From Poor to Good Timekeeping at Work: A Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s be honest – very few people (*ahems* myself included) actually enjoy time tracking. And while we're at it, can we also admit no one really uses timers properly? Yet without solid time data, improving profitability is guesswork at best. You're basically flying your business blind.

You and your team likely understand time tracking matters, so why does the data still feel patchy and incomplete? The good news? There’s a way to fix this without micromanaging. 

This article will lay out a clear, practical approach to gathering time insights that can boost productivity and, in turn, fuel growth. We’ll look at why accurate timekeeping is important, discuss recurring problems with employee time tracking, and explore how to improve timekeeping at work.

So, let’s make getting better easier, shall we?!

Problems with employee timekeeping

In order to adequately highlight bad timekeeping at work, we should first define what timekeeping is, alongside what constitutes poor versus good timekeeping.

What is timekeeping? In a business context, timekeeping is the process of tracking your team members' work hours in order to maintain adequate support and accountability, while boosting output. The end result should be a pool of decent data that you can use to guide you towards more intelligent business choices.

What is bad timekeeping at work? Inaccurate or inconsistent time tracking is typically the result of poor timekeeping.

It may manifest as:

• Deadlines that were missed
• Lack of visibility into where you’re largely channelling your effort
• Timesheets that are incomplete or delayed
• When it comes to billing or planning, guesswork is often used over data

Because you don't truly know how time is being spent, team leads and business owners can frequently find themselves making decisions in the dark.

Good timekeeping at work means consistently and accurately tracking how time is spent, in a way that supports productivity – but, crucially – without disrupting flow. Making work visible on a daily basis is more important than simply clocking in and out or using timesheets.

Here's how it should look:

Effective timekeeping functions like a silent system operating in the background. This naturally facilitates better decision-making and allows your team to concentrate on the most productive tasks.

So, long story short, if you fail to engage in good timekeeping at work, you will likely see everything else – like adequate forecasting, budgeting, and productivity measurement – begin to falter. Remember, ongoing clarity is the goal here, not rigidity. 

Poor timekeeping at work examples

Ineffective timekeeping can be so insidious at times that it’s extremely easy to miss where your process is letting you down. Below are just a few time tracking pitfalls.

1. No transparency around the purpose of time tracking

‍How can anyone expect buy-in from your team, never mind the proper execution of time tracking, if you don’t explain the benefits of it and what it will be used for? Not explaining the purpose can result in some team members logging defensively or steering clear of time tracking entirely because they believe it is about micromanagement or punishment.

2. Not using real-time tracking

As I touched on earlier, tracking in real-time is best. Otherwise, you and your team might find yourselves logging project time after it's billed (or not at all); missing time entries completely before rushing at the end of the month to make it up; or filling out timesheets days later (on a Friday...), where you then rely solely on calendar events to recall what you did or hazy memories (i.e., guesswork).

3. Not working as a team

Individual accountability and accuracy are all but eradicated when only one person is responsible for tracking time for the whole team.

4. There’s no feedback loop and/or standardization

‍OK, so your team is recording their time, but nobody looks over or utilizes it. This renders it a futile exercise. In terms of standardization, you find your reports are tricky to understand because different users utilize the tool in different ways (some track by task, others by project).

5. It’s too darn complicated

‍Be it tool overload or poor user experience, even when people try to use timekeeping systems, the results can be jumbled. Why? Because they are cumbersome, unclear, or don't correspond with how people actually work.

6. Ignoring nuance

‍How many times, regardless of what you actually accomplished, have you recorded the same 8-hour day? Use arbitrary headers like "emails," "admin," "meetings," or even the dreaded "misc" to track your hours by tasks. You will end up with data that is, quite frankly, too general to be of any use if you track time in this manner. The devil is in the detail – but that doesn't mean you need to get bogged down in it.

This is where a time tracking software like Memtime can help you. In fact, if you want to learn more about the mistakes to avoid when tracking time, then consider enrolling in our free course: The 30% Method by Memtime. 

How you can start to improve timekeeping at work

Now that you’re aware of the potential pitfalls you and your team are quite possibly making in terms of poor timekeeping at work, here’s how you can start to improve it. And step 1 shouldn’t come as a shocker…

1. Talk to your team

We don’t mean a quick 15-minute conflab stating “We’re doing this because we need to do it”, but rather dedicate a decent block of time to outlining the benefits of time tracking. For the more audio/visual learners in your team, we recommend slides, videos, and adequate time at the end for questions. Their feedback is key. 

2. Lead with profitability

Again, be transparent about why this is being done – improved margins resulting in more profitability, which will positively impact every member of your team (improved office space, possible increased salaries/benefits, and overall morale!)

3. Calculate an example of the delivery margin

True, you may fear this is where some team members are likely to zone out, but providing a tangible example here is crucial. Each member needs to have a grasp of how to calculate delivery margin and why it's important (which is why you precede the math with the individual benefits of profitability!). To further increase engagement here, you should apply it to a project the team is already familiar with.

4. Highlight accuracy and completion

‍Once you’ve highlighted that shirking delivery times is non-negotiable in terms of profitability, keep your project example slide onscreen and highlight how margins change even if one team member fails to track their time correctly.  

5. Explain the HOW of time tracking

‍In short, it needs to be done daily, and the utilization should never be inflated. In order to achieve this, you need to:

• Openly address the urge to manipulate hours in order to appear “busy”. Outline that inflating hours will distort the data, which will undermine the route to the end goal – profitability.
• Highlight that any fear of being judged about hours is unfounded. There is no one-size-fits-all in terms of hours spent on a project. Promoting honesty and fostering a blame free culture is the best policy here when logging hours worked. Remember, it’s quality over quantity.
• Once your team feels they can honestly track their time, only then can you adequately start planning your resources properly.

Your 5 steps to good timekeeping at work

Now that you’ve been transparent with your team, dedicated sufficient time to communicate the mutual benefits of time tracking, and have buy-in in terms of the importance of honest time logging, what’s next? Well, the good news is you’ve already covered the first step!

1. Do your team meeting and follow the preceding five steps: Done!
2. Make time tracking one of your core company values: You must track your time daily (make it protocol to log your hours at the end of the working day across the company, a 10 minute block built into your team’s calendar should suffice), while ensuring you respect each other’s time, and you charge your clients for the time you spend on them as effectively as possible. This should be a top-down approach because if you don’t provide the time and space for your team to practice good timekeeping, or practice it yourself, then chances are your team won’t be quick to adopt this core company value.
3. Commit to regular one-to-one reviews: Now that effective time tracking is a core company value, give it time to take root. In order to establish a good routine around time tracking, you need to ensure everyone is doing it. If you find a team member isn’t partaking in the daily logging (and, trust us, it will invariably be the employee you least expect), be supportive instead of confrontational. Ask for a one-on-one meeting instead of calling it out publicly; it might be the case that they don’t fully understand why tracking is beneficial, not just for the company, but for them personally. Also, they may not know the best way to implement time tracking and need further guidance in this area. Speaking of which…‍
4. Make time tracking at work as easy as possible: Your current method of time tracking might work just fine, but it’s always worth taking another look at; as with a lot of processes, they should be reviewed and renewed often. Perhaps your process is outdated, as it’s been in operation for some months/years, maybe it doesn’t need to be as granular as it once was. Simplification is key. By automating your time tracking, you’re saving you and your team countless micro-decisions, which is a time-saving method in itself. ‍
5. Introduce reporting meetings: The metrics that you calculate need to be discussed with your team AT LEAST once a month. Choose a frequency that suits you best.

Wrapping up

No matter what form of time tracking you choose to use, automated time tracking such as with Memtime can free up more time for you as it negates those pesky microdecisions. How? Because it’s all laid out there in front of you on a daily basis – the offline time, the productive time, and the time you truly spent browsing on Amazon…

It’s worth mentioning that Memtime is the automatic time tracker that guarantees privacy by keeping your activity data offline. So, if you’d like to have your time track itself today, feel free to start your 14-day free trial, no credit card deets required!