more in a shorter duration, decrease stress, and ultimately lead to career success.

Some noteworthy benefits of time management include:

• Healthy work-life balance. Often, people struggle while juggling personal and professional lives. However, proper time-tracking and management enable them to successfully allocate adequate time to all spectrums of their lives. This leads to a healthy work-life balance in the long run.
• Mental well-being. One of the major cons of poor time management skills is heightened stress, which can lead to frequent anxiety attacks in many cases. Employees who lack this skill and rush to meet their deadlines at the last minute are also at an increased risk of burnout. A viable solution for this can be to gauge the work that needs to be done and set realistic deadlines from the get-go. In addition, maintaining a set pace ensures that the task progresses along with the time allotted.
• Major confidence boost. Time tracking and management help you prioritize important tasks and check them off the to-do list at the earliest. Finishing all the essential tasks on time gives an individual a major confidence boost and helps them maintain a positive attitude.
• Exponential growth. Furthermore, when done right, time management leaves room for an individual to learn new skills. This can open new opportunities for them to advance their careers to greater heights.

Now that we know the what and why of time tracking and management, let’s focus on the “how.”

Here are some eye-opening statistics to help a company incorporate time tracking to ensure maximum efficiency and productivity.

1. Reduce distractions

The first step for an organization to improve employee time management is to identify the root cause of low productivity. Once you have spotted the elements that hinder the work, you can work on moderating or eliminating them.

Here’s the result of a study on workplace culture that identifies what people find distracting at work.

8 out of 10 people report being distracted by chatty coworkers

Not just that, office noise was the second most cited disturbance for the office-going folk. And last, yet significantly disturbing, was social media, with 50% of people considering these platforms as a distraction from their work.

Distractions cost employees nearly 3 hours/workday

And much more to the company. Here’s an estimate of how much money it would cost for an organization:

Source

As a company, you can limit these distractions through various time-tracking systems. You can also provide alternatives, such as frequent brief breaks for the employees to unwind while ensuring they stay true to the timeline of the tasks.

Opt for Paymo Track, an automatic time tracker you can download for free. It’ll locally save your activity, and you can easily convert time stamps into time entries, so that you have an accurate picture of how much time you’re focusing (or wasting) on your device.

2. The meeting that could’ve been an email

Have you ever found yourself in a meeting wondering if all of that information could have been communicated just as easily through an email?

Guess what? So have most of the other corporate employees at some point in their careers.

One may argue that meetings contribute to enhanced communication within teams and keep the engine of an organization well-oiled by breaking silos.

However, unnecessary meetings can overwhelm employees, leading to poor collaboration and productivity. The data speaks for itself –

On average, employees spend over 23 hours a week in meetings

Moreover, most meetings are poorly timed or poorly run. A time-tracking system can help optimize employees’ efficiency. They can avoid chopped-up schedules and allocate ample time for deep thinking and uninterrupted solo work. That takes us to the next important statistic worth noting.

3. Incorporate time-tracking systems

As we have discussed, proper time management can benefit individuals and companies. Tracking work hours can help with time management, project scheduling, and team duties. Time monitoring also increases profitability through precise billing and greater team productivity. Here’s a curated list of the best 25 time-tracking software you can use for your productivity and profitability.

On a personal level, time tracking can help you work smarter, set better priorities, and make the most of each day. Time monitoring allows you to stay organized and get more done, whether for work or personal duties. And yet,

82% of people do not have a proper time management system

The majority of them keep track of their time through centuries-old methods, as observed in the chart:

Source

Here’s where time-tracking software can be a knight in shining armor for any organization. Time tracking has the potential to boost both your team and your profits.

Time monitoring software for teams guarantees that everyone has the time and money to execute projects to the best of their abilities, from recognizing repetitive, time-consuming jobs to expanding resources to accommodate “hidden tasks.”

Whether managing a large corporation or a boutique firm in charge of designing or coding (anything from architecture, design, and marketing to an LMS development company), integrating a time-tracking system can streamline operations and improve efficiency.

4. Consider a hybrid workforce

After the fever dream of working remotely during the global pandemic in 2020, many employees have noticed a major boost in efficiency while working from home. One reason is the time wasted during their commute to the office.

Did you know?

Employees waste 13% of their time commuting to an office

Therefore, several employers have explored a middle ground by choosing a hybrid working model. In this model, people step into the office for a decided number of days and work from their homes the rest of the week. To ensure employees are efficient in this hybrid model, many companies are turning to remote team management software. This outcome is also favored by the employees, as seen in the graph below.

Source

In case you’re worried about the output from the employees who choose to work in a hybrid, time-tracking software can also be of immense help in this case. Data suggests that

58% of employees report increased productivity in hybrid setups

A hybrid setup can lead to a healthy work-life balance for everyone. Not just that, employees can benefit financially by saving up on fuel or public transportation costs, parking tickets, and more.

5. Eliminate outdated technology

While you plan on adding time-tracking software to increase everyone’s productivity, audit the rest of your company’s technology. If your systems experience heightened downtime, employees’ workflow is usually disrupted, wasting their valuable time.

Companies waste 104 working days per year because of outdated technology

Outdated technology performs slower, takes longer to complete tasks, and necessitates far more time-consuming maintenance, patches, upgrades, and helpdesk calls than modern competitors. Furthermore, it might significantly limit a company’s access to workflow enhancements.

Reduced productivity can cost your company in terms of revenue and ROI. You get a lot more out of productive personnel than from those who spend much of their day trying to get their tools to work properly. A time-tracking system can help you identify many such aspects where an employee’s time is wasted and where there is a scope for improvement in the future.

6. Avoid time theft

Time theft occurs when employees round up their hours at work or get compensated for work they did not complete. Buddy punching occurs when a coworker clocks in using your card in your absence.

Time theft and buddy punching are frequent practices among businesses that use traditional paper timesheets and clock-in technologies.

Research shows that 75% of companies in the US are affected by time theft

The good news is that you can reduce time theft in your firm by using current time monitoring and staff attendance software.

Managers can simply ensure maximum job production by fostering work openness among teams. They can monitor user activity to guarantee that no one uses work time for personal reasons.

7. Deftly manage payroll

Payroll can be a complex procedure. As your firm grows, keeping track of each employee’s salary might be difficult.

Furthermore, delayed or erroneous paychecks can significantly demotivate your employees.

1 in 3 companies get penalized for payroll mistakes!

Payroll preparation is a difficult process that becomes more challenging when there is no reliable data on billable hours. However, by using time-tracking applications, you can eliminate the need for human computations. Additionally, you can prevent receiving complaints from employees about payroll delays.

However, you cannot simply choose the most feature-rich option. To ensure that you use only the best, read our comprehensive guide to time-tracking software to learn more about the features to look for in this type of system.

Parting Thoughts

Time tracking can have a big impact on your organization. In certain ways, it can boost your employees’ productivity by making them more accountable for how they spend their workday. This is especially vital in today’s world of constant diversions.

As the time-tracking software figures above illustrate, workers are easily sidetracked. They can spend hours reading the news online, browsing in general, and lurking on social media sites. Once they become distracted, it might be tough for them to focus on their work.

However, with a practical time monitoring system in place, you can minimize these distractions. In this manner, you can help your staff create healthy work habits, which will benefit your firm.