No one enjoys time tracking. However, both Engineering and Architecture firms must manage time as one of the biggest resources that impact project delivery. As a firm owner, project manager, or office manager, you’ve worked hard to get your company up and running on firm management software like BQE CORE, only to face a new problem. How can you get your employees to commit to entering and submitting their time and expenses consistently and on time?
Some employees have the bad habit of not submitting this information on time and getting them to do it can be a difficult task. Building new habits across your firm is challenging but there are some strategies that can help. Let’s look at some ideas on how to get your employees on board with time and expense tracking on a regular basis.
Your employees are focused on project work, and right so. Delivering high quality work on schedule, hitting milestones, and managing your team of consultants and clients, takes a lot of effort. This is probably why your team drops the ball with tracking their time and expenses. It's not that they think it isn't important, it's that they have other important work they are focused on. However, bad time-tracking practices can be detrimental to your company xfsdf. Getting your employees on board is essential and the first step is to make sure they understand why it’s important.
Explain to them that time tracking has a huge impact on keeping projects within budget, it shows you the work in progress on the project, and also helps you to create more accurate budgets for future projects. When time and expense tracking is done correctly, your company will be more profitable, which helps you provide better pay and benefits for your employees.
In other words, by helping the company in this way, the employee is helping themselves too. Explaining these details helps your employees understand how important it is to the company.
This is your company; you know how valuable time tracking is. It will improve the company’s health and profitability, which can translate into growth.
Requiring your employees to track their time and expenses is your absolute right. You make the rules. Switching over to new software, such as BQE CORE, is a great time to set your expectations with all of your employees.
Make sure they understand that if they don’t complete their time card, they will miss out on certain benefits. Or, if they do have a constant record of timely reporting, they are eligible for certain other benefits. You define what the carrots and sticks are.
If you plan on withholding a paycheck for incomplete timecards, please first check with your state's labor laws and the Fair Standards Act. This is not typically legal.
When you have salaried employees, they know they are going to get paid the same amount each pay period, and that figure won’t be affected by their final total of hours worked. Employee and company expectations are often different when on salary. Employers sometimes take advantage of salaried employees by thinking it’s easy to get more hours out of them without paying overtime. This can also be detrimental to the company, because employees will get frustrated, causing their productivity to go down.
Think carefully about which of your employees are compensated hourly versus salaried (non-exempt or exempt). If they know accurately recording their time on a timecard will impact their paycheck, they’re much more motivated to enter their time.
When converting to new software, remember your employees are on the frontlines, they are going to be the ones using the software every day.
Make sure they have all of the tools available to them to get used to the software and use it efficiently. Don’t be afraid to ask for their input, too. You want to make it as easy and seamless a transition as possible.
Including your employees in the discussion will help you to recognize any issues they are having. When they are part of this conversation, not only you do find the right solution for the problem, it makes them feel valued, too.
Yes, getting your employees to commit to tracking their time and expenses can be a daunting task, but if you provide them with an intuitive and user-friendly tool, they will find that regularly entering time and expense isn't so bad—but actually enjoyable.
Time tracking is extremely important in keeping your company healthy and inspiring growth. With the right communication, your employees will play a vital role in this.