When searching for a timesheet solution, what comes to mind is ease of use, scalability and handy tools. It can be a tough job trying to find the right fit that matches business needs with the budget. Understanding the value of your purchase of a timesheet doesn’t come until a few months in when employees regularly submit their time. But, if they don’t submit their time, a timesheet becomes rather worthless. How can you get your money’s worth from your timesheet solution if no money can be made from it? That’s a problem! And it’s the #1 problem we hear from many clients who regularly use timesheets for billing clients.
How do we get our employees to submit their time?
Dovico has spent many years trying to solve this dilemma. We’ve put on our creativity hats and created apps that make time entry a little more sticky like our Android and iOS mobile apps. We’ve built other apps centred around productivity like the Time Entry for Outlook and Time Tracking for Jira. Also, we have introduced tools such as Funny Reminders and job schedulers to send automated notifications to nudge employees a little. We’ve even created gimmicky Punch Clocks and Timers in hopes that by making time entry a little less formal, it would do the trick. Although some of these tools have been effective, for some clients, it still has been a significant issue.
Employees don’t enjoy entering their time; they just don’t see value from a timesheet.
For those who administrate a timesheet, the process is simple:
Step 1: Time in.
Step 2: Time out to bill client
Step 3: Profit!
For those who enter their time on a timesheet, the process is kind of bleak
Step 1: Time in
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Paycheck
It’s that second step that bridges their time value that employees are missing. There is a disconnect between what the employer values in a timesheet and what employees value. To fix that disconnect, it takes alignment.
With ever-changing attitudes towards work life, new-aged employees realize that now, more than ever before, they can get a paycheck from anywhere. The entrepreneurial spirit has never been higher in a world of influential YouTube millionaires and overnight startups. Today’s younger generation has, for the most part, only experienced abundance and personal freedom, and know their worth. They are not defined by their job or money, they are defined by the impact that they can make.
Worth: The equivalent value to the sum.
Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, employees believed their worth was time put in, and then money comes out. For example, at the factory and mills where people worked hard and put in long hours, the impact employees made came when they could finally purchase a colour TV or a brand new car. Acquiring luxuries and putting a good meal on the table for the family was all the impact we looked to make. To have a full-time and adequately paying job was a privilege; there
Employees of 2019 value their time, not their money.
When an employee submits their time, they want to know how that time worked is making an impact. While most understand their work today will not necessarily impact the world, employees want to know the hours they’ve submitted are at least making an impact on the company. There’s no more “working for the man” in the traditional sense. And timesheets by their design make employees feel just like that. Time in… gone forever.
So how can we bridge the value of a timesheet gap between employees and employers? The solution is simple, but the execution is complex. Employers must help give meaning to the employee’s time. This philosophy starts by giving employees ownership over their roles within the company. Make them feel like they are the entrepreneurs of the contributions that they make. There has to be honest and two-way transparency between all levels of leadership. Be upfront and real about everything from the current health of the company and any plans for the future. Ultimately, giving time meaning means eliminating the gap between work-life and home life. We don’t have a work life and a home life. We only have one life to make an impact on our world.
The value of the timesheet has nothing to do with features, scalability and tools. The value of the timesheet is the worth that employers share with employees with each hour submitted. If both employees and employers share the same value of the time entered into the timesheet, then entering that time becomes a little easier to do. Numbers have no meaning unless they have some form of value to those who read them.
Dovico knows how to give time meaning.
Dovico is committed to helping you give time more meaning. We’ve been in the timesheet business long enough (25 amazing years) to know that there’s much more value in a timesheet than time and money. Value comes down to what that time means to everyone and the impact it must serve. Please follow along as we share a journey of giving time meaning together, it’s no longer the future of business, it’s the now.
For growing businesses looking for a better way to track employee time and activity.