The shift to work-from-home hasn’t been all bad. For one thing, the commutes have gotten a lot shorter. Along with the newfound perks, however, working remotely has many potential pitfalls. Particularly in managing our time amid home's comforts (or distractions). For HR teams suddenly dealing with an all-remote workforce, having an optimized time management system for employees has never been more essential.
Monitoring employee engagement and productivity levels is an ever-evolving challenge for HR teams. Ironically, aspects of the time management process—for instance, employee timesheets—can be needlessly time-consuming. Below, we’ll discuss how automation can assist in streamlining time management. And how it can free everyone to make the best use of time and money when both these resources are in limited supply.
Challenges for HR Teams right now
We’ve all struggled with efficient time management—god knows I could have written this sentence in a timelier fashion (though I had to check that basketball score, believe me). The push to remote work has resulted in time management obstacles many of us weren’t prepared for. According to a Qualtrics survey, 32.5% of respondents reported being less productive since the start of the pandemic—ranging from having trouble concentrating to deliberately putting off more complex tasks. This same survey showed alarming increases in employee stress and anxiety levels, raising serious red flags about the overall decline in employees’ collective mental health.
"The more organized a company’s time management system is, the less burdened HR teams will feel, and the more confident they will be to identify company weak points and map a course through uncertain times."
Facing these concerns, we are pressing HR teams (in the B2B, B2C, and SaaS spheres) to pay closer attention to employee wellbeing and re-evaluate how time and money are spent. This emphasizes the need for a clear time management system that connects isolated employees to teams, helps them plan better, and heightens their engagement and sense of control over tasks. The more organized a company’s time management system is—with access to incisive data on work hours and employee progress–the less burdened HR teams will feel, and the more confident they will be to identify company weak points and map a course through uncertain times.
Why Time Management Matters More Now
Remote work is with us for the foreseeable future. HR teams must continue to respond to and resolve the complications of a dispersed workforce. With reliable time management processes to assist HR, teams will be more equipped.
Here are just some of the ways time management tools can positively impact employee happiness and productivity, company spending, and workload distribution:
Better communication
Managing time effectively means communicating better. Without a shared office space, remote teams may struggle with one of two communication issues: they might be communicating too little, leaving costly gaps in connectedness, or, too much, overscheduling non-productive meetings. Time management tools can draw attention to these problem areas, facilitating balanced communications and more opportune check-ins.
More transparency
With better communication comes more transparency between individuals and teams. This goes beyond capturing an at-a-glance view of employee progress. A time management system can also flag over-productivity and thus prevent burnout—a very real risk when employees work from home and may feel compelled to log more hours than they would at the office.
More accurate budgeting
Next, the insights from time management also provide a clearer idea of how best to spend the budget. Non-essential and non-productive work and recurring bottlenecks in processes are some of the budgetary strains that time management aims to mitigate. With resources invested more wisely based on time-management insights, deliverables are produced faster.
Greater bandwidth for HR teams
Time management tools take care of valuable oversight and data-collection tasks while leaving HR teams more time to address larger issues affecting employees. Such issues might include the move to remote work and how it affects employee well-being. Again, a time management system should free up bandwidth for HR teams. This allows them to focus more on employee recognition, unity and workplace culture.
In sum, improved time management can help boost employee morale and give a sharper picture of how time and money should be allocated—indispensable steps in conquering the challenges of remote work.
Now for the best part: All the benefits of time management are a click away with Wrk!
How to Streamline Time Management With Wrk
Every step to improve your company’s processes can feel like another drain on resources. Well, rest assured that automation is worth your time. Consider how an automation platform can enhance the following core aspects of time management. Ultimately, the decision is yours. What's best for your team?
Generating timesheets
Look, nobody loves filling out timesheets. Besides, employees often complain about this task's tedious and (wouldn’t you know it) time-consuming nature. Yet timesheets are crucial for invoicing clients and monitoring employee workload. In the latter case, timesheets can help curtail the aforementioned risk of burnout by indicating when an employee has logged excessive hours of work.
Good news: you can easily automate timesheets. Just as automation can assist in generating timesheet data, a fully optimized WrkFlow can be triggered when a timesheet upload occurs, instantly collecting login/log-off times for employees from the company intranet. With processes, this simple, will employees perhaps…grow to love the timesheet?
Regular check-ins
In remote work, a dropped connection between individuals and teams can spell a dip in productivity. Not to mention feed into already existing feelings of isolation by remote working. Besides acting as a veiled micro-managing strategy, regular check-ins can be a way to keep all team members clicking and accounted for, despite the distances between them.
"Improved time management can help to boost employee morale and give a sharper picture of how time and money should be allocated—both indispensable steps in conquering the challenges of remote work."
Lastly, automation removes the repetitive connotation from “regular” check-ins. Let Wrk Actions send automated emails to book meetings. This saves energy to derive the most value from your check-ins with team members.
Aligning employee tasks with department goals
Time management tools can help compare how employee tasks and progress align with department expectations. Ultimately, these insights are essential to measuring productivity and planning or adjusting budgets.
Automation can deliver the comparative data that allow HR teams to re-evaluate how budgeting matches up (or doesn’t) with employee results. With the time returned, HR teams can plan ways to engage employees in more profound, quality work.
There’s no time like the present to pivot to the ease and cost-efficiency of automation. With a platform like Wrk’s, you can enhance your time management now, saving precious time (and money) in the future.
Prioritizing Time Management
Finally, work-from-home has given your HR team plenty of reasons to prioritize time management. Whether because of fall-offs in productivity and communication or trends in employee mental health. Fortunately, Wrk offers powerful, flexible, and stress-free solutions for managing your time better today.
Curious how else Wrk can assist your HR team. Visit our Wrkflows page today!
