All businesses should have some kind of attendance tracking system in place because of basic reporting and compliance requirements, but time tracking often gets overlooked. This is a mistake because time tracking data can provide critical insight into your operations, giving you a data source that can be useful for decision making, business forecasting and analyzing your workforce’s productivity.
But implementing an organization-wide time tracking system is no small endeavor, whether you work for a big company or a small business. Here are our 5 steps to help you get started.
Ensure Complete Buy-In
One of the critical first steps to ensuring your time tracking system gets off the ground is to ensure that everyone is onboard. There’s no point in implementing a system if people aren’t going to use it. It’s important to target senior managers and other decision-makers first, but then you need a clear strategy to communicate to all staff members why this new system will be beneficial. Selling points for employees can include better scheduling, more accurate pay and more balanced workloads.
Assign a Staff Person Responsible
Next, you need to make a key staff person responsible and accountable for this implementation project. Too often time tracking projects fail to get off the ground because no one takes ownership. This also gives staff members a clear person to turn to if they have any questions or concerns. This person can also be responsible for assisting with training and developing support resources.
Pick a Software
After you have got total buy-in and a staff member assigned to the task, you are going to need to make sure you pick the right system suited to your needs. There are many free, manual time tracking systems available on the internet that offer very basic features. If you aren’t looking for much more than that, these systems can work fine for you. However, a workforce management software provides so many valuable features like assisted worker scheduling, absence management, automated reporting and so much more! It can be worth investing in one of these solutions if you need something more elaborate.
Monitor, Gather Feedback and Adjust
After going live with your new time tracking system, it’s always important to monitor how the implementation is going, ask staff for their feedback and adjust accordingly. Time tracking is a continual process and you need to be committed for the long haul. Otherwise your system could easily fall out of suse to the detriment of your business.
