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It could take ages for my staff to fill
in timesheets. Will they bother? |
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It should only take 2 or 3 minutes a day, if that. And timesheets
can be block-entered for a week or more to save even more
time - if for example someone is working on the same project
for several days.
If you reward staff for the profit on the work they do, theyll
need to keep the timesheets up to date for the bonus calculations
to be made. And if they dont their activity report will look
very poor, which wont help at their next salary review. The
system automatically sends out reminders to people who may
have forgotten.
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Is there a danger the staff might be
tempted to fiddle the figures so their performance looks better? |
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Yes of course, but its something of a case of swings and
roundabouts. If they allocate more time to chargeable work
and less to breaks, its likely theyll appear to have spent
too much time on a project, and so lose their bonus entitlement.
Conversely if they allocate less time to a project so that
the bonus works out higher, they will appear to be wasting
a lot of time doing admin or having internal meetings.
In practice we have found that employees will often work
overtime on a project which might be in danger of running
late, without entering the extra time spent in the system,
so that they appear to have finished within the time allocation
and deadline. This is good news for everyone - the client
is happy, you are happy, and the employee gets the bonus.
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What about confidentiality - Im not
sure I want my employees seeing all the figures and profit calculations? |
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No problem - its up to you who sees what, and you can customise
access priviliges to control this.
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Some of our work involves time-based
billing - we invoice the client at the end of a project based
on the amount of time it has taken. Does the system support
this? |
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Yes. Youll need to create a module first for the work, but
leave the budget field blank. At the end you can generate
a module activity report which will identify everything that
has been done and how long it has taken - you can print and
send this with the invoice if you so wish. The default minimum
time block is 20 minutes, although this can be changed if
necessary. This facility is particularly suited to solicitors
and accountants.
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When we work on a project for a client,
there are inevitably changes to the specification and additions
to the budget. How does the system handle this? |
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Simple. You can either edit an existing module - ie change
the spec, budget, and perhaps the deadline too - or alternatively
you can create a new module for the additional work. Either
way the employee responsible for the work will automatically
be notified by e-mail so everyone is kept informed.
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Im worried that this tight focus on controlling time and
money will affect the relaxed, creative atmosphere of our business? |
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Its up to you how you use the information which the system
generates for you - whats important is that as managers you
really know what is going in in your business, so that you
can make the right decisions for the future.
Most users find they appreciate having clear objectives and
deadlines and being able to plan their own work schedules
accordingly. Once an efficient framework has been set up and
your operation runs smoothly, theres plenty of scope for
everyone to enjoy their work and have some fun along the way.
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