Reply With Quote>> Conclusion:
>> Increased visibility into timesheet activities and data alone created
>> significant material benefits to any organization.
>
>First, I didn't pour through your entire website (which has several
>Apache errors), I saw no freeware.
>
>Second, the flip side to your statement above is that there can be
>significant pushback from non managerial types who simply don't like
>having their every second monitored. Hourly and salaried both. There
>is an expectation, rightly so, that your employer does not own every
>friggin second of your workday. An expectation of some level of
>privacy.
I don't trust the output of any time tracking system that doesn't
allow for charging time to time tracking itself. A 15-minute time
slot before a meeting that was used figuring out how to get more
whiteboard markers (the guy who usually did it was on vacation)
might explode into a 5-hour, 10-man argument over whose project to
charge for that, since the presentations covered all active projects
at the time, but not all equally, and not all of them used the
whiteboard equally.
Things that don't contribute, and in fact interfere with projects,
such as re-shuffling whose desk is where, are rarely given charge
numbers. If there are 4 projects I can't work on because the
computer on my desk has no power or network (or room for a chair,
much less a chair), which one gets charged? (Oh, yes, the time
tracking software doesn't work either with no power.) Which one
gets charged for replacing a hard disk damaged in the move, and
which gets charged for recovering lost changes after the last backup
(such as incoming email missed, and I don't know what project that
was about until I recover it)?
Are you prepared to handle time-tracking data under HIPAA medical
privacy rules? That may mean management doesn't have a need to see
individual data, so they don't. The amount of time spent, say,
using the rest room may relate to a medical condition (like pregnancy,
having a colostomy bag, etc.)
>Our environment is one of milestones and deadlines. How you or your
>team makes those is entirely up to you or your team. We found time
>tracking to be intrusive, display a lack of trust and
>counterproductive.
I've told bosses flat out on occasion: I will work late (free,
since I'm salaried) to get the hot project done. I will *NOT* work
late to fill out time sheets for work you're not paying me for
anyway, attend United Way presentations, move desks around, RSVP
to company-sponsored social functions, or attend meetings not related
to the project, so the instant you ask after hours, I'm going home.
>> When employees know that all time tracking activities are closely
>> and easily monitored in real time, they improve their performance.
Employees can tailor their performance to what's being counted.
Programmers, for example, can run all their code through a lines-of-code
expander program which will increase the number of lines of code
by a factor of 1000, while making the code very difficult to read,
but no change in function. Police officers who get credit for writing
tickets might find that no one checks their conviction rate, so they
write hundreds of tickets a day for "having proper identification"
"having required auto insurance" and "not speeding". Oh, yes, they
can also lie. Few employees will voluntarily put down using the
rest room.
>Total ********, it only increases paranoia and attempts to replace
>poor management.
>
>> Accordingly, data quality and compliance can improve significantly.
>
>If you mean the quality of tracking someone's time, sure, but at what
>cost? Whose tracking the time inputs to see if they are accurate?
>whose validating the time trackers?
The equilibrium happens when 100% of the employee's time is spent
tracking the employee's time.
>> Edwin John
>> http://www.pacifictimesheet.com
>
>Sig left in for those who might want to visit.
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