Time is a valuable resource for every business, but it’s especially important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking to maximise their productivity. As a business owner or manager, you need to ensure that your team members are utilising their time efficiently and effectively to achieve your KPIs.
But monitoring your team’s productivity is not entirely straightforward. Productivity levels vary from day to day and from person to person, and can be influenced by endless intrinsic and extrinsic factors. At the end of the day, human beings cannot be productive 100% of the time, so to accurately measure productivity (without leading to office-wide burnout), you need to start by taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. You can ask questions like:
- How long are projects taking to be completed?
- Are the highest-value clients being given the most attention?
- Are administrative tasks taking up too much time?
- Are there projects that are being undercharged?
To be able to answer these questions reliably, however, you need insight into your team’s activities. By collecting data over the lifespan of a project or client relationship, you can create an average baseline against which you can compare your future productivity levels.
But, with limited budgets, small teams, and competing priorities – many SMEs may be wondering whether now is the right time to start tracking productivity. Why spend more time filling in timesheets when that time can be used to focus on your client’s needs and improve your services? This way of thinking can make sense if you’re only looking at the short-term projection of your business. If you want to take a long-term approach to success, however, time tracking should be a priority. Here’s why:
1. Time tracking gives you greater insight into operations
First and foremost, logging time provides SMEs with greater visibility into their operations. By tracking time spent on various tasks and projects, business owners and managers can identify areas where time is being wasted or where team members are overloaded. This can help them make more informed decisions about resource allocation and enable them to optimise their workflows.
2. Understand costs and pricing
By tracking the time spent on different projects and tasks, businesses can more accurately calculate the true cost of their products or services. This information can then be used to set prices that are more in line with the company’s actual costs, which can improve profitability and competitiveness.
3. Improve invoicing and cash flow
Another benefit of logging time is that it can help SMEs improve their invoicing and cash flow. By accurately tracking the time spent on each project or task, businesses can ensure that they are billing clients for all the work that was done. This can help prevent under-billing and missed opportunities. Through time-logging, businesses can also identify and address issues that may be causing delays in invoicing or payment processing, which can improve cash flow and reduce the risk of financial problems down the road.
4. Improve employee management and development
Logging time can also be a valuable tool for employee management and development. By tracking the time spent on different tasks and projects, managers can identify areas where employees may need additional training or support. This can help improve employee performance and job satisfaction, which can ultimately lead to greater productivity and retention.
5. Boost overall performance
Finally, logging time can help SMEs improve their overall business performance. By providing greater visibility into operations, enabling better cost and pricing decisions, improving invoicing and cash flow, and enhancing employee management and development, logging time can help businesses achieve their goals and succeed in a competitive marketplace.
If you’re still unsure whether time tracking makes sense for your business, remember that the best business decisions are based on past practices. By investing in time-tracking tools and processes, SMEs can gain greater visibility into their operations, make more informed decisions, and improve their overall business performance.
Interested in finding out more about what time-tracking can do for your business?
Get in touch for a free demo and 2-month trial at info@hidma.com or book a meeting below:
https://calendly.com/hidma/60min
