How to Get Employees to Track Time The Right Way

Do your employees consistently fail to log their hours?

This isn’t just a minor annoyance—it’s costing your company real money and productivity. Inaccurate time records lead to billing errors, project delays, and resource misallocation.

The frustration of chasing employees for timesheets can be overwhelming, leaving you wondering if there’s a better way.

Fortunately, there is.

Implementing the right strategies and tools can help transform time tracking from a dreaded chore into a seamless part of your team’s workflow.

In this post, we’ll explore effective ways to get your employees on board with time tracking, boosting efficiency and accuracy across your organization.  

Shall we start?

Why it’s difficult to track employee hours

Tracking employee time accurately is impossible if your team members are reluctant. 

To motivate employees to track their time, you must first understand their concerns about time tracking.

Here are some reasons why employees resist tracking time:

• Team members don’t understand the benefits of tracking time for the business. As a result, they treat timekeeping only as an additional task that distracts them from their real work. 
  To avoid this, explain the value consistent time tracking brings for them and the company. Explain the business advantages and how time tracking can improve time management and affect employee productivity and well-being. 
• Tracking time is tedious and time-consuming. The harder it is to log hours, the less likely employees are to do it consistently. Manually tracking time or using spreadsheets wastes time and effort.
  Consider using time tracking software to reduce friction and make time recording easier. User-friendly time trackers help track employee hours with just a few clicks and can facilitate adoption. 
• Time tracking practices are invasive. Employees are unhappy with invasive monitoring features, like taking screenshots and monitoring computer activity. They feel micromanaged and untrustworthy, and of course, they resist.
  Time tracking practices that don’t involve tracking apps, websites, or desktop screenshots are much easier to implement in a team. 

Non-invasive employee hour tracking shows teams are trusted and empowered to improve their productivity and time management. 

How to get employees to track time

So, you may wonder, how do I get my team to track time?

Well, it’s no small task, but we’ll share five actionable steps that can help. 

1. Explain how your employees can benefit from time tracking

Tracking time consistently is a habit, and it can reduce reluctance. 

Explain to your employees what’s in it for them: fairer workloads, less risk of burnout, and a more accurate payroll process. 

Employees are more motivated to log their hours by understanding what consistent time recording can do for them. 

Show them the value of time tracking for the business as well. 

Accurate timekeeping provides insights to improve project and resource management, ultimately increasing business success, job security, and better remuneration. 

Seeing the bigger picture can help them understand why tracking their time is important. 

2. Make it easy

Once you address the why, it’s time to focus on the how. 

Tracking work hours should be as frictionless as possible so employees don’t feel like it’s a chore. 

Easy time tracking is best done using dedicated software with features that simplify the process. 

With Toggl Track, for example, clocking in and out takes just a few clicks. 

Here’s how:

1. Type in what you’re working on
2. Add a client to your time entry
3. Find the task and project you’re working on
4. Start the one-click timer

You can also add time entries in Toggl Track using Manual Mode, available on the web, mobile, and desktop apps.

To enter Manual Mode, clock on the plus icon underneath the play icon, as shown 👇.

Then, you add the start and stop time, project, description, and client and click the plus button to add your new time entry. 

3. Make a list of employee concerns (and address them)

Everybody has concerns when learning new things, and employees will likely have theirs when boarding the time tracking train. 

It’s natural, and your job as their manager is to shine a light on those concerns and address them. 

Some common concerns employees may have about time tracking are related to privacy, micromanagement, and impact on workload. 

You can discover your employees’ concerns by encouraging them to complete anonymous surveys. 

Why anonymous? People are likelier to share honest opinions and concerns when they don’t risk repercussions or judgment. 

After you’ve gathered their feedback, address it. For example, if team members are concerned about privacy, explain that the time tracking app will not be used for invasive monitoring. 

If they are worried about micromanagement, assure them your time tracking process doesn’t focus on individual surveillance. 

4. Create time tracking guidelines

When implementing a new time tracking process, make it as structured as possible. 

Setting clear guidelines contributes to successful onboarding and gives employees a roadmap for tracking their time. 

Here are some actionable steps to create effective time tracking rules:

• Set clear, realistic expectations for accurate, productive time tracking. Everyone must know it’s vital to log time accurately and that time tracking systems are there to support, not micromanage them. 
• Define what to track and how. You may need employees to clock in only billable hours, or you might want to track non-billable time and breaks. 
• Schedule a routine review process for employees to verify their timesheets. This verification routine helps keep time tracking records accurate. 
• Give employees step-by-step instructions on how to track their time and support them in their learning journey. 

5. Celebrate wins early

Time tracking software gives you real-time data about project successes (and failures).

Toggl Track, for example, offers an in-depth report on project profitability through its Insights feature. 

These profitability insights are based on labor costs and total billable hours tracked. 

Sharing profitability reports with employees increases accountability by cultivating a sense of responsibility 

Toggl Track also shows the most active team members in the app so you can celebrate and reward the most committed employees. 

Lastly, let your team know their time tracking habits pay off by sharing Summary Reports, which show their tracked billable and non-billable hours.:

What are the benefits of tracking employee hours?

There’s much value in tracking employees’ hours for a business.

But time tracking is equally beneficial to employees. 

From improved productivity to better work-life balance, consistent time tracking pays off.

To help you understand the benefits of tracking employee hours, we’ll look at specific pain points and how time tracking helps solve them.

• Unproductive work habits: Consistent time tracking holds up a mirror for employees to identify unproductive work habits. They might spend too much time on non-billable work or bottleneck tasks, for example. 
  By identifying unproductive habits, employees and team managers can take action to reduce or eliminate time-wasting activities. 
  The benefit of tracking employee hours here is increased productivity and efficiency. 
• Project delays: These hit all of us at some point because no matter how much you plan, project delays can happen for many reasons. These include supply chain issues, scope creep, or unforeseen technical problems.
  Employees often have to work overtime when a project gets delayed causing anxiety, stress, and eventually burn-out.
  Although sometimes inevitable, project delays can be significantly reduced when teams track time consistently. 
  With time tracking data, project managers have real-time visibility into project progress. They also know exactly how long tasks take, so they can make more accurate project estimations. They can set more realistic deadlines and keep projects on track. 
  The benefit of tracking employee hours here is improved project planning and fewer project delays leading to less stressful deadlines
• Inaccurate billing: The struggle to bill clients accurately is real. If teams don’t record billable and non-billable hours, businesses bill clients blindfolded. 
  As a result, they charge too little or too much and lose either money or client trust.
  Toggl Track found in a 2023 report that agencies lose around $60,000 per year by not accurately tracking billable hours. 
  With a time tracking system, businesses know exactly how much billable time to charge. They can also share time reports with clients for fully transparent billing. 
  The benefit of tracking employee hours here is accurate client billing and no more money left on the billing table. A profitable business can compensate its employees better and provide better job stability.

Top Tip: Share these benefits with your team to show the value of tracking employee hours.

How can employees track their time?

These are the most popular ways to track employee time. 

1. Manually using timesheets: Employees can track their time manually by filling out timesheets. They add tasks’ start and end times on paper, spreadsheets, or digital forms. 
   This manual method of tracking employee hours is cheap and easy to implement but also time-consuming and tedious. Employees can forget to track hours or report incorrect times, leading to inaccurate time records. 
   Manual timekeeping can be challenging to do consistently because it can feel like a chore. The better option is to use time tracking software.
2. Time tracking software: Time tracking apps make tracking employee hours much easier. These tools usually let users record their time with just a few clicks.
   Although an employee time tracking app may require an initial investment and training, it helps maximize the benefits of tracking employee time. 
   Toggl Track, for example, makes tracking employee hours easy with a start and stop timer. The app integrates seamlessly with popular project management tools like Asana or Trello to streamline workflows. 
   It also generates detailed time reports for productivity analysis or to share with clients. 
3. Spreadsheets: Some teams track employee hours using Excel or Google Sheets. Employees manually add the time spent on various tasks in these customizable and easy-to-use spreadsheets. 
   Although this method can automate some tasks, like calculating the total billable time, it still requires extensive manual input. 

Employee time tracking tips

Here are some additional tips on how to motivate employees to track time:

1. Don’t use time tracking data against employees

One thing you should avoid when tracking employee hours is using time data to punish your team members. 

As a manager, it’s your duty to tell a team member when they are unproductive. There are many reasons why an employee underperforms.  Using time tracking data punitively can create distrust and resentment. 

If time records reveal unproductive habits, you can address this more constructively. 

For example, you can talk to them to understand what causes these behaviors or offer additional training to improve their productivity. 

2. Get feedback from the team

After implementing a consistent tracking practice in your company, ask your employees for feedback to gauge their satisfaction. 

You might gain valuable feedback to use and improve the time tracking process. Plus, asking for their opinion will likely make employees feel valued and heard. 

Here are some key questions to ask your team:

• How easy is it to track time with the current method?
• Does time tracking disrupt your workflow? How?
• Do you feel your time management habits or productivity have changed since you started tracking your time?
• What would improve the current time tracking process?

3. Offer training

To get the most out of your time tracking process, ensure each team member knows how to track their time. 

If you’re using a time tracking solution like Toggl Track, you have access to a large knowledge base with everything you need to start tracking employee hours. 

Also, teams of 15+ members can book a custom 30-minute demo with a Toggl Track member who’ll show them around.

How to choose the best employee time tracking software for your business

If you choose to track your employees’ time using time tracking software, there are some things to consider when choosing a tool. 

Your choice depends on your particular needs, but here are some general criteria for choosing the best time tracker for your business:

• Ease of use: How easy is it to track employee time with this tool? Does it have a straightforward and intuitive interface that makes time tracking simple? 
• Adequate features: What specific features does your team need? Are mobile apps a must-have or a nice-to-have? Do you need detailed reporting or labor costs? Get clear on the features you need to help track employee hours.
• Support: Good customer support can facilitate initial setup and ongoing usage. If your team has questions about the new tool, can a 24/7 help desk answer them? What about an online knowledge base or video tutorials?
• Use cases: What specific use cases are you looking for besides tracking employee hours? Maybe you also need a tool to help you handle payroll and billing or project time tracking. 
• Integrations: Your team likely uses project management or communication apps daily. Does the time tracking tool integrate with your existing apps? Popular integrations include Asana, Trello, or Toggl Plan, which can streamline workflows and save time. 

Now it’s your turn!

As we’ve seen, you can track employee hours manually using spreadsheets or time tracking software. 

By now, you should know which method will most likely get employees to track their time consistently. 

Time tracking software like Toggl Track is easy to use, accurate, and efficient—just like any time tracking process should be. 

Are you ready to get your employees to track their time correctly with the right tool?Sign up for a free Toggl Track account and track employee hours accurately without headaches.