Day: September 7, 2020

Being a Manager is all about managing his/her team and how helpful it is with free software! No more ambiguity with the number of hours each team member worked, with xTimesheet. With such a reliable tool, you’ll no longer need to catch up with each one of them to know the status of every task. You can manage everything with just a matter of a click. The person who enters and the one who tracks data are both benefited from this digitized tool because nothing goes unreported or misunderstood. Managers can always send out reminders to employees to check their timesheets to clear out discrepancies if there is some gap in the data entered. Performance analysis can be easily done with the help of xTimesheet because employees can be paid and rewarded based on the hours they worked.

It offers time tracking together with other abilities such as task management, bug tracking, and CRM. The important time tracking features include the ability to track time against different tasks and bill clients for time worked on projects.

xTimesheet is the one tool you need if you are dealing with multiple clients carrying out numerous projects. It is a one-stop solution for reporting and analytics, CRM, and invoicing. Here are a few ways your employees steal time or fake their timesheet:
Buddy Punching: With biometric punching, no employee can punch them in and out time using their buddies.
Inaccurate Timesheet: You can be stress-free since employees cannot punch in the way before they actually start or punch out at a later time after having leave work in a short time. No more faking!
Get paid for how much you work! This is a very promising and transparent system between both the employee and the manager to keep things simple and clear with absolutely no more complexities. This sounds very helpful to all the managers out there finding it hard to keep track of their employees.

Raw data is useless data! With the new in-built Analytics feature of xTimesheet, it becomes easy to make decisions in modern-day businesses. How cool is that? There is no denying that digital data handling is the future when it comes to fostering businesses. xTimesheet is a combination of digital time tracking software and analytics software with which each company can not only plan deployment of its workforce, administer leave and scheduled time off while managing performance, and calculating payroll more accurately but also increase overall profits of the business with the integrated analytics metrics.

Several case studies show that the top industries to take advantage of analytics by 2020 will be banking, manufacturing, federal/central government, and professional services. Time tracking software is very helpful to companies to maintain a work-life balance environment for employees since letting the employees input their efforts not only helps them to keep track but also encourages them to increase productivity.
Not only does xTimesheet help companies in generating payroll and invoices, but it also helps to keep track of the employees’ leave balance. Any dip in performance can be associated with the data obtained from the employee timesheets. It gives people the liberty to work from anywhere remotely without worrying about their pay. Data plays a vital role because it is the sole entity that decides everything in the world nowadays and xTimesheet comes to your rescue since it is a better solution than Excel to handle such humongous data.

Analytics like any other tool helps to make big turning points in any business. It helps to understand the glitches or gaps in the current business model and suggests ways to improve. Who doesn’t want to improve? Everything in this world needs tweakings. The more the analytics, the better is the result. Analytics allows you to use your data to make insight-driven, targeted marketing, and business development decisions so you can make decisions that can grow your business with self-confidence.

‘Time is Money’ and our white-collar workers extensively abide by this mantra. Every time an employee flakes out, the company loses a huge chunk of money, and therefore efficiency and productivity are the two pillars an organization works on. So what exactly does ‘efficiency’ mean?
The concept says, ‘How efficient a person is, depends on where the resources and energy are going and how much of them are being used to obtain a certain result’.

The efficiency of an employee is mainly categorized in two ways:

Static

Static efficiency is measured when an employee has to take advantage of a preliminary process or product and entails improving it. In other words, it is mostly concerned with pre-existing resources.

Dynamic

Dynamic efficiency refers to the creation of new processes or products with time, ipso facto generating new opportunities, and improving profitability. So, it mostly deals with acquiring new resources.

There are 4 metrics on which efficiency is measured:

Desktime: The time spent on the system (computer).
Productive Time: The time spent on the productive application.
Productivity: It is defined as a Productive time divided by the Desktime.
Effectiveness: It is the amount of time invested in doing the right thing for the aforementioned time (generally, the 9 to 5 routine).

It is important to note that productivity and efficiency are two different elements. An employee may be productive but dissipating the resources, whereas an efficient employee perchance is producing lesser work output.

Efficiency analysis also uses math to calculate potential losses one might incur for costs. The following formula identifies these losses as a result of inefficient use of time:

We observe that the term ‘Project Cost’ is an integral part of calculating losses and hence, reducing it is indispensable. What if there was a way to keep a check on these types of costs?

xTimesheet is an application that can assist in tracking the project cost. Each hour spent on a project results in an hourly wage and overhead, xTimesheet incorporates features like the hours spent on a task.
The application has a fluid interface to track progress irrespective of whether a project is internal or external. xTimesheet app is super easy to use. It will mark the unproductive activities based on the details filled by the employees, which in turn will make the decision-making process easier for the managers. It also provides better insights into future estimates.

In case of any discrepancies found by the manager, she/he can reject the timesheet and ask the employee to resubmit their timesheet after making the required changes. In this way, the time spent on each task will be managed effectively and the employer will be aware of the productivity and efficiency of her/his employees.

The world was always digital. We are just living in it NOW! Virtual is the new normal for a large no. of organizations, and managing the workforce summons challenges. Employees are situated in various locations, and while there are time zone barriers, network issues, and inaccuracy in communication, the business goes on. Performance cannot be compromised, and so, it calls for a Management system to assure the well-functioning of teams.

So, how to sustain the performance of the employees, albeit present miles apart?

Communicate, communicate, communicate
Getting everyone on board is crucial in these times, and therefore, arranging video conferences is vital for being operative.
According to one study, remote employees work 1.4 more days per month than their office-based counterparts.
So, leverage the best communication technologies to conduct timely reviews to ensure how the team is coping with this style of working.

Set up clear objectives
Establish daily, weekly, or monthly performance goals and maintain a review system to track them. Look out for the obstacles, if any, and ensure that progress is made. Try to rectify the mistakes almost immediately; do not let it slide.
It is important to schedule meetings regularly to discuss the developments of the project.

Maintain ‘out of work’ relationships
Studies show that 70 % of the employees said maintaining relationships with their co-workers was just as important as their jobs. Only 19% said they prioritized work over relationships, while the remaining 11% said co-worker relationships were a higher priority’.
Hence, it is vital to arrange employees’ engagement/ team building activities even though virtually, to keep them connected and motivated.
Track the basic measures of productivity
Since the whole organization has shifted online, companies are promoting flexible work hours. Therefore, it becomes critical to maintain a record of the various tasks that the employees are working on. This tracking system is especially necessary for those who are billable on a working hour basis.

One such application is the xTimesheet. It enables one to have track of the billing hours and makes sure that the company does not lose any worked hours to the client for billing. A well-built timesheet approval system, along with an invoice module handles this very well.

To enhance the work output, the employees must be stress-free. Filling the timesheet is one tedious task. Keeping this in mind, our team created the xTimesheet tool. It is simple and very flexible to use.
This application is an easy-to-use, simple fluid UI that will help to monitor, track & plan out all the work according to the required time-bound deadlines.

Performance ratings are incredibly subjective, but quantifying an employee’s performance is very crucial for any company. Else it would be difficult for a manager to keep track of the productivity of their employee. Appraisals are dispensed based on these ratings, which in turn depends on multiple metrics. The rating is generally done on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 and assess the frequency of a job deliverable or other behavioral elements of an employee.

360- degree Feedback System
As the name suggests, points are given based on the feedback of co-workers, supervisors, and other peers the employee is working with. It proffers an overall image of the employee in his/her workspace. It determines the attitude of the team member and uncovers the areas of improvement with regards to his/her interpersonal skills.

Management by Results
This is generally a one-on-one discussion between an employee and their manager, where they jointly determine the individual’s objectives. Rating is done based on how effectively the employee has managed to accomplish the task within the stipulated time. It helps employees to have a clear understanding of what’s is expected from them and allows them to participate in the process, which helps in better communication and increases motivation.

Consistent Improvement
“Perfection is a goal that will forever remain impossible for any human being to achieve. Therefore, the only achievable goal is to only strive to become the best that you can be.”
― Edmond Mbiaka

Taking this thought into account, employees are and should be rated on their consistent improvements. It can be achieved by keeping a check on their productivity and conferring with the employees on a monthly or quarterly basis. Softwares like xTimesheet are very convenient in such situations. xTimesheet provides employees with more control over how they put their time in and instills trust toward the organization, increasing productivity. It monitors their rate of completion and evaluates the quality of their work to ensure they are working on things that are in line with the completion of their task and at the same time with the growth of the company.

The desire and effort to become better should be the most rewarding quality for any company.

Self-evaluation
Talking about productivity, asking an employee to evaluate themselves in terms of performance can be very effective. It empowers them to be critical of their performance. It gives them a better understanding by comparing their self-evaluation to that of their managers and helps them to identify the similarities and discrepancies if any.

Although appraisals and promotions do depend on these metrics, it is the comprehensive evaluation done over time that determines the productivity and performance of an employee.

‘Outsourcing’ can be considered as the word of the decade (the worldwide outsourcing market had already surpassed $524.4 billion back in 2015), and some companies (especially the IT sector) tend to thrive on this. Although an InHouse team promotes better liability and consistent communication with the organization, Remote employees manifest their own merits.
However, a recent survey by the training company VitalSmarts claims that 20% of leaders are unprepared to lead their teleworking team.
With a different set of rules, perks, and management style, let’s delve deep into this arena of In-house vs. Remote Employees.

There are three essential differences between the two modus operandi:

Conflicting time zones.
Work Culture
Physical presence

Conflicting Time Zone
Organizations with remote teams and In-house teams face the biggest challenge of a diverse time zone. 9 am in India is 11.30 pm in the USA. Managers have to adhere to “time fairness” and schedule calls in such a way that is feasible for all the team members. And it is no easy task to achieve.

On the flip side, a manager will have a propensity for the InHouse employees since she/he will be spending some hours of the day with them and hence render the feasibility of communication.

Apart from meetings, managers will also have to decide on the deadlines accordingly to avoid any hassle due to separate time belts.

Work Culture
Remote employees tend to exhibit more independent behavior. Since they demand less supervision, companies may require fewer managers to control their co-workers and, therefore, more money on the plate.

Work culture also incorporates the cultural and language differences that may turn out to be a hindrance to the project deliverables. It is essential to understand the messages of the employees with clear objectives and find common ground among the variations for seamless management of the team. A manager needs to make the remote team feel comfortable and connected.

Physical presence
The space difference appends to the challenges of managing a remote team for the manager. Since they are not sitting next to you, leveraging the best communication tools to stay in touch is the only viable option.

Frequent video calls and scrum calls are the only efficient way to keep the whole team on board. Although scheduling too many meetings can induce various problems and lessen productivity. According to the recent Harvard Business School report, starting April this year, there’s a 13% increase of meetings per person, compared to the first quarter of this year (before there were worldwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Luckily, there’s a decline in the average length of these meetings – by 20%. This survey gathered 3.1 million workers from North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Another challenge of having distributed teams is that performance and productivity tracking becomes a bit tricky. A few of the most effective solutions to the problem are filling out timesheets. But a manual timesheet again tends to give way to ‘timesheet stress’! xTimesheet is the answer. It is automated and sends a notification via email and push notification on your device.
In addition to this, xTimesheet gives out reports and charts to give a glimpse of your working hours in a better way and easy to understand at any particular time of the month.

Wrapping up with food for thought:

“Remote working is the future, but you need a physical presence at least a couple of times a year to truly create an amazing team.” – Ricardo Fernandez