Timesheet of a Telecommuter
Timesheet of a Telecommuter
Timesheet of a Telecommuter
Telecommuting is on the rise in recent years as many jobs can easily be done with just a laptop and maybe a telephone. Many small businesses rely heavily on home based employees for much of the work that can be done or shared over the internet. It isn't any wonder, since small businesses can save a bundle by employing telecommuters. The cost of leasing an office, powering it, networking it, furnishing it, ect. is staggering for an office of just 5 employees. When a business owner has all those employees working from home, he can save significant cash. However, running a home business has its unique challenges. One of those being the issue of the dreaded timesheet. Even the home based employee needs a way to accurately keep track of his hours. Many use spreadsheets or the body of an email to report their time. While these method work, they are cumbersome; they can take hours to complete; and they are often inaccurate. Entries can be accidentally deleted or forgotten, or even over/under estimated. The new wave of web based timekeeping methods are the ideal solution to some common problems that home based employees and their employers face. The following are some that I have heard from our customers. Please feel free to add your own experiences in the comments.
Problem: Waisting time.
Solution: Trying to remember everything you did in a week or a month can be totally avoided by keeping track on a hourly or daily basis.
Problem: Filling in the timesheet at the end of the week. This leaves room for gaps in the memory. Compiling a timesheet at the end of a week is not beneficial for an employee but is especially risky for the employer. People tend to report hours in their own favor when they aren't able to remember accurately.
Solution: Give the employee a simple way to enter hours on a daily basis so that they aren't expected to remember it all on Friday. Part of the reason why they round in their own favor is because they weren't given a viable alternative to forgetting. They see this as the employers fault and so it is the employer who end up losing.
Problem: The employer isn't satisfied that the hours are reported honestly.
Solution: A remote boss may feel out of the loop. They don't even know what their employee's office looks like and what kind of distractions their employees are subject to. By giving an employee the chance to actually click a button when they come and go, the employer can trust that his employee will report accurate hours. If a telecommuter has a timeclock right on his computer screen, he will be more likely to clock out when the neighbor drops by to chit chat for 30 minutes.
Problem: Employer and employee sometimes dispute hours at the end of the week.
Solution: There really isn't a great solution to these disputes once they've begun. The important thing is to prevent them from happening in the first place. Keeping time in real time helps ensure accuracy.
Problem: Employers don't know who is on and who is off the clock in a virtual environment.
Solution: With an online tool that shows in real-time when your employees are on and off the clock, it's almost like being in an office down the hall. If you additionally have your employees report time spent on specific projects also in real-time, then you have an even keener eye on your workforce! It is, however, important to maintain a little distance. Don't let your window into your workforce turn you into a micromanager. It is worth checking out how Joel Spolsky puts this concept into a telling story in his Inc.com article.
Problem: The employer has little view into a given telecommuter's work day.
Solution: With online timekeeping, at the end of the day the employer knows who worked, what they worked on, and how many hours it took them to finish their work. Now he can better delegate and manage his employee's tasks for the next day!
The most accurate representation of an employee's time at work comes from the physical act of punching in and out. The punch clock may be a thing of the past but with the advent of internet timekeeping applications like Timesheets.com, this is once again possible even for remote employees.
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