175 new websites go live every minute. But while website development projects are common, they’re far from easy. Without a clear website project plan, things can spiral — think missed deadlines, disorganized teams, and scope creep, all combining to create unhappy customers.

Luckily, thanks to the almost 1.2 billion websites worldwide, there’s a lot of knowledge out there to draw from to plan the perfect new website to build on time and without chaos.

This article provides an easy-to-use checklist so you can deliver your next web design project without fuss, hassle, or stakeholder drama!

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• A website project plan is a roadmap for your project team, helping everyone understand what needs to be done, when, and by whom.
• Project plans align everyone on the goals, objectives, scope, tasks, and risks of a project while helping you avoid unnecessary delays and spend.
• To create a project plan, start by defining the project specifics before diving into a detailed scope of work. Once that’s agreed upon, break down your tasks, plan out the schedule, and put it all in your project management tool to track going forward.
• Toggl Track and Toggl Plan are the perfect partners for planning and managing projects, giving you full oversight of your schedule and milestones while tracking your team’s time and cost.

What is a website project plan, and why do you need one?

A website project plan is a structured roadmap that guides the entire process of building or redesigning a website. It outlines the project’s goals, scope, timeline, tasks, and responsibilities, ensuring everyone involved knows what needs to happen, when, and by whom. They’re pretty handy, so we believe all web projects should have a project plan — period.

You see, creative web design projects have many moving parts and often require multiple rounds of redesign revisions. Without a plan, you risk getting caught up in this noise and complexity, leading to:

• ❌ Wasted time on endless discussions that put you behind schedule
• ❌ Spending budget you don’t need on costly resources
• ❌ Delivering poor quality outputs that don’t meet your objectives

A good project plan avoids these pitfalls by setting a clear foundation of the ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘how’, and ‘who’ of a successful delivery. This includes:

• ✅ Defining the project’s goals and objectives to align everyone on what success looks like
• ✅ Setting the project scope of what will (and won’t) be done
• ✅ Breaking down the step-by-step tasks, how long each one will take, and their costs
• ✅ Scheduling the work to highlight any dependencies or bottlenecks
• ✅ Assigning the right team members to each task to create ownership and accountability
• ✅ Uncovering the risks that might trip you so you can take action to avoid them

Sure, any project can still go wrong, but you exponentially increase your chances of success if you have a good project plan template to lean on.

How to plan a website development project

Let’s break down the steps to planning a fantastic website design and development project. These tips are a mix of our experiences, feedback, and input from our agency customers, who are building new websites every day.

Of course, these tips are a high-level guide. You should always adapt them to suit your processes, workflows, and clients to deliver the best results.

1. Define the project

Before racing into planning your project, step back and clarify what you’re delivering. Definition is about uncovering and agreeing on the project specifics, including questions like “What does success look like?” or “Who is the target audience?”

Here’s how to break it down.

Strategy & context

Work with your client to learn why they need a website project. What’s wrong with the website they have right now — what’s working and what isn’t?

Alongside this, understand how this project contributes to their broader company strategy. Are they looking for enhanced functionality to drive more sales? Are they undertaking a full rebrand? Do they need to improve their e-commerce user experience?

Whatever it is, get clear on your client’s ‘why’ to maximize your chances of delivering something high-quality and impactful.

Example: GreenNotes creates premium, 100% recycled notepads for consumers and businesses, enabling them to do their jobs while reducing their environmental impact. Having grown to $100,000 revenue per year, their strategy is to increase revenue to $500,000 in 3 years through a digital-first transformation.

Goals & Objectives

Once you know the background, get clear on the future and what success looks like from a successful website design project.

Work collaboratively to define your goals and objectives so everyone agrees on the outputs and outcomes. We’d recommend using a goals and objectives framework:

• SMART — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound
• PACT — Purposeful, Actionable, Continuous, Trackable
• FAST — Focused, Aligned, Specific, Time-bound
• OKRs — Objectives and Key Results
• WOOP — Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan

Example: GreenNotes set five objectives for their website project to meet their strategy goals:

• The team plans to optimize the website for search engine optimization (SEO) and be compatible with Google Analytics.
• The website will integrate with GreenNotes CRM platform and social media accounts.
• The website will be live with at least 10 unique pages within 8 weeks.
• The website will receive at least 100 daily unique users with a 5% conversion rate within six months of go-live.
• The website will rank in the #20 on Google for 5 relevant keywords within one year of go-live.

Customers & Target Audience

To define design aspects such as color schemes, landing pages, and page layouts, it’s important to know who the client’s customers and target audience are.

The best website design projects optimize the functionality, usability, messaging, and tone for the target audience, maximizing adoption and engagement once the website is live.

In most projects, this information comes from the clients themselves. But in some instances, they may ask you to support with persona mapping, competitive analysis, or target audience definition.

Example: GreenNotes has a solid understanding of its target market, which is broken into two categories:

• Eco-conscious professionals aged 30-50 who need high-quality notepads for their day-to-day work
• Organizations buying premium notepads for events with a focus on sustainability

Project stakeholders

Projects are people-focused endeavors, so be clear on who’s involved, both within your organization and from the client’s side.

Specifically, assign a project manager, project sponsor (the decision maker), and contributors for design and development activities. This is everyone you need to make fast progress, solve issues, and make decisions.

Example: GreenNotes nominates a Project Sponsor, the Head of Sales & Marketing, to lead the project and make decisions. They also bring a Sales Executive, Brand Associate, and Marketing Manager into the wider project team to support the agency development team.

2. Create a scope of work

Once you’ve set the project foundation, create a detailed scope of work (sometimes called a statement of work) that aligns everyone on exactly what the project includes and excludes.

The process of creating a scope of work defines the deliverables (such as wireframes, prototypes, or content strategy drafts) and establishes boundaries to avoid unnecessary scope creep later on.

Here’s how it works.

Requirements

Project requirements are the specific features, functions, and outcomes that stakeholders expect from a project. Capturing these with your stakeholders is a great way to build your project scope.

In most cases, project teams will host requirements workshops, working collaboratively with stakeholders to uncover what they need. This is a crucial part of website planning, delivering a clear view of what’s required.

Example: The project team works with GreenNotes to discuss their project requirements. In total, they capture over 50 requirements, including:

• The website must have a homepage to host key information
• Product pricing should be clearly visible and display any eligible customer discounts
• The website must allow integrations with other systems

What’s in?

From your list of requirements, define what’s in scope for your project. This provides a list of outputs for the project team and sets the baseline for the project’s progress.

Define this clearly to remove ambiguity from the brief. This is especially important for a design agency, as profit margins can quickly erode if the project experiences scope creep later.

What’s out?

On the flip side, a good scope of work will also clearly define what’s ‘out of scope.’ This is an important addition that’s often forgotten. Defining what’s out of scope sets clear boundaries and aligns everyone’s expectations from the start.

Example: After further discussions, the project team agrees with GreenNotes that the following items will be in and out of scope:

• In — Website build of 15 web pages, including building the website structure on WordPress
• In — Redesign of GreenNotes branding and marketing materials, including social media, logo, fonts, and style guide
• Out — Custom website development using HTML or CSS
• Out — Copywriting will be completed by GreenNotes and provided to the project team for upload

Scope of work document

Like many parts of good project management, it’s best to formalize your scope in an official scope of work document. This gives everyone a clear point of reference if there’s any ambiguity or conflict later.

Learn more by checking out our step-by-step statement of work guide.

3. Identify project phases and activities

All projects follow a very similar lifecycle, and a website redesign project is no different. To keep everyone on track, we recommend breaking your project down into logic stages, each including clear objectives and activities. Here’s an example of the types of phases you could use on your website build.

Design foundations

In this phase, you establish the foundation of your web design project by agreeing on a clear statement of your design and brand principles.

By the end, your global design elements will underpin the design of your website pages. This is a highly creative phase, where you’ll work closely with the client to generate concepts and agree on a final specification.

Content preparation

After confirming the outline of your website, gather all the content required for the website. The sitemap and the page layout styles created in the previous phase guide the necessary content.

You may find that some content is already available from the client’s current website or other marketing materials; alternatively, work from scratch if things require a refresh.

Design & software development

The project team starts designing and developing the website’s pages using a chosen development methodology. Activities in this phase depend on the sitemap, layouts, and content collected in the previous two phases and your preferred hosting technology.

Testing

In this phase, you validate the website’s functionality and verify that it matches the requirements you captured earlier.

Depending on the client’s needs, various types of testing, including functional, accessibility, and performance testing, may be necessary. In some cases, you’ll also need to test the website for SEO optimization and streamline pages to boost usability.

Go live & handover

Once you’ve tested the website and resolved any issues, it’s time to put it live to the world. As part of this process, you’ll also hand the website over to the client, training them on the backend management tools so they can update their site in the future.

4. Create a project schedule

Once you’ve set your project phases, it’s time to make a detailed project schedule. This breaks down all the tasks in each phase, estimating how long they’ll take and assigning an owner to each. Here are some tips for creating a project schedule:

Task breakdown & estimation

Tools such as a work breakdown structure break complex projects down into clear, manageable tasks. There are several estimating techniques to plan how long each task will take, including:

• Top-down: Estimate the project duration as a whole, then divide it into smaller task estimates based on experience or historical data
• Bottom-up: Estimate each individual task separately, then roll them up to get the full project timeline
• PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique): Use optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely time estimates to calculate a weighted average for each task.

Remember, alongside time estimating, also complete project cost estimating. Nothing comes for free, so whether it’s labor costs, software licenses, or cash costs for external support, estimate the cost of each project task, too.

Assign resources

With your tasks estimated, assign a team member to each one. Doing this early on gives you a clear view of the resources you’ll need to deliver the project.

Optimizing project resources is a crucial part of great project management, so it’s key to have the right people at the right time without causing bottlenecks or conflicts.

Once you’ve assigned project team members to each task, you can build out a project resource plan to visualize who you’ll need when, enabling you to plan your team capacity.

Use Tools like Toggl Plan

The best projects use tools to plan their tasks, create schedules, manage resources, and visualize their plans with Gantt charts.

With Toggl Plan, creating a project timeline is as easy as one, two, three. Here’s how it works:

1. Click on the ‘+’ sign to create a new project. Give it a name, assign a client, and add an overall estimate.
2. From the Board or Timeline view, begin adding your tasks, including when they start, when they are added, and what they are.
3. Once they’re created, assign them to the right members of your project team and automatically add them to their to-do lists.
4. If you’re working to hard deadlines, click on a date to add a project milestone, giving you a clear target for your team to aim at.
5. From there, you’ve got everything you need to run a successful project, with one central place for your team to collaborate, track work, and keep tabs on your progress.

More of a visual learner? Here’s an explainer video to show you how to create beautifully simple project plans in Toggl Plan. 👇

Don’t forget to plan your communications, too

A common mistake project teams make is focusing solely on the functional work to build a slick website. Within your project plan, create a communications plan, too, making time for routines such as weekly check-ins, reports, and feedback sessions with your client.

This is especially important in the development phase, where you’ll want to get feedback at the end of every sprint to align your website closely with your client’s expectations.

The best way to manage your web development project?

Creating a project plan is only half the battle. Once you’ve mapped out your tasks and resources, you’ve got to actually….deliver a new website. Project tracking, whether it’s timelines, budgets, or scope, is key to hitting deadlines and ensuring deliverables meet the objectives.

Once you’re up and running on delivery, here are some best practices to guide you:

• 🦁 Stakeholder management is king. Project management is a very people-focused activity, so focus on building stakeholder relationships. This can be as simple as daily project updates, weekly check-ins, or more formal touchpoints to align on progress, make decisions, or solve problems.
• ⚠️ Pay attention to risk management. The best project managers dedicate regular time to identifying, analyzing, and mitigating risks in front of them. Of course, every project will experience bumps in the road, so ringfence time to get ahead before they cause a significant problem.
• ⏲️ Automate time and milestone tracking. Many project managers waste time manually tracking time and milestone admin, bogging them down in unnecessary detail. Time tracking tools, like Toggl Track, simplify these processes, giving managers real-time insights into how long different tasks take and where to reallocate resources.
• 📚 Learn lessons to be better in the future. While most website projects share similar characteristics, no two projects are completely the same. To improve from project to project, complete a lessons learned assessment, capturing what went well and what you could improve on in the future.
• 📊 Get comfortable with data. In the modern world of project management, it’s important to capture and analyze project data. Project metrics such as progress vs. plan, spend vs. budget, resource utilization percentage, and milestone status illuminate areas of concern and enable the team to make well-informed decisions.

Toggl tools for project and resource management

Great, you have everything you need to create your next website project plan, maximizing your chances of success and keeping your clients happy.

Remember, project management software is your best friend when planning and managing creative projects. Luckily, our two tools, Toggl Plan and Toggl Track, work perfectly together to guide you through the planning and management process. Here’s what they offer:

• Toggl Plan is perfect for scheduling, task assignments, and visually tracking progress through its intuitive timelines. A beautiful design and simple functionality make it easy to spot dependencies, bottlenecks, and potential conflicts so you can eliminate risks before they turn ugly.
• Toggl Track provides crystal-clear clarity into how time is spent on each task or project phase. It strikes a balance between enabling your team to log their time without feeling like you’re spying on them, with automatic timesheets reducing admin while generating instant project insights.

The best news? Get started with Toggl for free, allowing you to start testing timelines or tracking your time with no upfront commitment. Create a free Toggl account and start your test drive today — just two clicks, one login, and no credit card required!

Remote work might seem like a dream setup. But for many managers, it presents a tough challenge: How do you stay involved with your remote team without slipping into micromanagement?

The rise of remote monitoring tools like screen recording, keystroke tracking, and webcam surveillance make it easy to track your team’s every move. In fact, 70% of leaders admit they’re comfortable using these tools to spy on their remote employees.

But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should — and in most cases, micromanagement does far more harm than good.

If you’re worried about crossing the line (or want to check you haven’t overstepped already), this guide is for you. We’ll explore micromanagement in remote settings, including how to recognize the red flags and build a high-performing team without constant oversight.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• There’s a fine line between staying informed and taking control. Set clear goals and expectations, then give your team space to deliver. Check in at planned intervals, not every time someone breathes.
• You might be a micromanager if you constantly monitor your team’s availability, struggle to delegate tasks, give step-by-step instructions for simple tasks, rework every deliverable, and react negatively to minor mistakes.
• Micromanagement can lead to increased stress, reduced confidence, high turnover, slower workflows, and a lack of innovation.
• To avoid micromanaging your remote team, set clear expectations, trust your team’s process, schedule regular check-ins, provide autonomy, and give regular feedback.

The thin line between micromanagement and check-ins in a remote work setting

When does checking in on your direct report turn into micromanagement? Honestly, it’s easy for those helpful nudges to spiral into controlling behavior.

One day, you’re offering support, the next, you’re breathing down someone’s digital neck. The line between micromanagement and support is super thin, but we can spot the difference by exploring two versions of the same scenario.

Imagine you’re a Chief Human Resources Officer, and you just hired a new HR manager. You assign them the critical task of developing an onboarding plan for a new role.

Micromanagement approach

You assign the task and check in daily to monitor progress. Before the work is finished, you offer feedback, suggest how you would approach it, and compare their version to your past work.

It might feel like you’re being helpful and staying involved. But in reality, you’re undercutting their confidence and turning a leadership opportunity into a hand-holding session that feeds into your ego. As Tim McClure, an advertising executive, said, “Micromanagement is the opiate of the insecure manager.”

Supportive check-in approach

You assign the same task, but this time, you clearly outline what the finished product should achieve and set a reasonable deadline. You check in every few days to see if they need support, clarification, or more time.

When the deadline arrives, they deliver a thoughtful, complete plan without you hovering at every step. The outcome? In the first scenario, you take control. In the second, you build trust. Stepping back gives your team ownership of their work and allows them to grow in their roles.

Signs you’re micromanaging your team

Micromanagement often disguises itself as “just being thorough.” But over time, it chips away at morale and trust. Here are some common red flags to watch out for.

Constantly monitoring employee availability

Imagine ordering filet mignon at a Michelin-starred restaurant and pestering the chef every five minutes to check if it’s ready. You’d ruin the meal and infuriate the chef.

It’s the same in remote teams. Constantly checking if your employees are online or actively working might feel like due diligence, but it communicates a lack of trust. You may get some insights about employee productivity, but at the expense of stress and distraction.

Taha Hussain, an engineering leadership coach, recounts a clash with a micromanaging boss early in his career:

Often, this behavior stems from not understanding what your team does on a daily basis. For example, a marketing leader might think a developer being “idle” means they’re slacking when in reality, they’re deep in problem-solving mode.

Julie Chenevier, a business growth and expansion consultant, offers a theory for this disconnect: “Usually, micro-managers are simply managers with low self-esteem. As they don’t trust themselves, it’s hard for them to trust anyone else.”

Reluctance to delegate tasks

Back in that kitchen, if the same head chef insists on trying to cook every dish solo, the whole operation falls apart. And that’s exactly what happens when leaders refuse to delegate.

When you hold on too tightly to every task, you’re saying, “I don’t trust you to do this well.” It’s demoralizing and unsustainable, as explained by Zoila Solano, VP of Talent and People Operations at Golden Steps ABA:

Over-detailed instructions for simple tasks

You might feel you’ll get better results if you give detailed instructions for every bit of your employees’ work. But there’s a world of difference between setting your team up for success and scripting their every move.

For example, giving a designer a wall of text on Slack about how to set margins and which color combinations to choose is about control more than clarity.

SME coach Westley Harnett offers a simple remedy: “Micromanagers think they’re raising the bar, but they’re actually lowering morale. A simple fix? Swap ‘Do it this way’ with ‘What’s your approach?’ It builds confidence and ownership.”

Give context, define success, and trust your team to fill in the gaps. That’s how you get buy-in — and better results.

Reviewing and revising every piece of work

Constructive feedback is part of good leadership. But if you’re reviewing every task in detail, you’re controlling rather than coaching. Mike Dalisay, CEO of Codalify, recounts how easily he slipped into this bad habit:

Overcome this by occasionally providing meaningful feedback on portions of your team’s work. Instead of reviewing every single detail of their process, look at the finished product and evaluate the outcome.

Negative reactions to minor errors

How you give feedback reflects your management style. Do you often praise or criticize? When you do criticize, is it about big, impactful errors, or is it about minor details?

If you find yourself constantly nitpicking, you’re probably under a lot of pressure and want to see good work delivered every time. But if it ends up with constant arguments over minute details, it means you’re micromanaging employees, which has a negative impact across the board.

How micromanagement kills productivity (and morale)

If you’re a manager, owner, or co-founder, you may not see micromanagement as a huge deal. Staying on top of things maintains quality and accountability, right? Wrong! In reality, micromanagement in a remote setting can have plenty of downsides.

Increased stress

When employees know you’re watching their every move, this crushes their well-being and can even cause stress and burnout. According to Forbes, 85% of micromanaged employees report a negative impact on their morale, and 36% even changed their jobs due to micromanagement.

Reduced confidence

Excessive surveillance and control force employees to stop believing in themselves and the good work they can deliver. They won’t have the confidence to tackle tasks they can do blindfolded.

Slower workflows

Micromanagement is a major timesuck that can lead to unnecessary delays. Managers waste time checking up on everything that happens during working hours, which slows down work for everyone.

Plus, your employees waste precious time explaining why and how something was done instead of delivering the work.

Lack of innovation

Micromanagement goes beyond slowing things down to silence forward-thinking ideas before they ever surface.

According to the 2025 Toggl Productivity Index, 44% of companies rank innovation among their top three most important values for improving performance in 2025. But when micromanagement takes hold, innovation stalls because people don’t feel safe to experiment or fail.

High turnover rates and lower retention

Trust is a top driver of employee retention. Take it away, and your people will understandably start looking for work elsewhere, all at a productivity cost to your company.

You’ll lose significant time and money hiring and training their replacement. And good luck finding that new hire if the word gets out that you’re a serial micromanager: this is a red flag for 73% of potential employees.

Overall, micromanagement slows work and drives great people out the door. Beyond being a habit, it’s often a symptom of something deeper. As marketing author and professor Philip Kotler said, “When managers overdo micromanaging of others, they probably hired the wrong people or failed to give them a clear idea of what each one is to accomplish.”

In other words, micromanagement can be overcome with better leadership. Here’s how we approach it at Toggl. 👇

Toggl tips for avoiding micromanaging your remote workers

Toggl has been remote-first since day one. Today, with 130+ team members across continents and time zones, we’ve learned how to build a high-performing, asynchronous team without constant oversight. Here’s how we avoid micromanaging:

Set clear expectations upfront

Define your project goals, deliverables, milestones, deadlines, and stakeholders early on. This avoids constant follow-ups and informs your team about the kind of output you expect.

At Toggl, we set firm quarterly goals and looser monthly goals tied to those. Managers can check in with their direct reports to keep them on track, but ultimately, trust they’ll reach their goals. It doesn’t really matter how or when they work.

Trust your team’s process

Do you care how the chef cooks your filet mignon? Or just that it tastes delicious?

At Toggl, we focus on outcomes rather than the workflows leading up to them. We encourage our team to find their own methods to work, experiment, and innovate.

One of the ways to achieve that is by using time management apps such as Toggl Track to understand how and where you invest your time without using surveillance.

According to our research, a whopping 41% of companies measure their productivity based on total hours worked. But this is a holdover from factory-floor thinking that doesn’t align with knowledge work.

Instead, we empower people to work in the way that suits them best, as long as the outcome meets expectations.

Schedule structured check-ins

Structured check-ins are more supportive than hopping on Zoom to address every single roadblock.

As a best practice, aim for a regular cadence, such as weekly team meetings and monthly one-on-one catch-ups. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach — what matters most is having a clear and consistent schedule that fits your team’s workflow and communication style.

At Toggl Hire, we typically meet biweekly. This rhythm works best for us because our expectations are already well defined, and our team members know how and when to raise blockers.

Use collaborative platforms to communicate

If you want to know what your team is up to at any given time, you don’t have to ask. Simply check your collaboration tool to see the task and its progress. Some great examples include:

• Toggl Plan: A visual project planning and task management tool with timelines and drag-and-drop simplicity.
• Trello: A Kanban-style board system great for organizing tasks and workflows in a visual, column-based format.
• ClickUp: An all-in-one productivity platform offering docs, task management, goals, and time tracking.
• Asana: A task and project tracking tool ideal for managing work across teams with clear timelines and dependencies.
• monday.com: A customizable work management platform for project tracking, workflows, and team collaboration.

Provide autonomy with accountability

Instead of constantly checking in with your team, make them accountable for their work while giving them freedom to perform well.

This is easy to achieve when you use Toggl Track, which provides time-based insights into who’s working on what, without resorting to invasive surveillance. Team members manage their own schedules while managers stay informed through transparent reporting.

You can also reinforce accountability using:

• Dashboards that show progress toward goals in real time
• Scheduled performance check-ins (for example, monthly or quarterly)
• Goal tracking tools that tie work to measurable outcomes
• Peer feedback loops to promote ownership within teams

Give positive feedback and recognition

Too often, feedback only shows up when something goes wrong. But consistently recognizing what’s going right is just as important — if not more.

83.6% of employees would feel more motivated to succeed at work, and 77.9% would be more productive if their positive contributions were recognized more frequently. So, make it a habit to acknowledge good work, celebrate wins (big and small), and highlight individual and team progress.

The more recognition your team receives, the less you’ll feel the need to constantly check their work — they’ll already be motivated to deliver their best.

Time tracking as an alternative to monitoring software (and other helpful remote tools)

When done right, time tracking can be a powerful way to improve performance and accountability — without micromanaging your team. The key? How you track time.

Some time tracking tools go to great lengths to spy on users. These types of employee monitoring software track mouse movements and keystrokes or take random screenshots throughout the day. That’s not productivity tracking — it’s digital surveillance. And in many cases, it’s worse than an in-person micromanager hovering over someone’s desk.

Tools like Toggl Track take a different approach. They give teams visibility into how time is spent without violating trust. Managers see where time is going and spot patterns across projects, while employees retain full control over their workflows and schedules.

But time tracking is just one part of a well-functioning remote toolkit. Here are some other tools for boosting clarity and efficiency across distributed teams:

• Toggl Plan for project management: Plan, prioritize, and visualize work across teams and timelines
• Slack for communication: Async messaging, team channels, and quick alignment
• Timetastic for time off management: Simple, transparent vacation and leave tracking
• Notion for knowledge management: A central source of truth for docs, processes, and team resources
• Miro for visual collaboration: Digital whiteboards for brainstorming and cross-functional planning
• Zapier for workflow automation: Connect your tools and eliminate repetitive tasks

Increase remote employee productivity with Toggl Track

Toggl Track boosts productivity while building trust. It strikes the perfect balance between efficiency and accountability without crossing into surveillance.

With our in-depth reports, you’ll always know who is doing what and what their progress is without looking over their shoulders. Your team can work independently without the burden of someone tracking their mouse movements, keystrokes, or screen activity.

Ready to lead without micromanaging? Try Toggl Track for free today!

Like a chef who burned his food or the painter wondering how his acrylics got mixed up with his oils, mistakes are inevitable in any line of work. But some are more costly or life-threatening than others…(we’re looking at you, surgeons). And the field of recruitment is no exception.

Nobody wants to make a bad hire. But it happens, right? The good news is you can avoid these mistakes if you know what to look out for.

Every hiring manager should be aware of several common interview red flags to avoid making a costly mistake. This guide walks you through how to spot each of them to save your hiring team some trouble!

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Red flags when interviewing a candidate are warning signs that suggest the applicant may have a problem. They can even help foretell whether the hire will work out.

• There are many examples of recruitment red flags to look out for, ranging from the more obvious, like unprofessional behavior and disrespect, to more discreet warning signs, like microaggressions and changing the subject.

• Some people just interview poorly, and you shouldn’t give up on them too easily. Hiring managers have to judge for themselves which red flags suggest a bad hire or just nerves. And there are different ways to help you do so.

• For example, try guiding the interview to help the candidate better answer your questions, assign homework, use an interview scorecard, or use skills tests to explore their abilities and personality.

What are ‘red flags’ in recruitment, anyway?

Red flags aren’t reserved for the dating world. In recruitment, they’re the subtle warning signs that something’s off, whether with a candidate or employer. Those gut-check moments make you sit up and take a little extra notice during the hiring process.

For hiring managers, red flags might be candidates who show up late, give strange excuses, or don’t know basic details about the job they’re interviewing for. But it’s not a one-way street — candidates are on the lookout, too.

Interviewers who seem checked out, give conflicting answers, or can’t explain what success looks like in the role? Yup, all red flags. And according to Harvard Business Review, job seekers should pay close attention to how interviewers act and what current employees say (or don’t say) about their current work life.

Because here’s the kicker: 19% of workers say their workplace is very or somewhat toxic. One in five is a pretty big gamble. So, spotting red flags early, whether you’re hiring or job hunting, can help you avoid costly mistakes and unhealthy work environments.

Job interview red flags to look out for as a candidate

If you, as a candidate, start noticing any waving red flags during a job interview, it could be a telltale sign that the workplace is toxic. That said, it’s worth remembering that not every hiccup needs to be a dealbreaker.

Interviews aren’t always perfect. A last-minute schedule change or vague answer might be more about internal misalignment than a blazing red flag. Sometimes (often embarrassingly), the hiring process is where teams realize they don’t fully understand what the role requires.

While it’s important to be vigilant, don’t jump to conclusions too quickly‌ — ‌give the company a fair chance to show off its true colors (red or green). So, what should you actually be looking out for?

1. Disorganized interview process

All hiring managers should be trained to conduct proper interviews. If the interview feels disorganized, gets pushed back, or doesn’t have a clear structure or agenda, it might reveal a lack of professionalism. Everyone has off days, but if the entire process feels like an afterthought, the role might be, too.

2. Negative talk about current or former employees

When interviewers speak negatively about current or former employees, it’s a clear red flag that the company suffers from a toxic work environment or its managers don’t handle conflicts well. A healthy work culture should foster respect and positivity, not encourage gossiping or bad-mouthing.

3. Lack of transparency

Pay attention to how different team members speak about their job responsibilities, company culture, work-life balance, or even future plans. Vague or inconsistent answers indicate a lack of internal alignment and poor communication, which can lead to a whole lot of confusion and dissatisfaction down the line.

4. Aggressive sales tactics

A job offer shouldn’t feel like a carton of milk that’s about to spoil if you don’t drink it right away. If the company pressures you with a super-soon expiration date, it shows they’re more focused on filling the position than finding the right fit.

5. Unprofessional questions

You shouldn’t be asked about things related to your age, marital status, race, or anything else that feels personal and inappropriate. Trained recruiters should have an interview guide or playbook to follow and know these questions are off-limits.

If a hiring manager is so bold as to ask ‌them, you can assume the company tolerates this kind of inappropriate behavior. They might even have some unconscious biases embedded in their recruitment processes.

6. Lack of connection

Sometimes, it’s not what’s said — it’s how it feels. If you just don’t gel with the interviewers or the company, it could be a sign that the company’s values or culture don’t align with your own. When the conversation feels forced or one-sided, it’s tough to bring your best self forward, and it may signal that the team dynamics or values don’t align with your own.

7. Too many interviews

Thorough is good — to a point. But if you’re being shuffled through 10+ interviews, that’s a bad sign. Odds are, if the role is this challenging to fill, there might be some deeper issues within the organization. Unless you’re applying for a senior executive role, an overly long process could point to deeper issues, like unclear expectations or a lack of trust in decision-makers.

8. Discrepancies between interviews

Conflicting information about job responsibilities, company culture, or expectations between interviews suggests a lack of communication and alignment within the organization. The company might have unclear roles or a dysfunctional team, signaling the job could be super challenging (not in a good way!) and unsatisfying.

9. Bait and switch

Not all conflicting information comes from disorganization — sometimes, it’s intentional. A classic bait-and-switch move might look like this: the job posting highlights flexible hours and remote work, but once you’re in the final stages, the team casually mentions it’s actually an in-office role with rigid hours.

If the role seems to shift dramatically from what was advertised, the company may be trying to reel candidates in under false pretenses — and that’s a major red flag.

10. Lack of preparation

Interviews are a two-way street. Hiring managers expect candidates to present their best selves and do their homework before an interview, so why shouldn’t you expect the same? Watch out for hiring managers who clearly haven’t reviewed your resume, prepared any specific questions about your career goals, or done their due diligence for the interview. Are they interested in you at all?

The most common red flags to look out for as a hiring manager

Hiring managers need to be just as alert in spotting potential issues during their interactions with candidates. Many of the warning signs that signal a bad employer can also point to a problematic candidate: poor communication, lack of preparation, or disrespect for others, to name a few.

To spot potential problems and avoid a pesky high turnover rate, we’ve created a list of 19 red flags hiring managers should watch out for when interviewing candidates. We’ve grouped them into five categories so you can easily spot them and make informed decisions during your hiring process.

Do any of these sound familiar?

Section I: How job candidates present themselves

1. Subject changes or ramblings

It’s a bad sign when the candidate in front of you starts rambling when you ask them a question. Candidates should focus on making their best impression in an interview and use their limited time wisely.

2. Not-so-humble brags

It’s great if your candidates are proud of their accomplishments…..buuuut excessive bragging as a response to a behavioral interview question is a big red flag. It suggests a lack of humility and a desire to take all the credit. While they might just be nervous or proud, this could also indicate the candidate isn’t a (good) team player.

3. Unkempt appearance

We all have our bad days (or laundry days!), but a scruffy job seeker suggests the person might not care about how they present themselves or represent your company.

4. Reschedules

It’s okay to reschedule interviews. Life happens. But constantly rescheduling the same interview shows a lack of time management and respect for your organization. It also leads to a drawn-out interview process and prevents hiring managers from filling the role with the right candidate.

5. Late

The first interview is all about making a good impression. Of course, we’ve all suffered from traffic jams and broken down trains, but if the candidate is extremely late and doesn’t have a good reason why, it’s an interview red flag. After all, what if they were late to visit one of your customers?

6. Unprofessional humor

Having a sense of humor and telling jokes is an excellent way for a candidate to break the ice and reveal more of their personality. But inappropriate humor in a job interview is a glaring red flag and a potential HR violation!

7. Inappropriate or casual language

Using slang, overly casual language, or even accidental swearing during the interview can signal a lack of respect and professionalism. This red flag might be less worrying in a very casual company culture — but it’s still important to ensure the candidate can maintain a level of professionalism when needed.

Section II: How the candidate acts in the interview

8. Poor enthusiasm

A candidate who lacks enthusiasm in the interview might not bring the right energy or motivation to the job. That’s why this is one of the most important interview red flags for employers to consider. After all, nobody wants an unenthusiastic employee on their team as it can dampen the overall morale.

9. Lack of questions

A quality interviewer won’t just interrogate — they’ll also make space for the candidate to grill them. When candidates don’t ask any questions about the job description, role, or company, it’s a sign they might not be truly interested in the opportunity. This omission could also suggest that they haven’t done their research and may not be fully prepared for the position‌ — ‌another huge red flag.

10. Inappropriate questions

Asking inappropriate or off-topic questions to the potential employer during the interview suggests the candidate hasn’t done their research or isn’t serious about the opportunity.

11. Microaggressions

Microaggressions are subtle forms of bias or discrimination that may show up during the interview process. For example, a candidate may make inappropriate remarks like “You speak really good English — what’s your background?” or “You don’t look like a developer.” These kinds of remarks may seem minor on the surface, but can point to deeper issues with respect, inclusion, and cultural awareness.

Section III: How the candidate explains their past experience

12. Vague or inconsistent answers

If the candidate’s employment dates, manager names, responsibilities, or even a rundown of their roles differ from their CV, it might suggest that some of the information was fabricated. An unwillingness to talk about their previous experience might also suggest that they didn’t have significant responsibilities or accomplishments in their previous roles. Or maybe they’re unprepared to discuss their experience in detail.

13. Lies and exaggerations

Exaggerating past experience or lying about qualifications are big warning signs. Integrity and honesty are must-have traits in any employee, so confirm a candidate’s claims carefully before proceeding with the hiring process.

Section IV: How the candidate views their past employers

14. Speaks badly of them

If a candidate badmouths their previous boss, coworkers, or company, take note. Even if their complaints are valid, the way they talk about their past employers matters. Candidates who speak badly of their past employers may have a negative attitude toward authority or difficulty working in a team environment. 

Exception: If a candidate brings up past challenges in a constructive, balanced way, focusing on what they learned or how they grew, that can actually be a green flag. The key is in the tone: Are they blaming, venting, or reflecting?

15. Gossips

You don’t need to know what Gail said in that one meeting or what Geoff did behind closed doors, right? So, why is the candidate telling you all of this?

If a candidate starts gossiping about previous employers or others they’ve already met with at your company, politely steer the conversation back to their professional experiences by asking, “Can you tell me more about your specific contributions or projects?”

Section V: How the candidate made you feel

16. Sexist/racist/homophobic

This is an obvious red flag. If a candidate makes comments about the interviewer’s race, religion, sexual orientation, appearance, or anything else, it’s grounds for immediate removal from the hiring pool.

17. Condescending

A condescending attitude from a candidate during an interview creates an uncomfortable and negative situation for the interviewer. Just because you don’t know much about MySQL, sales, or user research doesn’t give the candidate the right to talk down to you.

18. Dismissive

A dismissive attitude toward the hiring manager will negatively affect an interviewer’s impression of a job candidate and the overall interview experience. It’s a big job interview red flag that your hiring team shouldn’t overlook.

19. Poor body language

Someone who slouches during the interview process, let alone the first interview, may not be taking the process seriously. Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer researcher of body language in the 1950s, found that the total impact of a message is 7 percent verbal (words only), 38 percent vocal (including tone of voice, inflection, and other sounds), and 55 percent nonverbal.

Should one red flag kill the interview process? Nope!

No, one red flag shouldn’t auto-kill the interview process, but it does warrant a closer look.

Obviously, red flags like discrimination or disrespect are non-negotiable and justify cutting the interview process short and eliminating them from the recruiting funnel altogether.

But other warning signs might stem from nerves, poor questioning, or a simple misunderstanding. It would be a shame to lose a top-caliber candidate in these scenarios, wouldn’t it? Before you make a final call, take a moment to assess the severity and context of what you’re seeing.

Here are a few practical ways to course-correct when red flags appear, whether you’re the interviewer or the candidate.

#1. Talk it out

Calling a candidate out on their behavior keeps the interview on track and separates the nervous candidates from the actual bad hires.

Another way to assess a candidate’s fit is to talk about their interests outside of work to get an idea of their personality, values, and how well they might fit in with your team.

Equally, candidates should also be brave enough to pause the interview and clarify any potential red flags in front of them.

#2. Consider a skills test or a trial period

If you’re unsure about a candidate’s fit, consider using skills tests or have them complete a trial period.

This can give you a sense of their capabilities in a hands-on environment and how well they work with others. Likewise, for candidates, a trial period also delivers valuable insights into the company’s organization, timely payments, and the overall happiness of other employees.

#3. Seek a second opinion

If you’re the only person who’s noticed a red flag, don’t make the call in isolation. Instead, bring in another team member for a second interview. If they agree with your evaluation, you were probably on to something. But if they see things differently, it could have just been a bad day or an overreaction. Another perspective is always invaluable.

#4. Consider the context

Before reaching a final decision, think about the context of the red flag. Every role is unique, so the red flag you’ve spotted might not apply to the job they’re interviewing for. 

Maybe you’re hiring for a software developer, and they struggle with small talk. Communication skills are important, but they’re not the primary focus for a technical role, so you can overlook it.

#5. Trust your gut

Your instincts matter, but they’re only useful when paired with evidence. If something feels off, dig deeper. Use tools like peer interviews, skills assessments, reference checks, or even a social media screen to validate your concerns.

Just be mindful of your unconscious biases. A “bad feeling” shouldn’t be the only reason to pass on a candidate, but it can be the reason to ask more questions.

Hiring managers: Spot red flags with Toggl Hire

Skills-first hiring software, like Toggl Hire, helps recruiters and hiring teams spot red flags before candidates reach the interview phase.

Evaluating candidates on their true capabilities through skills-based assessments and automated candidate filtering ensures that only the most qualified and engaged candidates move forward.

Candidates enjoy the experience, too — four out of five candidates love Toggl Hire! So you can feel confident knowing that you’re not waving any red flags of your own during this part of the hiring process.

You should always treat every candidate fairly and equally. If you want to spot red flags early and provide candidates with an equitable hiring journey, sign up for a free Toggl Hire account.

Employee performance metrics show how well (or not so well) your people contribute to business goals through their work, outputs, and engagement.

They’re a key part of the performance management process, something most businesses have in place, but only a fraction do well. Only 20% of companies rank their performance management process as very effective in providing employee feedback, increasing individual performance, and developing talent. 

The reason? Most managers lack meaningful data to make objective evaluations and coach people to do better in their roles. But that can be fixed, as we’ll explain in this post!  

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Employee performance metrics aren’t a grading tool — they’re a method for collecting insights for business growth. The right data helps you spot top performers, fix broken processes, improve resource allocation, and increase business profitability. 
• Your people, in turn, benefit from clearer performance expectations, constructive feedback, and greater recognition — a ‘recipe’ for high engagement and top-level productivity. 
• To get a valid take on your business performance, blend hard data (e.g., task completion rate, error rate, RPE) with qualitative insights (e.g., engagement rates, peer feedback, and collaboration scores).
• Performance metrics should guide strategy, not pressure people into performative work. Align metrics with company values, personalize OKRs, and combine short- and long-term data to get a full picture of progress. Keep expectations transparent and review cycles shorter to catch issues early and support real growth.
• To improve employee performance evaluations, align metrics with business goals, involve employees in defining success, and use different groups of metrics to get a 360-degree view of people performance. And skip the surveillance tools; focus on outcomes, not sham activity, to build trust and track real progress. 

Why measure performance metrics?

As the adage goes, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” When you don’t know how different parts of your organization function and contribute to the shared goal(s), it’s easy for efforts to be misplaced. And that’s already a big problem. 

Globally, only 37% of businesses consider their people high-performing and engaged. And the media also paints a bleak picture of ‘problematic Gen Z work ethics,’ ‘global productivity crisis,’ and ‘growing number of burnout nations.’ 

As always, the devil is in the details. Employee performance isn’t one number — it’s a mix of key performance indicators (KPIs) that capture different sides of impact. While metrics like ‘total number of work hours’ might be down, others like ‘productivity per hour’ might be on the rise. 

A mix of qualitative and quantitative metrics highlights who’s really driving the results (and who’s just busy being busy). This leads to better employee recognition, project staffing decisions, resource allocation, and overall organizational performance. 

Benefits for organizations

• ⚙️ Improved business productivity. Metrics level-set individual effort and business goals, describing what success looks like. You give employees a clear target and give reasons to aim higher (through regular recognition and financial perks).  Over time, that clarity drives better focus and higher employee productivity.

• 📮 Better resource allocation. Only half of managers think their company effectively aligns budgets with corporate strategies. This translates to under-staffed teams, underfunded training programs, and delayed deliverables, crippling business growth. Performance metrics help you better understand which teams and organizational initiatives drive the most impact and budget accordingly. 

• 🪜 Effective succession planning. With the rapid ageing of the population, companies are losing skilled leaders. Metrics identify high-potential talent early on and support their progression to build a stronger leadership pipeline. You also get fewer ‘surprises’ post-promotion as your succession decisions are backed by evidence, not gut feelings or personal biases. 

• 💰 Higher profitability. Metrics shed light on high-impact activities, helping your people do more of the ‘right stuff.’ They also draw attention to inefficiencies, resource waste,  and other blockers, stalling progress. By doubling down on the former factors and eliminating the latter, you can grow a healthier profit margin. 

Benefits for employees

• 📊 Clarity on performance expectations. Metrics enable management by objectives, a structured process for defining performance goals via personalized OKRs. This clarity builds better trust in performance management, something 61% of managers and 72% of workers currently lack. 

• 🎨 Opportunities for skill development. Effective performance measurement isn’t punitive — it’s a tool for growth and guidance. By knowing where your people fall behind, you can develop better organizational development initiatives and prioritize learning and development opportunities to upskill your staff. 

• 🥳 Timely feedback fosters employee satisfaction. Regular, constructive, and personalized feedback ignites performance. When managers provide daily feedback, employees are 3.6x more likely to be motivated to do outstanding work, and metrics make this easier to do. 

• 🪴 Predictable career growth. Stalled careers lead to open exits. Alarmingly, 65% of workers report feeling ‘stuck’ in their careers, rising to 70% in the tech sector. Metrics help managers establish better competency grading systems and chart predictable paths for promotion, improving retention. 

Key employee performance metrics to track (and how)

The most effective performance management strategies blend hard data with qualitative insights (like peer feedback or leadership potential). This mix gives you a more accurate, fair, and holistic view of how different employees contribute, enable, and support your business growth.

If that’s the kind of insight you need, here’s a breakdown of what performance metrics to monitor and how to actually use them.

Task completion rate

Task completion rate shows how well work gets done by tracking the percentage of crossed-off tasks, resolved tickets, or delivered assets. The higher the task’s completion rate, the more efficient your team is at translating intent into impact! 

Marketing managers can track the number of launched paid ad campaigns versus those stuck in “review limbo.” Sales teams can look at the number of closed deals or scored leads to gauge performance. Agile software engineering teams, in turn, use Sprint burnout charts that measure remaining work (user stories, bugs, technical debt items, etc) in each boxed timeframe. 

Quality of work

Let’s be clear: Organizational success isn’t about volume outputs — it’s about making targeted, meaningful progress. If your team produces a lot of real (or sham) outputs, but the quality of work is meh, you’re in trouble. 

Quality-focused metrics like the number of errors, revision rate, or stakeholder approval scores tell you how well the work gets done. For design teams, you might monitor brand adherence or UX testing success rates. Customer service teams track quality metrics like first contact resolution rate, customer satisfaction score, and average response quality rating. 

Most teams rely on quantitative quality indicators from business tools and qualitative manager evaluations, peer reviews, and structured customer feedback loops. This way, you can spot recurring mistakes or missing employee abilities, which can be addressed through process redesign or training programs.  

Revenue per employee

Revenue per employee (RPE) metric tells how much monetary yield individual employees produce for your business, giving you a snapshot of operational efficiency and workforce impact. 

Unlike others, this metric isn’t universal, as many important back-office roles only contribute to revenue indirectly (e.g., HR professionals or facility managers). But it’s a good one to track for customer-facing teams like Sales, Support, Account Management, Procurement, or Field Services, where every missed day can mean a missed deal or lost business opportunity.

Employee engagement

Fact: Happy, driven, and inspired people make productive teams — and work environment factors like company culture, work-life balance, and recognition programs strongly affect the employee experience.

Employee engagement may be a human resources domain, but great managers track the pulse, too. You can spot motivated people by the way they show up. They seek out ways to improve workflows, bring new ideas to the table, and volunteer to pick up extra slack when the situation calls for it. They care deeply about their work and feel more invested in the company’s success, and this should be reflected in their performance evaluation. 

Disengaged people, on the contrary, show signs of withdrawal. They don’t actively participate during meetings, show little initiative, and harbor negative attitudes. Measures like quick pulse surveys, one-on-one check-ins, and project retrospectives help managers better reward top performers and offer timely support to those falling behind. 

Absenteeism rate

In the worst-case scenario, disengaged employees resort to absenteeism — they miss work unexpectedly or more often than usual.

These absences can increase due to sickness, burnout, stress, and mental health issues. Employee burnout alone resulted in 20% of UK workers taking time off work last year. 

Overall, rising pressures at work increased annual absence rates to 14% in countries like Czechia, Germany, and Belgium — meaning employers aren’t doing enough to support their people’s well-being. 

When monitoring absenteeism levels, managers can step in early and start supportive conversations to avoid disruptions to team performance. Instead of defaulting to discipline, they can adopt a more empathetic mindset to retain their people. Organizational changes like more flexible schedules, overtime bans, or mandatory vacation leaves are also worth considering. 

Such employee wellness measures are effective at preventing burnout and increasing engagement, which compound to higher employee productivity.

Time management

Time management metrics reveal a lot about how your business works. Rather than guessing who’s overloaded or distracted, you can tell exactly where most efforts go with time tracking categories like billable hours, meetings, deep work, client communication, or learning. 

Tools like Toggl Track spotlight teams’ work patterns without the slimy feel of micromanagement. Users can log (and edit) their daily activity to get insights into their focus areas, common blockers, and time wasters. Managers, in turn, benefit from better visibility into workload allocation, process efficiency, expense trends, and capacity needs. 

By seeing what’s working (and what’s not), you can coach your teams to adopt better time management strategies to work smarter (not longer). Try time blocking to tackle similar tasks in one productivity burst. Or use the Covey Time Matrix to prioritize tasks more effectively.  

When combined with project management software, time insights also give managers better clarity into deadlines, task priorities, dependencies, and scheduling conflicts — aka everything that usually derails timelines and balloons operating costs. That kind of visibility turns reactive firefighting into proactive planning and keeps projects on track.

Error rate

Error rates measure how often slip-ups happen in an employee’s work, whether typos in a client proposal, skipped steps in a manufacturing process, or incorrect data entries in a report. 

No person produces 100% error-free work every time. But consistently high error rates hint at underlying issues like skills gaps, overly complex processes, or missing instructions.

A root cause analysis will lead you to the right remedy. For example, you might improve the handoff process between teams, create a targeted training program, or upgrade legacy software to streamline error-prone processes.

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

CSAT offers feedback on how well client-facing employees perform in the eyes of the people who matter most — your customers. Typically measured with a quick survey after a recent interaction, such as a support chat, a sales call, or a service appointment, CSAT tells you how you can make your customer experience even more delightful. 

Low CSAT scores for individual employees can mean they lack essential customer service skills like active listening, strong communication, and empathy. They can also indicate deeper problems in your processes. 

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Similar to CSAT, NPS is a key indicator of customer loyalty and satisfaction. High NPS scores mean almost guaranteed business growth because people stay loyal to your brand and advocate for it publicly. 

Tying NPS to employee performance reveals what your customer teams are nailing and what’s holding the experience back. For example, if one client success manager consistently gets top promoter scores, they can coach others to copy their approach.

Effectively, individual NPS scores become jumping-off points for shared team learning, customer knowledge sharing, and, ultimately, better company-wide customer experience strategies. 

Work efficiency

The most profitable businesses know how to achieve optimal results with limited resources. Unlike raw productivity, which can focus on volume alone, efficiency looks at how work gets done. 

Work efficiency metrics like output-to-input ratio quantify how business results (e.g., number of sales or units produced) correlate with the total number of resources used (e.g., employee hours or budget). Meanwhile, cycle time tells you how long different tasks take to complete. All of this helps you assign better goals, build more realistic timelines, reduce repetition, and unlock greater work efficiencies.  

Teamwork and collaboration

Team productivity is the sum of individual contributions plus interpersonal synergy. Measuring collaboration, communication, and emotional intelligence shows how well your people actually work together. 

Observe how different team members contribute to group discussions, communicate across roles, manage handoffs, and accept feedback. This way, you can understand not just who’s productive but who helps others be productive. 

Tools like peer reviews and 360-degree feedback can make this process more structured and objective. Netflix famously ditched annual performance reviews for shorter, less formal  360-degree feedback loops, where everyone in the company regularly suggests what their peers should stop, start, or continue doing (including the CEO). This helped the company build one of the strongest cultures, which drives high employee performance and retention. 

By using a similar approach, you can better identify collaboration rockstars and ‘glue people’ who secretly hold it all together! 

Task prioritization

Productivity drops when people get buried in busywork — attending meetings, doing endless admin, or ‘following up’ with unresponsive colleagues. Important tasks then get moved to the back burner, which is no bueno. 

Task prioritization teaches your people to choose the right tasks to focus on when work gets hectic. It also helps employees feel less stressed and decision fatigue, both essential for great well-being. Teams that prioritize well consistently hit goals faster and avoid getting sidetracked by low-value distractions.

You can coach your people to get better at task prioritization by:

• Using frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix to sort tasks by urgency 
• Linking tasks to company ORKs or team goals to communicate impacts 
• Adding points to user stories to mark priority levels 
• Reviewing priorities during standups or 1:1s to realign as goals shift
• Celebrating crossed-off high-impact tasks to reinforce the value of smart prioritization

By mastering task prioritization, your teams won’t get sidetracked as easily by conflicting priorities and the occasional operational chaos. 

Employee retention rate

Employee retention (and employee attrition) rates signal how valued and supported employees feel in their roles. 

High retention rates often point to an effective hiring process, proactive onboarding, good managerial leadership, and a healthy workplace environment. On the flip side, when people leave en masse, it’s a tell-tale sign you’ve got some deep issues boiling. Workers cited a higher pace of change (and lack of equivalent salary growth), career ambitions, and problematic culture among the top reasons for leaving their last job. 

If spotted early, all of these issues can be effectively addressed to prevent attrition and the painful costs of hiring a new employee. For example, job enrichment can retain people who feel uninspired in their current role and seek growth. Cultural initiatives like manager training or inclusive team-building can build better trust and improve morale. 

Ultimately, retention should be viewed as a long-term metric closely tied to employee engagement and workforce development efforts.  

Learning and development participation

Businesses must critically upskill their workforce as talent gaps grow bigger for in-demand skills and the pace of technological change accelerates. 

By measuring how often people take part in training or skill-building activities, you can:

• Identify people with a growth mindset for reskilling 
• Nurture candidates for internal recruitment 
• Sharpen your internal mobility strategy 
• Find motivated course authors or mentors 
• Justify bigger L&D investments with participation data

…and progressively build a culture of learning at your company by linking L&D goals to career progression plans so your people see a clear payoff. 

Managerial effectiveness

Managers are responsible for 70% of the variance in team engagement and performance. Leaders with top people management skills know how to guide, support, and empower their team to hit all the performance benchmarks. And those with so-so ones? They drive top performers away and breed mediocrity. 

To evaluate how well managers cope with their role, track:

• Team goal achievement rate to evaluate how consistently the team meets set OKRs. The manager may have poor project management, prioritization, or workflow planning skills if the team often underperforms. 

• Cross-functional collaboration score tallies feedback from peer or partner teams on how well the manager enables cooperation. Low scores can indicate territorial behavior, lack of transparency, or misalignment with wider business objectives. 

• Direct report retention rate. 7 in 10 people quit their jobs last year over a bad manager. If one team has significantly higher attrition rates, you might want to check in with the manager. 

• Internal mobility enablement. The goal of a great manager is to nurture a future bench of talent. High frequency of promotions, lateral moves, or upskilling facilitated by the manager are all great signs of a job well done.
  
• 360-degree feedback score shows how well the manager is perceived by direct reports, peers, and senior leaders, which indicates their ‘fit’ with your company. 

A combination of KPIs tied to things like team retention, goal completion, and cross-functional collaboration allows you to easily distinguish (and laud!) your best managers. 

Call resolution efficiency

Top-notch customer experience is a combination of speed and effectiveness in customer issue resolution. A combination of call resolution efficiency metrics can give you insight into how effective your reps are at problem-solving. 

For example, a high first-call resolution rate and low call transfer rate indicate strong competency of your L1 service teams. Low average resolution time, paired with a low repeat contact rate, indicates effective troubleshooting workflows. 

Human capital ROI

An employer’s human capital ROI is the difference between the revenue generated by an employee and their costs in terms of compensation, benefits, and training, expressed as a percentage. 

It helps managers: 

• Identify high-impact roles to place top performers 
• Justify talent development initiatives
• Advocate for higher compensation 
• Develop better talent retention strategies 

But there’s a caveat: since not all roles bring direct revenue, HC ROI can be misleading without extra context. Some of your best data scientists, for example, may show negative ROI on paper but produce innovative research that will pay back 10x in the long term. Similarly, market shifts (e.g., seasonality in sales) or team dynamics (e.g., recent employee exits) can also skew an individual’s ROI. 

To avoid tunnel vision, pair this metric with qualitative insights and broader workforce insights like leadership potential, work efficiency, or collaboration effectiveness. 

Self-assessment scores

Employee self-scoring sparks reflection and accountability, helping your staff assess their contributions, strengths, and areas for growth. Because people use their own words to express their achievements, goals, and challenges, you gain even more meaningful insights that regular performance reviews may not surface. 

The practice also builds better trust in the performance evaluation process, effectively providing managers with ‘talking points’ so they don’t overlook essential contributions and focus clearly on actual struggles. 

Similarly, it avoids perception gaps that emerge when an employee overestimates or underestimates their impact. This opens doors to more meaningful coaching opportunities, transparent communication, and constructive performance conversations. 

How to measure employee performance metrics

Employee performance skyrockets when metrics guide your strategy rather than box everyone into the same mold of inflated expectations. 

Your people should never be in the dark about what you’re measuring or why you’re focusing on a specific metric. Lack of understanding brings resistance and mistrust. Or worse — a ‘productivity theater’ strategy aimed at superficially inflating the metrics instead of doing meaningful work.  

To get the best results: 

• Align metrics with company values. Don’t measure what’s easy — measure what matters. If collaboration is a core value, track team contributions, not just solo results.

• Set personalized OKRs for each role. Work with your people to develop OKRs that reflect their unique responsibilities and career goals. Tie each objective to team or company priorities, then define 2-3 key results that are specific, measurable, and achievable. 

• Combine short- and long-term metrics. Monitor weekly progress (e.g., task completion rates or error rates) to spot drift early on and track trajectory metrics (e.g., employee engagement or human capital ROI) to detect performance plateaus or persisting structural challenges.  

• Make performance expectations crystal clear. Employees should know exactly how you evaluate their performance, how it contributes to their career development, and what they can do to influence their results.

Best practices for getting started with performance management

Whether you’re building from scratch or fine-tuning what’s already in place, the next three tweaks to your performance management process make a big impact. 

Align metrics with organizational goals

Effective performance ladders up to business objectives like profit growth, customer satisfaction, or employee retention. When employees understand how their daily actions drive (or derail) company priorities, they see greater meaning in their work and get better at task prioritization. 

The best way to reach alignment is to involve your team in metric selection. Ask how they’d define success and what impacts they’d consider measuring themselves. Collaborative goal setting increases buy-in and creates a stronger sense of accountability. 

Balance qualitative and quantitative data

Hard numbers like sales volumes or completed tasks only tell part of the story. Adding qualitative data like peer feedback on collaboration, enablement, or professional development contextualizes the ‘soft’ factors that drive team success. 

Use anonymous surveys and peer feedback tools to collect unbiased qualitative insights. Reiterate the purpose of such reviews: their goal is to provide constructive feedback, not pass off snap judgments or shift blame. 

Use the right tools (invasive tools are a huge no)

As our Productivity Index report shows, managers seek evidence of employee productivity. But oftentimes, they’re after the wrong metrics. Three-quarters believe they should have access to employee activity tracking and screen monitoring at any time to ensure employees are working efficiently.

Obsessive employee surveillance over ‘vanity metrics’ like number of logged hours or daily desktop activity only backfires: People become less engaged, creative, and vested in their work. 

A better approach is to focus on outcomes — what gets done and how it aligns with business goals — rather than obsessing over every click or keystroke. Select a time management tool that collects meaningful performance data and doesn’t invade your employees’ privacy. 

Build a better business with Toggl

Doing performance evaluations is hard when you lack meaningful data. Move beyond  surface-level metrics with our tools: 

Toggl Track turns time data into insights into profitability, capacity levels, project success rates, and employee contribution — metrics that matter more for your business than the number of bathroom breaks your worker takes during the day. 

Toggl Hire assesses employee skills and performance potential early in the hiring cycle to predict future success, instead of judging the fit by lofty credentials like ‘highest degree’ or ‘years of experience. ’ So that you could avoid costly mis-hires, maintain lower absenteeism rates, and maximize human capital ROI through ongoing upskilling and reskilling initiatives. 

Together, Toggl Track and Toggl Hire offer a powerful, people-first approach to performance (learn more about it here) — aligning individual strengths with business goals and replacing micromanagement with meaningful metrics. It’s easier than ever to get started.

Toggl runs under a single sign-on, so one account gives access to both tools, and we’re now offering bundled pricing to make scaling simple — learn more about it here. 

The best part is that both of our tools come with a robust free plan. Book a free demo today to see our platform in action. 😉

Ever feel like your project costs have vanished into thin air? You plunge time, money, and resources into the work, only to see expenses pile up with no long-term benefit to your balance sheet. But what if you could turn some of those costs into assets, spread out over time to improve your company’s financial outlook?

That’s exactly what capitalizing project management costs does. Instead of immediately expensing certain costs, you’ll treat them as investments and amortize them over several years. By doing so, you’ll improve your financial picture and allocate your resources more effectively.

The catch? You can only capitalize project hours if you’ve tracked them with precision. This guide explains how capitalization works, why it’s so important for managing project expenses, and how the right time tracking tools can unlock this world of (what feels like, to us non-financial folk) financial wizardry.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Project cost capitalization is a finance process used to convert expenses into assets before spreading that asset’s value across its useful life.
• Capitalization is a general accounting principle, meaning you can apply it to all types of projects, including software, construction, manufacturing, and business projects.
• Accurate data is the key to capitalization, making time and project tracking software key. Combining automatic time entries with advanced reporting gives you accurate and auditable labor cost data that is perfect for capitalization decisions.
• Toggl Track is the perfect partner for enabling project cost capitalization. You can sign up for free with just two clicks.

What does it mean to capitalize project management costs?

Capitalization is a finance and accounting process that converts expenses into assets before spreading that asset’s value across its useful life to maximize efficiency.

It’s a useful accounting tool that enables businesses to manage their financial performance, increase their company value, and optimize their resources.

Examples of costs that can be capitalized in various industries

Capitalization is a generally accepted accounting principle that spans every industry and type of cost. So long as a cost contributes to the creation of an asset, there’s a good chance it can be capitalized.

Here are some creative examples across different industries.

• Construction projects: Any cost incurred during the construction period, such as supervisor salaries, site preparation costs, raw materials, and real estate acquisition costs, can potentially be capitalized.
• Software development projects: Whether direct costs, such as engineer salaries, or indirect costs, such as software license fees, anything that contributes to the creation of a software asset is eligible for capitalization.
• Manufacturing projects: Where manufacturers retain an asset for their use, e.g., purchasing a laser cutter, they can consider it a capital expenditure.
• Business and investment projects: Outside tangible assets, other costs such as sales tax, interest costs, trademarks, patents, and copyrights can also be capitalized if they directly contribute to capital assets.

Traditionally, capitalizing costs was straightforward for tangible projects, such as construction, where the outputs were physical and measurable. But in modern-day business, it’s important to also consider intangible assets such as software, patents, and branding, to maximize opportunities for capitalization.

To capitalize or not to capitalize…that is the question

Capitalization only happens if you and your finance department consciously decide to do so. And many businesses question whether they even should capitalize certain costs or not. Here are three factors to consider when making the decision:

• The useful life of the asset: Does the project create an asset that will benefit the organization for more than one year? If so, you should consider capitalization to optimize your financial reporting.
• Materiality: Are the costs substantial enough to justify capitalization? While there’s no universal materiality threshold, capitalizing only certain costs ensures the effort is worthwhile.
• Policy and regulation: Do the project costs align with your company’s capitalization policies? If capitalized, the asset’s value must be adjusted over time through accounting treatments like amortization and depreciation.

5 common challenges when capitalizing costs (and how to overcome them)

Unfortunately, capitalization isn’t as easy as estimating some project numbers and asking your finance team to work their magic. Here are some common challenges you’ll need to overcome to capitalize correctly.

1. Lack of clear documentation and tracking systems

Like many financial decisions, you need a clear audit trail for any costs you capitalize. This is important for all types of costs, especially development, administrative, and labor costs, which are harder to track.

Tools like Toggl Track capture clear and consistent time data for labor costs, giving you a solid foundation to calculate your project capitalization. Built-in automation reduces the chances of error while encouraging team members to engage with the platform.

2. Difficulty allocating shared costs among projects

Many businesses struggle to capitalize shared overhead costs, such as software licenses, utility bills, and legal fees, due to a lack of visibility on how they’re allocated.

This is another area where accurate time tracking can help you understand the percentage of time assigned to different initiatives. If you have confidence in this, you can use it to allocate shared costs across your projects.

3. Complexity in complying with accounting standards

Capitalization is a complex financial treatment, with many regulations, such as GAAP and IFRS, governing how it should be managed.

For any fixed assets you hold over a long period, it’s always best to get expert advice from consultants, accountants, or auditors to ensure everything is above board.

4. Risk of overcapitalization

On a similar vein, many organizations run the risk of overcapitalization — mistakenly categorizing operational expenses as capital assets. This can inflate your income statement, leaving your balance sheet open to fines or reputational scrutiny from auditors, investors, and shareholders.

Again, we’d recommend seeking external advice to sense-check your financial logic.

5. Resistance from employees to adopting new workflows

Capitalization comes with strict governance, so project teams that capitalize their costs must be on top of their admin. This inevitably means teams have to adopt new workflows and document more of their day-to-day work.

Tools like Toggl Track make it easy for teams to track their time across every project (especially for team or project leads managing multiple people with different billable rates). An intuitive user interface, simple support, and automated features make it easy to come on board and minimize the learning curve.

Why time tracking is essential for cost capitalization

Are you ready to start capitalizing your project costs? Great. Start tracking your team’s time! When it comes to labor costs, time tracking allows you to base your capitalization decisions on hard data rather than gut-feel resource allocations.

Precise time tracking that shows how much time each employee works on each project gives you the granularity and data to accurately capitalize assets once they’re placed in service.

Here’s what Toggl Track offers:

• Automated time tracking, which takes the admin out of timesheets, with instant start/stop timers capturing employee work time ⏱️
• Time records that can be allocated to individual projects, enabling project managers to optimize resources, measure profitability, and track costs accurately 💰
• Combine time records with billable rates to provide a clear view of capitalization amounts, with detailed reporting allowing you to drill down into the data 📈

So, whether you’re tracking developer hours for your R&D project, designer time for a new creative, or billable hours on your next legal case, Toggl Track is the perfect tool to manage your project cost capitalization.

5 best practices for capitalizing project management costs

While capitalization may look different for specific projects, there are some best practices every project can follow to optimize the process. Let’s finish up by exploring five capitalization best practices.

1. Start with clear cost categorization

Before diving into your project, get clear on which costs can and can’t be capitalized. As a general rule, you can capitalize any capital costs but should omit any operational expenses. We recommend simplifying your admin by using your time tracking tool to manage your cost categories.

2. Document costs in real-time

Project cost management works best when project managers track their costs in real time. This helps avoid errors or missed details when updating budgets retrospectively. Toggl Track’s real-time tracking aligns with this, automatically capturing timesheets for employees without you and your team having to lift a finger.

3. Collaborate between departments

As we’ve seen, capitalization is actually a finance and accountancy process, so project teams must collaborate across operations, finance, compliance, and risk departments to get it right. It’s easy to share Toggl Track’s time reports directly from the platform, giving everyone the insights they need to make crucial cost allocation decisions.

4. Select the right time tracking software

Time tracking tools simplify project-level tracking and timesheets, but should double up as project cost management software. This will boost engagement while keeping all costs in one place for complete clarity, compliance, and simplicity.

5. Provide employee training to ensure accuracy

Tracking project costs always works best when everyone has a part to play. When implementing capitalization, ensure employees have consistent and complete training to help them understand the concepts, processes, and new tools.

Take control of your project costs with Toggl Track

Whether you’re a start-up, SME, or enterprise organization, capitalizing project costs is a great way to boost the economic efficiency of your projects, creating valuable assets on the company’s balance sheet.

But for capitalization to work effectively for your company, you need to maintain clear, auditable data to support your financial decisions.

For labor costs, this is where tools like Toggl Track are a game changer (hate to use that phrase, but it’s true), unlocking detailed, accurate employee time data in a simple, easy-to-use way, and slots perfectly into your team’s workflows.

If you like the sound of that, it’s easy to sign up for Toggl Track for free in just two clicks. Better yet, if you’re a team of over 20, schedule a time to speak to our sales team to learn more about how Toggl Track can level up your specific project management processes!

Looking for an all-in-one solution that covers applicant tracking, onboarding, HR workflows, and AI-powered recruiting? Workable positions itself as a comprehensive platform designed to support the entire hiring journey.

But while Workable packs in a wide range of features, the user experience isn’t always seamless. From inconsistent customer support to clunky add-ons, many teams find themselves searching for simpler, more cost-effective alternatives.

This guide breaks down Workable pricing in 2025, including plan tiers, add-ons, and hidden costs, to help you decide if it’s the right investment for your hiring needs.

Workable pricing

Workable has three pricing plans, and you can get a free 15-day trial for each one. Workable has a special pricing model that charges according to your company’s headcount. So, the bigger your organization, the bigger your monthly Workable invoice.

While this makes pricing friendly for small businesses, it punishes larger companies that may not have huge talent acquisition needs. For example, a 100-person company will pay the same amount per month whether they have 2 or 20 open roles at one point in time.

There is, however, a set of free features for every plan:

• Self-service employee profiles
• Searchable company files
• Employee directory
• Organization chart

With that aside, let’s get into the pricing plans for this recruitment software.

Workable’s Starter plan starts at $169 per month

This plan costs $169 monthly and supports companies with up to 20 employees. You can only pay monthly, with no annual discount available. You’ll get the following features:

• Candidate sourcing suite
• Applicant tracking system
• 2 active jobs

You can also purchase add-ons to this plan:

• Texting for $49/month
• Video interviews for $59/month
• Assessments for $39/month

Workable’s Standard plan starts at $299 per month

This plan starts at $299 monthly for companies with 1-20 employees if you’re willing to pay annually for a 20% discount. Otherwise, the cost is $360 per month. The pricing increases with your headcount. The Standard plan includes all the features from the Starter plan but with one key difference: unlimited active jobs.

The price also changes for add-ons:

• Texting for $90/month
• Video interviews for $120/month
• Assessments for $70/month

Note: These prices are for the Recruiting features alone. We’ll cover the HR add-on, which is a bit more complicated, in a minute.

Workable’s Premium plan starts at $599 per month

Prices start at $599 monthly for companies with 1-20 people. You can only get this plan with an annual payment, so you can’t try it for a few months and then decide to opt out. In other words, you pay $7,188 for a year of Workable upfront.

You get all the features from the previous plans, plus:

• Hiring plan
• 5 native language options

Texting, video interviews, and assessments are included in this plan by default; you don’t have to pay for them.

Premier has a few advanced options as well:

• Single sign-on support
• Premium support
• Custom account onboarding

In short, Workable’s pricing is both high and incredibly complex. Need something to compare it with? If you take a look at our pricing page, you’ll see that Toggl Hire’s cheapest monthly plan is just $199, and there’s also a free plan to get started.

The HR add-on

Besides the core features offered in each Workable plan, there is an add-on called HR, which is completely optional and changes the price of every plan. For example, here are the prices for the minimum number of users:

• Starter: $249/month (vs. $169)
• Standard: $349/month (vs. $299)
• Premier: $679/month (vs. $599)

This plan includes the following Human Resources tools:

• HR information system
• Employee onboarding
• Time off management
• Time tracking
• E-signatures for company files
• Payroll preparation
• Payroll integrations

On top of all this, performance reviews are also available as an extra premium tool. This add-on to the HR add-on (confused yet?) costs $50 in the Starter plan and $39 in the Standard plan and is included by default in the Premier plan.

Workable features

Workable offers an extensive suite of features designed to support every stage of the hiring process, from sourcing to onboarding. For some teams, this breadth is a major plus. For others, it’s a bit too much. Below, we’ve highlighted some key features, along with a few notes on where they shine and where they might fall short.

Core recruiting features

Workable’s core recruiting features allow you to post jobs on 200+ platforms (including LinkedIn and other social media tools). The platform also includes a careers page builder, passive candidate sourcing, access to over 400 million candidate profiles, and an employee referral portal.

These features help talent teams attract, engage, and manage candidates across multiple channels.

💭 Considerations: The depth of features may feel overwhelming for smaller businesses or teams with straightforward hiring needs. Some competitors offer simpler solutions built specifically for small businesses. If ease of use is a concern and you’re just getting started, bear in mind that learning the ropes can take a while with Workable.

AI-powered candidate sourcing

Workable uses artificial intelligence to recommend suitable candidates, streamlining the recruitment process and reducing time-to-hire.

💭 Considerations: The accuracy of AI recommendations depends on the quality of input data. In some cases, suggestions may not fully align with your job requirements, and you’ll need to make manual adjustments. Some competitors offer more advanced AI matching capabilities.

Self-scheduled interviews

Allowing busy applicants to self-schedule their interviews increases flexibility, improves the candidate experience, reduces scheduling delays, and speeds up your HR management processes.

💭 Considerations: The effectiveness of self-scheduling relies on the efficiency of calendar integrations. Some competitors provide more robust integrations that support a wider range of scheduling tools.

Automated actions

Recruiters can set automated triggers for routine tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or moving candidates through the pipeline, improving workflow efficiency.

💭 Considerations: The customization options for automation may be somewhat limited compared to platforms that offer more advanced workflow configurations.

Employee referral portal

Workable’s employee referral portal makes it easy for employees to refer candidates, leveraging internal networks and potentially lowering hiring costs.

💭 Considerations: The success of referral programs depends on employee participation. Some competitors use gamification and incentive management to increase engagement.

Mobile-friendly applications

Workable lets candidates apply from any device, making the application process more accessible and increasing the applicant pool.

💭 Considerations: The level of customization for mobile applications may be limited. Some competitors offer more design flexibility to align application pages with company branding.

Background check integration

A built-in integration for background checking streamlines candidate verification, reducing the need for external systems and speeding up hiring decisions.

💭 Considerations: Background check services depend on third-party providers, which may impact processing times and costs. Some platforms offer more built-in extensive screening options.

What do users think of Workable pricing?

Wondering what real-life users think of Workable’s pricing structure? We’ve dug through some Workable reviews to reveal these trends:

Small businesses feel priced out

Several users mentioned that the pricing structure isn’t startup-friendly. One founder noted, “The high minimum pricing structure can be a deal breaker.” Akshay, a team lead in IT, echoed this, saying, “The sticker price is steep for the small business crowd, especially if you’re eyeing extras.”

Lack of flexibility

The pricing model, based on company headcount, doesn’t always match actual hiring needs. One user pointed to a “lack of flexible pricing options,” while Akshay added that it can be difficult “if you’re into custom setups…good luck making sense of their bills.”

Key features are locked behind higher tiers

There’s frustration around needing to upgrade plans or pay extra to access core functionality. One HR administrator shared, “It is unreasonable to incur additional costs for the performance module. When we used Sage, this was already included in our pack and priced fairly.”

How does Workable pricing compare to competitors?

Tool	Plan Names	Prices (USD)	Details
Workable	• Starter • Standard • Premier	• $169/month • $299/month • $599/month	• Up to 2 active jobs; essential recruiting features; ideal for short-term or occasional hiring needs. • Unlimited active jobs; advanced recruiting features; pricing based on company size. • Includes all Standard features plus premium tools; available as an annual subscription; pricing based on company size.
Toggl Hire	• Free • Starter • Premium	• $0/month • $199/month (billed annually) $349/month (billed annually)	• 1 active job; candidate management; email management; interview scheduling. • 3 active job openings; unlimited skills tests; unlimited candidates • Unlimited job openings, unlimited skills tests, unlimited candidates
Zoho Recruit	• Free • Standard • Professional • Enterprise	• €0 • €25/user/month (billed annually) • €50/user/month (billed annually) • €75/user/month (billed annually)	• 1 active job; candidate management; email management; interview scheduling • 100 active jobs; candidate sourcing; premium job boards; social recruiting; resume management; applicant tracking; talent pipeline; standard reports and dashboards; 50+ integrations. • 250 active jobs; AI candidate matching; advanced analytics; custom reports and dashboards; candidate portals; screening and assessments; advanced security control; assignment rules; SMS and phonebridge. • 750 active jobs; custom roles and profiles; custom functions and buttons; client portals; staffing portals; layout rules; web tabs; blueprint; territory management; advanced assignment rules; auto responders; Google Meet integration; Microsoft Teams integration.
Qureous	Just one plan is available	$499/month	Unlimited AI sourcing; unlimited users and jobs; unlimited email and LinkedIn campaigns; unlimited contact detail credits and job post distribution; unlimited video assessments, onboarding and training.
VivaHR	• Standard • Growth • Premier	• $83/month • $125/month • $299/month	• 5 active job postings; 1 location; 1 user; unlimited candidates; unlimited culture profiles; candidate automations; onboarding support; thousands of integrations. • Unlimited job postings; unlimited locations; unlimited users; unlimited candidates; unlimited culture profiles; candidate automations; customizable pipeline; dedicated phone support. • All Growth features plus AI-powered hiring assistant and recruiting tools; eSignatures; custom roles and permissions; text messaging; dedicated customer service; HRIS integrations; employee referral tracking; access management.
Deel	• Contractor • EOR (Employer of Record) • Payroll	• Starting at $49/month • Starting at $599/month • Starting at $19 per employee/month	• Compliance and payments for contractors in 150+ countries; AI-powered tools; locally compliant contracts; automated invoicing and expenses. • Hire employees in 150+ countries without an entity; local payroll, taxes, and benefits management; compliance assurance; access to local HR and legal experts. • International payroll management for your own entities; in-house payroll experts; 24/7 support; compliance with local regulations.

It’s best to assess your needs and budget when comparing Workable pricing against its main competitors. However, as many Workable reviews state, the pricing is high and complicated, especially if you want the full scope of features and some level of customization.

How does Toggl Hire compare to Workable?

If you need a reliable tool for strategic hiring, Toggl Hire is an excellent alternative to Workable. Here’s how the two stack up against each other.

Toggl Hire has better skills assessment tests

Workable offers five basic types of skills tests:

• Verbal comprehension
• Numerical comprehension
• Abstract reasoning
• Attention and focus
• Workplace personality

In other words, you can test only for the most basic soft skills in your hiring process.

Conversely, Toggl Hire’s skills library offers 200+ skills tests and well over 20,000 questions. You can build your own hard skills test from scratch or start with a ready-made role template and customize the questions to match your specific hiring needs.

The test builder is user-friendly, and you can set your own rules and scorecards, enabling you to streamline candidate assessments and find top talent for each opening.

Toggl Hire charges per active job openings

Workable forces you to pay a people tax for having a large organization. Even if you only want to fill three roles, you’ll have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for Workable if you have 200+ employees.

Need a better way? Toggl Hire pricing is based on how many roles you’re actively hiring at any given point. Couple this with a completely free plan, and Toggl Hire is ideal for startups and businesses that need the best value for their money.

Toggl Hire offers async video interviews in the Starter plan

Video interviews cost $59 extra per month if you want them in any Workable plan. With the cheapest possible option, this means a total of $228 per month for Workable with these assessment functionalities vs. $199 per month for Toggl Hire’s Starter plan.

Simply put, we offer more features for a lower price point.

Toggl Hire provides a better candidate experience

Toggl Hire makes the hiring process fair, fast, and candidate-friendly. After completing a test, candidates receive instant feedback with real-time scores, with no waiting.

Built-in anti-cheating measures keep the process fair without feeling intrusive, creating a more trustworthy experience for both candidates and hiring teams.

Plus, every test is fully customizable — from the skills you assess to the tone, branding, and question types. It’s easy to tailor the experience to fit your role, your team, and the kind of talent you want to attract.

With Toggl Hire, you can evaluate free-text questions with AI

Creating custom assessments for technical or unfamiliar roles? Toggl Hire’s built-in AI evaluation makes it easy to score free-text answers with no experience required.

It’s especially helpful when hiring for roles outside your domain, like niche technical positions or specialist roles you’re filling for the first time. The AI delivers accurate, consistent evaluations so you can make confident, data-backed decisions.

Workable offers developed HR and candidate sourcing features

Workable delivers a wide range of built-in HR features, from job board integrations to onboarding tools, making it a good fit for larger teams looking for an all-in-one HR suite.

But if your priority is hiring the right person fast, Toggl Hire has everything a growing team needs to build pipelines, manage candidate profiles, and run an efficient recruitment process.

While many platforms include basic ATS features, Toggl Hire goes further with powerful, data-driven tools that help you screen, assess, and hire top talent — without the fluff.

Try Toggl Hire for free

Workable has all the tools you may need, plus some more. But what good are features that you don’t use? Couple that with the pricing that needs its own manual and the sticker shock you’ll get when you configure a price, and it’s easy to see why HR teams seek out Workable alternatives.

At Toggl Hire, our features come as an affordable, transparent, and easy-to-understand pricing package, allowing you to:

• Shortlist candidates in one click based on proven skills
• Access a library of hundreds of expert-created skills tests
• Use built-in tools to reduce hiring bias and promote fairness
• Run async video interviews that candidates actually enjoy
• Empower your entire team with an intuitive, collaborative platform
• Deliver a standout candidate experience that strengthens your employer brand

Ready to hire great people without the complexities of an enterprise-grade HR tool? Get our free plan today.

If you’re an HR professional, you know it’s painful to see a new hire fall flat or disappear faster than a slice of cake at an office birthday party. If you’re tired of this endless cycle of hiring and firing, measuring and improving your quality of hire (QOH) is the solution.

Quality of hire is a crucial metric demonstrating the value of every joiner’s contribution to the company’s overarching goals. The problem? Putting a numerical value on a new hire’s performance is easier said than done.

This guide walks through how to measure quality of hire using proven HR metrics like new hire attrition, employee engagement, and hiring manager satisfaction — and how to improve them using a skills-first, data-driven approach to make consistently better hires.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Quality of hire is a vital hiring metric that reflects a new employee’s value to the organization.
• Measuring and improving QOH helps hiring teams avoid the costs of a bad hire, attract top talent in a competitive market, and boost employee engagement and productivity.
• There’s no easy way to measure quality of hire. Instead, consider which recruiting metrics are most important to your team or organization and prioritize those to improve new hire success.
• Relying on a data-driven hiring process, gathering candidate feedback, and implementing a skills-based hiring process are all simple ways to improve your quality of hire metric.

What is quality of hire?

Quality of hire is a hiring metric that reflects the value a new employee brings to an organization. It encompasses the pre-hire and post-hire experience as a comprehensive way to measure how successful they’re likely to be in their role.

💥 Pre-hire quality checkers include assessment scores, work samples, and structured interviews

💥 Post-hire quality measures include time to proficiency, time to productivity, and performance metrics, such as goal achievement, project impact, or manager ratings in performance reviews.

By establishing a baseline for each quality of hire measure, you can check which factors correlate with your most successful hires to predict quality and achieve hiring success.

How to measure quality of hire

While quality of hire is a key recruiting metric, you measure it using other HR metrics. There’s no unique formula to measure quality of hire, which is why it’s often so difficult for teams to track and improve.

Generally, there is no one-size-fits-all metric for quality of hire because it depends on what your priority is. Common quality-of-hire metrics include turnover rates, job performance, employee engagement, and cultural fit measured by 360 ratings.

Ji-A Min, Research Analyst at Ideal Candidate

The bottom line is that how you calculate your overall quality of hire score depends on your needs, internal processes, and preferred outcome.

Here are eight of the most common ways — all are great starting points for measuring this metric, but you can adapt and customize the way you measure QoH depending on your organization’s needs.

Use one or more of the following:

1. End of probation

Most new hires are expected to showcase what they can offer a company within a specific period. Typically, the period to reach full productivity is three months from their start date (or 90 days), which is just long enough to evaluate the hires’ on-the-job performance and decide whether to continue employment, extend the probation period, or terminate the contract.

2. Ramp-up time for new hires

Ramp-up time refers to how long it takes new hires to reach their full potential within the organization. This will likely differ according to the department and company. In some cases, it can take up to 90 days for a new hire to reach full autonomy, or much shorter for entry-level roles.

Here are a few ways to measure ramp-up time:

☝️ Observe and take notes during the first few weeks on the job. Precise? Definitely. But it’s also pretty time-consuming.

✌️ Ask hiring managers how the new hire is doing after 30, 60, and 90 days. This is less precise but still provides valuable data for the process.

3. Acceptable productivity

This is a variation of the ramp-up time metric. It measures how long until a new hire is productive enough to work independently without assistance.

The main difference is that this metric looks at overall productivity, not just how fast someone reaches their full potential. Measure this hire score using the same methods as for ramp-up time.

We spoke to Steve O’Halloran, Talent Acquisition Lead at Embeddable, who stresses the importance of being consistent with your KPI strategies. He warns:

“A crucial and often overlooked aspect is that the criteria you use to evaluate candidates in the interview process must be tightly linked to how you evaluate their performance once they’re through the door. Hiring someone for ABC, then evaluating them against DEF once they start the job, sets nobody up for success. Hiring teams getting this right from the start will save a lot of heartache down the road.”

4. Hiring manager satisfaction rating

Hiring manager satisfaction is a vital recruitment metric that measures how satisfied the hiring manager is with the company’s hiring process and new employees. As hiring managers aren’t part of the HR department (in most cases), they can provide valuable insight into how effective the recruitment process is.

Taken a few months after the new hire starts, hiring manager satisfaction surveys optimize the recruiting process and create a better quality of hire. Crucially, they differ from candidate satisfaction, which looks at jobseekers’ experience of your talent acquisition process.

5. Job performance reviews

Performance reviews offer a formal approach to measuring quality of hire and understanding how well a new hire is doing. Usually, a hiring manager conducts these reviews and includes a score on a scale (1-5, for example) to assist in measuring quality.

For a more accurate and well-rounded performance review, incorporate 360-degree feedback from a variety of sources, such as peers, managers, direct reports, self-evaluations, and other relevant stakeholders. You’ll gain a wide range of perspectives, spot trends, and eliminate any bias.

6. Promotions

Promotions are a lagging indicator but a valuable way to measure the quality of hire. Promotion rate and promotion frequency are standard quality of hire metrics, calculated by tracking how many new hires are promoted within their first year and how often they are promoted since joining the company.

It’s a no-brainer. Quality candidates will get promoted more often and more quickly, which means that their overall quality of hire is superb.

7. Culture fit

Culture fit is notoriously hard to measure as a qualitative metric, because, company cultures are equally as hard to define. But this is still an important area of focus, as bad culture fit can significantly impact your cost per hire. Consider the following questions as part of your evaluation process:

• Does the hire uphold and adhere to the company values?
• Are they a good representation of the organization?
• Do they contribute positively to team dynamics and collaboration?

Since these are inherently subjective, the best way to gather meaningful insights is to ask the people who work with the new hire day-to-day. Send a short survey to their team and manager a few months after the start date to gauge how well they’ve integrated.

8. Employee turnover and retention rate

Turnover and retention rates show whether your new hires stick around long enough to make a meaningful impact. Start by tracking first-year turnover, or simply how many hires leave the company within the first 12 months. A high rate signals deeper issues with onboarding or role expectations.

Through a more positive lens, new hire retention rates explore how many new employees are still with the company after their first year. Both metrics highlight patterns, like certain roles, departments, or hiring managers with consistently stronger or weaker outcomes.

How to improve your quality of hire

Improving something that’s extremely difficult to measure might sound like Mission: Impossible. But once you define what quality means for your team and set clear benchmarks, it’s actually very doable.

Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to build a hiring process that consistently brings in top performers, then sets them up for success. Here’s how to make that happen:

1. Define what quality of hire means for your company’s long-term success

The first step in improving the quality of hire is to sit down with your team and define what a successful hire looks like.

• What skills and experience are required?
• What are the key indicators of success?
• What qualities or traits allow someone to thrive within your team and organization?

With a clear definition, you can start measuring and improving the quality of hire.

2. Rely on a data-driven hiring process

Improving quality of hire means relying less on gut instinct — and more on real data. That includes assessment results, hiring manager feedback, candidate performance, and retention insights.

A platform like Toggl Hire helps you stay on top of the data throughout the entire hiring process. You can set pass thresholds to automatically filter out unqualified applicants, track how different hiring steps are performing, and spot patterns that lead to better hires over time.

Toggl’s insights dashboard turns raw candidate data into clear, actionable takeaways — helping your team work faster and smarter, without losing sight of what matters: hiring great people who stay and succeed.

3. Align the hiring team with the right requirements

Are your hiring managers aligned with the requirements of the role? If not, you run the risk of hiring someone who’s not a good fit for the team. This can lead to a high turnover rate and a drop in productivity.

To avoid this kind of miscommunication or misalignment, create a candidate scorecard that includes factors such as:

• Hard and soft skills
• The level of knowledge the candidate needs
• How long they’ve worked in specific or adjacent roles

Instead of relying on resumes or LinkedIn profiles, scorecards objectively measure the quality of candidates during the interview process and prevent the hiring team from acting on impulse or being influenced by their unconscious bias.

4. Use skills assessments to increase recruiter productivity

Resumes and interviews can only tell you so much. Without clear evidence of ability, recruiting teams spend too much time chasing the wrong candidates — and that slows everything down.

Skills assessments streamline the hiring process and improve recruiter productivity by showing you exactly who can do the job. Whether using pre-built tests or customizing your own, competency skills assessments give you instant clarity on candidate strengths and gaps long before the interview stage.

With Toggl Hire, for example, you can test candidates early in the funnel and get data-backed insights on who can actually do the job. With a rich test library filled with customizable tests, you can make faster, more confident hiring decisions — and reduce the risk of a bad hire.

5. Improve the onboarding experience for new hires

Let’s be honest: candidates talk to each other, and a sloppy onboarding process can have a major impact on your employer brand and other key metrics like employee retention and attrition.

To improve your onboarding experience, assess whether candidates:

• Understand your organization’s core goals and missions
• Understand the principles of how the organization works
• Receive hardware and system access promptly
• Feel welcomed by the team and their manager

Regardless of your current process or how you improve it, the goal is to help new hires adjust to their new environment and get up to speed quickly.

6. Gather feedback from former employees to improve your process

Former employees and candidates offer valuable insights into which aspects of your hiring process are working and which aren’t.

In fact, when tracking feedback from former employees, exit interviews are a must-have for any growing company. They offer valuable insight into why employees leave (and how to keep future top performers around longer).

Why is quality of hire important?

Tracking and improving quality of hire takes time, coordination, and consistent effort — but the return is undeniable. When you get it right, it directly impacts the long-term success of your business. Here’s why it’s worth prioritizing:

• Improved productivity: High-quality hires ramp up quickly and start contributing value from day one, which improves overall team efficiency.
• Lower turnover risk: When people are a great fit, they stay longer. That means fewer replacements, a lower cost per hire, and less disruption.
• Better company culture: Employees who align well with the company’s values and culture positively influence morale, teamwork, and organizational cohesiveness.
• Improved innovation: High-quality hires bring valuable skills, creativity, and fresh perspectives, fostering innovation and growth.
• Boosted employee engagement survey scores: Top talent contributes to stronger team dynamics and morale, which can lead to measurable improvements in engagement scores over time.
• Stronger employer brand: Consistently hiring the right candidates boosts your company’s reputation, attracting more top-tier talent over time.
• Cost savings: Better hires lead to fewer hiring mistakes, reducing costs associated with poor performance, rehiring, training, and lost productivity.
• Higher customer satisfaction: Quality employees deliver better services and products, leading to happier customers and improved loyalty.

Final thoughts on improving the quality of hire

You can’t improve what you don’t measure, so arming yourself with the right hiring metrics is job one as a hiring manager. Investing in a good process will improve the quality of your team and lower your turnover rate. So, everybody wins.

Follow the steps and tips above to create a process that works for your business — one that sources and retains the best of the best. If you want to create better job descriptions, hire for the right skills, and attract better candidates, try a full-cycle recruitment software built for skills-first hiring. That’s right, we’re talking about Toggl Hire.

Create your free account to test the right skills, improve your time to hire, and offer a great candidate experience.

Your employees are your greatest asset, but are they also your biggest expense? In industries like investment banking, engineering, and healthcare, labor costs can hit $100 billion per year. Yet, companies in these fields also report some of the highest profit margins. 

The secret? Maximizing your revenue per employee (RPE) rate. This important metric tracks how much yield each employee generates for your business and determines the effectiveness of your revenue generation relative to your workforce size, which is key for long-term, sustainable growth.

This guide reveals more about employee profitability. You’ll learn how to calculate your RPE with a simple formula (and several handy data collection and analytics techniques) to find new paths to profitability. 

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• RPE helps companies spot productivity gaps, process inefficiencies, resource allocation issues, and other blockers undermining revenue growth. You can justify labor costs by revenue and grow profit margins through operating model optimizations.
• Average revenue per employee depends on the company’s industry and years in operation — these factors are hard to change, but serve as a good benchmark. To maximize your RPE, focus on improving your operating efficiencies and employee performance.
• If you don’t know your RPE, you risk hiring for roles that don’t drive profitability while understaffing those that do. You may also choose the wrong performance management approaches, penalizing people for factors beyond their control, like poor workflow design or legacy software.
• The easiest way to track revenue by employee is to use time tracking data as a proxy (instead of just annual revenue and headcount). Continuous analysis with tools like Toggl Track can detect and debug process inefficiencies faster.

The importance of revenue per employee (and how to calculate it)

RPE is a strong indicator of your company’s efficiency. A low average revenue per employee means issues with your resource allocation, cost management, or pricing model. A healthier number means your operating model is in tip-top shape. 

The formula isn’t perfect because it doesn’t factor in other business costs, such as marketing, IT infrastructure, or equipment costs. It can also give skewed results if you have high employee turnover or rely on an external workforce, including freelancers or agency partners. 

Still, it’s a good proxy for measuring employee productivity and overall operating efficiency. If your workforce has grown significantly, but your RPE has remained stagnant or declined, it’s a sign that inefficiencies or misaligned resources may be dragging down your profitability. 

By tracking your RPE, you can diagnose these efficiency issues sooner (like suboptimal workload distribution, bloated org chart, and redundant business processes) and use that data to optimize your profit margins. 

Factors that influence employee profitability

Several factors influence an employee’s revenue generation, from external market conditions to internal processes. Some factors, like industry trends, company age, or economic conditions, will be beyond your control. However, you can optimize your internal processes, work environment, and employee performance — three critical levers that can significantly impact RPE.  

Industry

NYU Stern University runs a revenue per employee benchmark for US companies:

Industry name	Average annual revenue per employee
Advertising	$47,996.17
Apparel	$127.18
Regional banks	$356,647.75
Healthcare and support services	$184,232.63
Food and grocery retail	$16,046.42
Semiconductors	$204,829.80
Software (internet)	$124,606.07
Trucking	$24,528.77
Total market average	$104,029.79

The numbers are all over the spectrum because of the differences in business models and workforce capabilities. 

Finance services providers and technology companies have higher RPE because they can generate more revenue with fewer employees, thanks to an asset-light business model, smarter product distribution, and greater automation. 

For example, Mastercard has an impressive $843,323 RPE because it built a scalable payment network for processing billions of transactions per year (and pocketing the interchange fees), while also using advanced automation and cloud infrastructure to scale operations without increasing headcount.

Apple has a $2.4 million RPE — the highest among Big Tech companies. Its ‘recipe for success’ combines premium pricing, an optimized global supply chain, and ample service revenues with minimal labor costs compared to hardware manufacturing.

In contrast, manufacturing companies often have modest performance indicators. Many depend on large physical footprints, including multiple retail locations, warehouses, transportation, and production facilities, each requiring high staff headcounts to keep the lights on. 

Company age

RPE typically correlates with the stages of a company’s life cycle. Early-stage companies often incur high costs because they need to quickly capture market share and acquire new customers. Customer acquisition costs (CAC) range from $787 to $3,665 for tech startups and $127 to $377 for online marketplaces.

They also spend more on recruiting new employees (cue higher hiring costs), expanding facilities (for physical operations), or developing new service offerings.

Timeline	Annual recurring revenue per employee	Good	Great
First 12-48 months	Less than $1 million	$70k	$100k+
2-3 years	$1-$5 million	$120K	$185k+
3+ years	$5-$20 million	$150K	$215k+
5+ years	$20-$50 million	$175K	$245k+

Mature companies benefit from recurring revenue from customer retention, brand loyalty, or a subscription model. They also have more optimized workflows and a greater degree of automation, which drives higher profitability with relatively stable workforce growth.

But they may also see a reduction in revenue per employee ratio. Product competitiveness may change, leading to lower sales volumes, while manufacturing costs may increase due to inefficiencies or supply chain disruptions. For tech companies, legacy software can become a nuisance for operating efficiencies and productivity growth.

Employee engagement and morale

Disengaged employees are less productive. They’re more likely to show signs of absenteeism or ‘quiet quit’ when they complete the bare minimum expected of them. Unsurprisingly, employees who aren’t shooting for the stars produce lower revenue. But on the flip side, engaged teams outperform on several financial metrics.

Better recognition of employee contributions, a greater focus on work-life balance, and smarter workforce management are the first steps to improving employee productivity (and with it, your revenue per employee ratio). 

Access to the right tools (Operating efficiency) 

Small businesses that work smarter, not harder, outperform those with a bigger but less efficient workforce.  

OnlyFans has 42 full-time employees but generates 13x to 28x the RPE of other Big Tech companies. While their saucy industry 🌶️ is a factor, they’ve also developed massive brand awareness through influencer marketing and a lean product development lifecycle.

A huge part of OnlyFans’ success was the team’s ability to quickly develop and test product features and scale infrastructure to accommodate traffic spikes. Instead of increasing its number of full-time employees, OnlyFans asked contractors to help during peak growth stages.

While technology was key to the growth of OnlyFans, it’s the cause of major bottlenecks in other companies. Gartner reports that 47% of digital workers struggle to locate the information they need to perform effectively in their jobs. Meanwhile, 32% of middle managers in New Jersey firms name ‘inefficient processes’ as the biggest time-wasters.

Time analytics tools like Toggl Track reveal inefficiencies that chip away at your revenue. You can identify manual, time-consuming processes, remove redundant tasks, ditch unproductive routines, and direct your people’s focus toward revenue-contributing goals.

The dangers of not knowing your RPE

Warning: Ignoring revenue per employee could send your business waaaaay off course. This powerful metric ties workforce productivity directly to your bottom line. Overlook it and you might end up overhiring or bleeding profits before you realize it. 

Let’s say Company A generated $500K in revenue last year. Its people seemed busy (according to timesheets), so the CEO hired two more designers. But because the company took more time-consuming projects without adjusting billing rates, its revenue decreased to $300K and RPE to $20K.

Company B also made $500K last year — how about that for coincidence? They hired a new software developer to implement RPA tools (spending more on licenses). But the new system improved sales deal flow, allowing the sales team to close accounts faster — and accountants to service clients better. The company’s revenue rose to $800K and RPE to $80K.

Not knowing your revenue per employee (RPE) leaves you vulnerable to:

• Resource waste: You may overhire for low-revenue roles while understaffing profitable projects.
• Misaligned priorities: People unknowingly focus on tasks that drain profitability, slowing your revenue growth. 
• Hidden underperformance: Low productivity can lurk beneath the surface, masked by busy work. Without proven data, it’s hard to determine the trigger — perhaps process inefficiency, lack of skills, or dwindling employee motivation. 

The above eventually leads to poor scalability, shrinking profit margins, and rising employee turnover rates as high performers grow frustrated by the internal chaos.

How to track revenue per employee (and improve it)

Revenue per employee is a proxy number for employee efficiency, which is a combination of high personal effectiveness, good project management, and optimized workflows. 

To track RPE, you need detailed data on:

• Employee time 
• Workload allocation 
• Outputs towards revenue 

Toggl Track gives you visibility into all these metrics (and more) through pre-made and custom analytics views. From here, you can use the collected data to figure out the best approach to optimizing your RPE. Here’s what worked for us and our users: 

1. Start by tracking accurate time data

Financial statements and annual reports deliver insights on your revenue growth, net income, and profit margin. But accounting docs don’t exactly tell how productive different activities are — time tracking data does. 

Time tracking data shows where your people’s focus lingers and how much valuable output an average employee produces. For example, if your salespeople spend hours on manual client prospecting and lead qualification instead of nurturing or closing deals, you’re leaving money on the table. Similarly, if your engineers are stuck in unnecessary meetings or constantly blocked by delays on the design side, you’ve got to work on better cross-functional collaboration. 

With Toggl Track, you can track billable vs non-billable hours, monitor project task progression, and predict delays on actual employee data.

This data identifies process bottlenecks, optimizes resource allocation, streamlines client billing, and better tracks profitability across specific projects to understand exactly how employees contribute to different revenue streams.

2. Analyze profitability using Toggl Track’s Analytics

When you know where your time and money is going, you can better predict your revenue. 

With Toggl Analytics, you can easily calculate costs and profits for every type of project through logged billable hours, employee activities, and expenses. You can model future profitability trends with budget forecasting, estimated vs. actual, and income vs. expense reports.

PR agency Sweat+Co juggles a lot of clients and projects. But they had no idea how much time and resources different tasks take…until Toggl Track. After implementing our tool to record billable hours, Sweat+Co was surprised by its volume of non-billable work. This revelation brought change to workflow management and project scope control.

Toggl Track increased our profitability by at least 20%. We found out where the team was spending too much time. Whether that was us being inefficient or over-serving or working too slowly, Toggl Track gave us the ability to restrategize, find out what’s wrong, and fix it.

Dax Kimbrough, Business Consultant, Sweat+Co

3. Highlight inefficiencies and make adjustments

Time tracking data reveals why work friction and resource waste happen. You may be allocating too many resources to low-impact assignments and assigning too few to labor-intensive yet needle-moving ones.  

For example, you can stack two client accounts to determine which brings higher revenue because of fewer communication delays. Or, you can benchmark performance changes after adopting a new business tool or streamlining a process in two customer service teams. 

With time insights, you can improve your staffing levels, determine the ROI of new software, re-negotiate client contracts, and make other improvements to your processes to improve business efficiency and profitability. 

Moreover, you can empower your talented employees to excel by coaching them to set better goals, try new management techniques, or effortlessly get into the deep work state.  

4. Set revenue-centric goals for teams

To pull in good revenue, you need to continuously improve your workforce efficiency. For many leaders, that often translates to making people ‘busy’ every second of their day.

But ‘busy’ doesn’t automatically equal extra revenue or productivity. So, your people may be stuck chasing the wrong objectives or dragged down by underlying inefficiencies. To avoid that, we recommend tracking KPIs like:

• Billable vs. non-billable hours per employee, and then eliminate the dreadful admin

• Resource utilization rate  — the percentage of an employee’s available time spent on billable or revenue-generating work to ensure optimal resource allocation

• Project profitability — high revenue and high expenses mean lower net profit and profit margins, which isn’t great

• Task completion rate to understand how effectively employees cycle through different tasks and address any workflow or performance issues

With Toggl Track, you can monitor all the above over any time period (week, month, quarter, year) … plus set specific revenue goals for your employees. 

Toggl Track Team Goals help managers direct people’s efforts to the highest priority tasks to hit the bigger revenue or velocity rate goals. 

Your people, in turn, concentrate on delivering results while also having enough flexibility to plan their days. At Toggl, we use an RAFT framework (Results and Accountability First at Toggl).

RAFT prioritizes results over effort or hours. We trust our skilled human capital to figure out how, when, where, and how they make the best work happen (while coaching them on effective time management).  

Some Togglers love working at the crack of dawn, while others don’t log in until midday. We don’t mind if people sign off early on some days and then clock in extra time on another as long as they hit all assigned goals and personal OKRs. 

RAFT allows us to build a strong remote culture of high individual accountability, driving both high employee satisfaction and steady revenue growth per employee. 

5. Invest in training and other strategic tools for ongoing improvements

Overall, there are many things you can tinker with to improve your revenue per employee metric, such as: 

• Adjusting your pricing strategy 
• Exploring new revenue streams 
• Finding cheaper suppliers 
• Improving logistics costs 
• Or diversifying into a new market 

The success of all of these efforts will hinge on your workforce specialization and expertise. If you’ve got a bloated organizational structure and many redundant roles, your RPE won’t budget without some restructuring. Similarly, your low revenue won’t miraculously climb if your business faces several skills mismatches. 

Start a conversation with your Human Resources team. Do they have enough data for informed workforce planning? HR software like Lattice and 15Five can better track headcount growth, employee performance, and engagement metrics. 

Skills assessment tools like Toggl Hire, in turn, can give you hard data on your people’s competencies, allowing you to plan training activities and screen new candidates for specific skills. Revenue platforms like Clari and Salesforce can measure revenue contribution per client-facing representative and continuously track sales team efficiency. 

The bottom line: For your operating model to attain peak profitability like Apple’s and Mastercard’s, you must constantly measure, tweak, and look for new ways to excel at what you do. 

Generate higher returns with Toggl Track

Toggl Track reveals exactly how your company generates revenue and where opportunities are lost to operating inefficiencies. Here’s how you can use our platform to up your RPE game: 

• Use a pre-made report view to run a profit loss analysis for any given period to evaluate your business health. 

• Track employee profitability at both project and individual levels by analyzing their billable hours and progress toward OKRs. 

• Avoid poor resource allocation choices with predictive project duration and budget insights. 

• Identify workflow inefficiencies, non-productive tasks, and bad time management habits, stalling your people from reaching peak productivity. 

• Benchmark team performance to evaluate the impacts of business process optimization and adoption of automation tools. 

Don’t leave RPE up to chance — start using Toggl Track to unlock your people’s full potential and reach your optimal operating state. 🚀

Book a free Toggl Track demo and explore how to drive higher business performance and profitability. 

How do you hire great employees in a dry talent pool and competitive hiring market? Add limited budget and it starts to feel like Mission Impossible. While we can’t send Tom Cruise to the rescue, there is a secret weapon you can use: equity compensation.

By offering future ownership in your company, not just a paycheck, you can attract ambitious, growth-minded employees who are invested in your organization’s success.

This guide breaks down how equity compensation works, why it’s so effective for hiring and retention, and how to implement it in a way that works for your business.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Equity compensation is a non-cash payment method that companies use to give employees a share of the business.
• Immediate ownership and earned equity over time are the two main methodologies, but most businesses choose the second option.
• There are four main types of equity compensation: stock options, restricted stock units, employee stock purchase plans, and performance shares.
• Equity compensation typically makes sense for startups with limited cash, fast-growing companies, or businesses preparing for an IPO or acquisition, especially in competitive markets where cash bonuses aren’t feasible.

What is equity compensation?

Equity compensation is a non-cash payment method companies use to give employees an ownership stake in the business. The most common forms of equity compensation are:

• Stock options
• Restricted stock units (RSUs)
• Employee stock purchase plans
• Performance shares

Equity compensation is most often used in startups and high-growth companies. Instead of splurging on large salaries (often because they can’t), these businesses offer equity to attract great talent while holding on to precious cash flow.

How equity compensation works

Let’s say your startup offers new employees 10,000 stock options at a strike price of $5 per share. These options vest over four years, so they have the right to purchase all 10,000 shares at $5 each after this amount of time.

Scenario 1: The startup grows, and the company goes public

The startup revenue grows, attracts investors, and eventually launches an IPO at $50 per share. The employee chooses to exercise their options:

• The cost: 10,000 shares × $5 = $50,000
• Market value: 10,000 shares × $50 = $500,000
• Profit: ⚡ $450,000 before taxes

Scenario 2: The company is acquired

Instead, the company is acquired, and the valuation is now $100 per share.

• The cost: 10,000 shares × $5 = $50,000
• Acquisition payout: 10,000 shares × $100 = $1,000,000
• Profit: ⚡ $950,000 before taxes

How do you pay equity compensation to employees?

Equity compensation is typically granted over a period of time to encourage long-term commitment in employees. Here are some common structures:

• Time-based vesting: The most common approach, where equity vests incrementally over several years (e.g., four-year vesting with a one-year cliff). This means no shares are earned in the first year, but after that, a percentage vests regularly (e.g., 25% after one year, then monthly or quarterly thereafter).
• Performance-based vesting: Shares vest only if employees meet specific performance goals, such as revenue milestones or product launches.
• Hybrid vesting requirements: A combination of time-based and performance-based criteria.

Alongside these structures, employees must also meet specific conditions to own their equity in full:

• Staying with the company: Employees forfeit their shares if they leave before completing the vesting period.
• Liquidity events: Some equity (especially RSUs in private companies) only becomes valuable after an IPO or acquisition.
• Exercise requirements: Stock options require employees to buy shares at the grant price to own them outright.

Immediate ownership vs. earned equity over time

Equity compensation can be structured in two ways: immediate ownership or earned equity over time. The key difference is whether employees receive full rights to their shares upfront or must stay with the company for a set time period to gain ownership.

Immediate ownership: rare and high-risk for companies

Companies sometimes grant equity immediately, meaning employees own their shares from day one. This is far from common because:

• Employees could leave just after receiving shares, eradicating any retention benefits from this incentive.
• Employees don’t have any built-in incentive to contribute to the company long-term.
• It increases dilution risk without ensuring company growth.

Earned equity over time: the standard approach

Most companies require employees to earn their equity gradually through a vesting schedule so they contribute to the company’s success before fully owning their shares.

In many cases, this is the more common and sensible option, although James Pilkington, Head of Compensation Data Solutions at Aon, notes some pitfalls:

• Some employees coast until their vesting date, contributing the bare minimum before moving on.
• High performers leave early, even forfeiting unvested equity if better opportunities arise or future employers offer buyouts.
• In down markets, when stock prices decline or stagnate, equity loses its perceived value and retention impact.

Types of equity compensation

There are various types of equity compensation plans, so pick one that aligns with your company’s goals and the value you want to provide to your employees.

Stock options

Stock options let employees buy company shares at a fixed price (strike price), regardless of future market value. If the stock price rises, employees can purchase shares at a discount and sell them for a profit.

How stock options work

• Grant: The company offers stock options with a strike price (e.g., $5 per share)
• Vesting: Employees must stay for a set period before they can exercise options
• Exercise: Once vested, employees can buy shares at the strike price
• Sell: If the stock price rises (e.g., $50 per share), employees can sell for a profit

Why companies offer stock options

• Promote long-term retention by tying rewards to tenure
• Appeal to employees who are optimistic about company growth
• Offer high potential upside without upfront cash cost to the company

Restricted stock units (RSUs)

Restricted stock units (RSUs) are a lower-risk form of equity compensation because employees don’t need to buy shares. Instead, they receive them for free once they vest. Unlike stock options, the absence of an upfront investment makes RSUs valuable even if the stock price drops.

How RSUs work

• Grant: The company awards RSUs but holds them until they vest
• Vesting Employees must stay for a set period. Some RSUs vest based on performance milestones like revenue goals.
• Ownership: Once vested, RSUs convert into shares (or cash equivalent)

Why companies offer RSUs

• Encourage long-term commitment and loyalty
• Provide value even if the stock plan drops (no purchase required)
• Popular with executives and senior hires due to lower risk

Employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs)

Employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs) let employees buy company shares at a discount (typically 5-15%) using payroll deductions. This offers a low-barrier way for workers to invest in the company’s future.

How ESPPs work

• Enrollment: Employees sign up during an offering period to participate in the plan
• Contribution: A portion of each paycheck is set aside during the purchase period
• Purchase: At the end of the period, accumulated funds are used to buy company shares at a discount
• Sell: Employees can sell the shares immediately or hold them (often encouraged for income tax benefits)

Why companies offer ESPPs

• Foster a sense of ownership across the organization
• Boost employee morale and engagement
• Offer flexible participation and potential tax advantages (for Section 423-qualified plans)

Performance shares

Performance shares are equity awards tied to achieving specific business goals, such as revenue milestones, market share growth, or stock price performance. Companies often use them to incentivize executives or senior leaders.

How performance shares work

• Grant: The company offers a set number of shares to employees
• Vesting: Shares vest only if pre-defined performance targets are met (e.g., reaching $10M in revenue or a certain share price)
• Payout: Once goals are hit, shares convert into actual stock or cash value

Why companies offer performance shares

• Align executive performance with company success
• Provide clear incentives for achieving strategic goals
• Useful for retention during high-stakes growth periods (e.g., pre-IPO or merger and acquisition)

When does it make sense to offer employee equity compensation?

Any company can offer equity awards, but they’re particularly handy in the following scenarios.

If you’re short on cash but high on vision

Startups (especially bootstrapped ones) struggle with cash flow and can’t match the salaries offered by industry moguls. Offering equity as compensation lets these companies compete for top performers without a significant cash reserve. Potential employees are often willing to accept a lower salary for a larger equity compensation package.

If you’re prioritizing high-impact roles

Companies experiencing explosive growth don’t want to lose their most valuable team members. Equity keeps your specialists and high performers engaged so they stay and see the fruits of their labor.

Instead of jumping ship at the next great opportunity (or waiting for a pay equity audit,) they are willing to stay until the end of the vesting period to cash out.

If you’re preparing for an IPO or acquisition

If you’re planning a liquidity event, such as an acquisition or IPO, equity can help you retain your employees before the big event, when they can see their incentive stock options turn into cash payouts.

If you’re weighing alternatives to cash bonuses

Giving out cash bonuses is common when you want to create an attractive compensation package. But it’s not always sustainable. If you’re trying to conserve operating capital, equity is a nice alternative to a bonus.

How to use equity compensation to attract great talent

Offering equity as compensation makes you more attractive to job candidates, especially in competitive industries. If you run a small business, equity can be the bait that lures in the best of the best by saying, “We’re building something big, and you’re invited.”

Here’s how to make that message count during your hiring process.

Lead with equity in your job marketing

Equity should never be a footnote. Highlight it in your job descriptions, talk about it early on in your interview stages, and explain it clearly on your careers page. Candidates won’t know it’s available unless you first tell them, and then show them why it matters.

Create a simple equity calculator

Equity can feel a bit abstract, especially for candidates who haven’t had it before. Placing an equity calculator on your job pages shows how much their shares could be worth. It turns “maybe someday” into “oh wow, that’s exciting.”

Emphasize impact and ownership

Equity makes a clear connection between effort and outcomes. Drive this point home by making bold statements like: “Your work will shape the company and your future earnings.” This promise resonates particularly well with engineers, product teams, and entrepreneurial hires who want to see how their individual impact could play out.

Share real-life stories

Personal experience is a great trust builder. If you or someone on your team chose to work here because of equity, share that message with potential candidates.

In my case, I was recently on the hunt for a full-time job and interviewed with multiple companies. When I received two offers from startups with similar salaries and benefits, I opted for the one with an equity package and a four-year vesting period. The company I turned down only offered a salary.

It was a guarantee that I would stay with them in the long run, and, provided I do great work, everyone in the company wins. And I’m happy to share this story with prospective applicants, too.

Equity compensation can boost employee engagement, too

Equity compensation helps employees perceive your company as more than just a job. It’s a long-term investment in their own future, too. With equity as an incentive, you can see some of the following:

• Increased employee productivity
• Long-term goal focus
• Lower employee turnover
• Improved collaboration
• Higher accountability between the employer and employee, and vice versa

If you’re struggling with finding ways to motivate your employees, this can be a superb long-term productivity boost.

5 best practices for offering equity to your employees

To create an equity compensation plan for your business, you need to balance employee incentives, financial sustainability, and long-term growth.

1. Provide clear, transparent documentation

Employees should fully understand what is included in their equity package. Create an equity guidebook that includes information about:

• Vesting schedules: Outline when and how equity vests
• Stock type details: Explain whether the grant includes stock options, RSUs, or ESPP participation and how each works
• Tax implications: Clarify tax consequences and liabilities (e.g., ISO vs. NSO (non-qualified stock options) taxation, RSU taxation upon vesting)
• Liquidity expectations: Indicate whether employees can sell shares immediately or must wait for an IPO or acquisition
• Exit scenarios: Define what happens to unvested or vested equity if an employee leaves the company
• General financial planning advice: Include information on how long-term capital gains work

✅ How to do this: Don’t be tempted to use AI as a generative content shortcut. Speaking on the JP Workplace Solutions podcast, Executive AI Research Director at JP Morgan Chase & Co, Charese Smiley explains, “When we interact with a large language model….we become subject to how they maintain their data.”

2. Balance short-term perks with long-term equity benefits

Equity alone may not appeal to all candidates, especially those attracted to immediate compensation. A balanced offer can attract diverse talent:

• For risk-tolerant employees (e.g., early-stage startup hires): Offer lower ordinary income but higher equity with strong upside potential.
• For experienced professionals (e.g., senior hires): Combine a competitive salary with RSUs or performance-based shares.
• For broader employee participation: Include an ESPP (employee stock purchase plan) to let employees buy shares at a discount.

✅ How to do this: Offer flexible compensation packages, allowing employees to choose between higher salary vs. higher equity based on their preferences.

3. Set realistic and strategic equity pools

Your equity pool should cover your long-term hiring roadmap without over-diluting the cap table.

✅ How to do this: Most startups reserve 10-20% of shares for employees and adjust that pool as they grow. Keep your cap table up to date and build in room for refresh grants.

4. Define vesting structures that reflect modern retention

The old-school four-year cliff doesn’t work for everyone anymore. Younger employees may expect faster liquidity or leave before long-term vesting kicks in.

✅ How to do this: Test alternatives like no cliff or shorter vesting. As Robyn Shutak, Equity Compensation Expert at Infinite Equity, explains:

“Some companies have omitted the cliff on their four-year vesting. They’re essentially saying, ‘Hey, if it’s not working out for you, you can leave sooner.’ It’s that kind of philosophy where you start the company as a new hire and then all of a sudden you’re like, ‘This isn’t the right place for me, but I want to wait around a year for my award to vest after year one.’”

Ran Chen, an AI Applications Professional for Tubi, agrees that long-term vesting schedules are a problem for younger employees:

“Job hopping is common, sometimes by design, to increase pay quickly. If an average young employee expects to stay only 1–3 years at a company, a traditional four-year vesting equity grant may not fully resonate. They might discount the value of unvested stock beyond a couple of years.”

5. Educate employees on equity value from day one

Most employees don’t fully understand equity, and that’s a missed engagement opportunity. Make education a part of onboarding and reinforce it regularly with tools and training.

✅ How to do this: Use equity calculators, host Q&As, and bring in financial experts. According to Morgan Stanley, in companies where employees are highly or moderately engaged with their equity, 48% communicate about it weekly or monthly. In contrast, 70% of companies with low or no engagement only communicate annually or on an ad hoc basis.

Build a holistic talent attraction and retention strategy with Toggl Hire

Equity compensation can be incredibly powerful as a talent acquisition tool, but only when combined with other elements of a solid, integrated talent strategy.

Toggl Hire offers skills-based screening, customizable job application pages, and transparent hiring workflows so you can connect with candidates who do what they claim, are aligned with your company vision, and value long-term success rather than short-term wins.

Create a free Toggl Hire account today to find candidates who speak your language and want to stick around for the long run.

A new quarter, a new round of updates — and this one’s big. Let’s dive into what’s new (and coming soon!) in Toggl Track from Q1 2025.

New Reports Experience Launching in Beta!

We’re rolling out a new and simpler Reports experience for our beta users — designed to give you more power and flexibility to understand your workload, track profitability, and uncover productivity trends with ease.

Want to try it out? Enable beta features in your Profile settings.

Here is what to expect:

• New experience: Reports, Analytics, and Insights are now organized into five clear tabs — Summary, Detailed, Workload, Profitability, and My Reports.
• “Weekly” becomes “Workload” reports: You will be able to analyze your workload data with custom date ranges, going beyond weekly timesheets.
• “Insights” now lives under the “Profitability” tab, offering a more powerful and multi-level profitability analysis. Break down profitability by member, project, client, and more properties.
• “Analytics” moves to “My Reports”: access past custom reports, create new ones, and manage all saved reports in one place.
• Powerful new filters: analyze data right in Toggl Track, without time-consuming exports. Use 11+ properties, 8 condition options, and AND/OR logic for deeper insights.
• More flexibility in grouping and stacking: Break down your data by even more properties to get the exact view you need.

Want all the details? Check out the full breakdown here or walk through it step by step here! ⬇️

More Flexibility Over Who Can See Sensitive Data

Teams are complex — and so is managing who gets access to what. That’s why we’ve introduced new ways to control visibility for billable rates, labor costs, and private project data.

User-specific access to billable rates and labor costs

Control visibility on a per-user basis. Head to Organization Settings → Members, click Access Rights, and customize visibility for billable rates and labor costs. More here.

Reminder: Public vs Private projects

Public projects are visible to everyone in the workspace. Private projects keep the data limited to assigned project members only.

Here are two new updates to help you give the right people the right level of access.

Restrict public project data to admins only

Keep public project time entries private by limiting visibility to admins only. Go to your Workspace settings and tick the option to enable it. Learn more about project privacy settings here.

Assign Project Managers in bulk

Want to give teammates access only to the projects and people they manage — without granting top-level access rights?

Now, you can easily assign Project Managers to multiple Private projects — all in just a few clicks.

Project Managers can:

• View time tracked under their projects
• Edit project details
• Manage team members within their projects

You can now assign Project Managers to your Private projects in bulk. Here’s how:

Projects → Select Private Projects → Click Edit → Select Members → Assign Roles From The Dropdown.

It’s the quickest way to give the right people the right access — while keeping everything else private.

👉 Learn more about Project Manager access rights.

We’re ISO 27001 certified!

We’re proud to share that Toggl is now ISO 27001 certified 🎉

With GDPR and CCPA compliance already in place, this certification means your data is protected by globally recognized security standards — and we’re continuously monitoring and improving our practices.

Work in a regulated industry? Need to meet strict vendor requirements?

👉 Download our ISO certificate or learn more here

New Dark Mode is Here

We’ve introduced Dark Mode, a sleek new look that’s easier on the eyes (and perhaps just a little cooler too). You can now choose from three themes to match your style. Check them all out in your Profile settings.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

For extra peace of mind, you can now secure your personal Toggl Track account with two-factor authentication.

It’s easy to set up — and gives your account an added layer of protection. Just head to your Profile settings to enable it.

Referral Program: Give $5, Get $5

Love Toggl Track? Now you can share it — and get rewarded.

Invite your friends to try Toggl Track. If they upgrade to a paid plan, you both get $5/€5 in credit, automatically applied to the Toggl Track organization you own.

It’s a win-win: they get a smarter way to track time, and you get rewarded for spreading the word.

👉 Here’s how it works.

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That’s a wrap on Q1! Stay tuned for even more updates coming your way — and don’t forget to:

Ever wondered what your employees are up to but don’t want to intrude and become a micromanager? Hmmm, you could buy a crystal ball if you’re into that sort of thing. If not? You’d be better off using time management reporting.

This is the practice of tracking and presenting time spent at work, which helps managers spot inefficiencies, distribute workloads evenly, set realistic goals, improve transparency, and much more.

Great time management reporting can benefit any business, from improved team performance and resource allocation to increased revenue. Here’s everything you need to know.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Time tracking reports focus (or they should, at least) on team efficiency rather than individual productivity. They typically include milestones, deadlines, deliverables, and other project or client data.
• Time management reporting helps you increase revenue, improve productivity, comply with the law, make better estimates, allocate resources more efficiently, and build trust with your clients.
• You can use Toggl Track to build fully custom, detailed time management reports with a wealth of data points, from the level of your entire business down to individual tasks.
• Once you have time tracking data, you can use it to remove operational bottlenecks, improve team performance, showcase value to your clients, and improve team communication.

What’s included in a time tracking report?

Time tracking reports are powerful tools for gaining insight into how people execute their work. Individuals may use them to enhance personal productivity, but teams and businesses need a broader perspective focusing on overall project efficiency rather than just personal output.

A detailed team time tracking report will include:

• Project milestones and deadlines to track progress and identify risks early
• Task completion times to understand how individual tasks influence specific workflows
• Billable vs. non-billable hours to ensure accurate client billing and maximize profitability
• Resource allocation data to see how work is distributed across a team
• Budget tracking to compare estimated vs. actual time spent to stay within financial constraints

Why time tracking reporting is so important

There are countless benefits to time tracking, depending on the use case and industry. For example:

• A hospitality company easily increased its revenue by 10% just by tracking employee time
• A digital consultancy achieved a 97% revenue forecast accuracy
• A PR firm increased its profitability by 20%
• A small communications agency increased in team size by 60% thanks to a better way to allocate resources

But what about your company? Here’s what you can expect when you commit to accurate time tracking reporting. 👇

Avoid lost revenue

We’ve all used the expression “time is money,” but it’s spot on when you bill clients by the hour rather than per deliverable. Accurate time tracking makes for a clear-cut difference between billable and non-billable hours and helps you provide value for clients without punishing yourself with extra work.

For example, you can spot how many work hours go into specific activities or clients and how this affects invoicing. You may learn that you invest more time in Client A, who pays you $500 per completed project, than in Client B, who pays $2,000 for similar work.

Access to time logs and timesheets gives you a breakdown of clients, projects, team members, and how they spend their time. This lets you spot inefficiencies easily, whether you need to reallocate team members to high-priority tasks or have a conversation with a needy client taking up more hours than stated in their retainer.

Improve employee productivity

Some employees see time tracking as an invasion of their privacy, and if you’re using surveillance software that takes screenshots, records your screen, or measures your keystrokes, then they have a point.

The good news? Other tools like Toggl Track exist to support team productivity rather than point fingers using any creepy tactics. Once you explain to your team that time tracking tools are there to benefit everyone, you can streamline your operations, save time, automate tasks, and so much more.

For example, you can identify areas where employees struggle and lose time. Detailed time data makes it easier to spot low-value, low-priority tasks that clog up project management workflows and drain time and money.

Legal compliance

Time tracking isn’t just nice to have. For some companies, tracking time is a legal necessity. These are just some of the laws that touch upon time tracking:

• Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in the US: Requires employers to track employee work hours to ensure compliance with minimum wage and overtime pay laws.
• European Working Time Directive (WTD) in the EU: Limits the maximum workweek to 48 hours and mandates rest, breaks, and paid leave.
• California Labor Laws in the US: Requires strict tracking of meal and rest breaks.
• UK Working Time Regulations (WTR): Limits the maximum workweek to 48 hours unless employees opt out. Also mandates rest breaks and paid annual leave.

Keeping accurate time records is a small price to pay for the prevention of potentially big lawsuits.

Cost estimation for better budgeting

Tracking your time now helps you in the months and years to come. Once you’ve tracked time for a while, you’ll build up a picture of how long it takes to complete specific projects and hit important milestones.

With the right tool, you can analyze profitability, revenue, and labor costs — breaking them down by Members, User Groups, Projects, Clients, Tasks, or Tags for a more detailed view.

The result? You become better at pricing, forecasting, project planning, and improving your profitability. With good time tracking reports, you gain insights into projects, tasks, and people, which gives you invaluable data for future projects.

Resource allocation

Time tracking and management show you exactly what your team is up to in real-time. For example, one department could be drowning in work while another is at 20% capacity.

Tracking time also means tracking project progress so you can allocate budget and resources accordingly. You don’t have to wait until you miss a critical deadline to determine that something is halting you in your tracks.

Build trust through transparency

Time management software is a bridge of trust between you, your clients, and your employees.

With detailed timesheets, client billing is easier because they see what they’re being charged for, with an itemized list of tasks and deliverables. For employees, timesheets and time logs show the exact amount of time someone has worked on a task or project.

With tools such as Toggl Track, the task and project time tracking data is available to everyone, so employees can enjoy transparency without fear of micromanaging or surveillance (which we’re very against, by the way, and you should be, too).

How to create detailed time management reports with Toggl Track

Accurate time management starts with consistent, accurate tracking. Follow these six steps to learn how to create detailed reports in Toggl Track:

1. Track time accurately

To track time effectively, start by adding a timer for each task or project you’re working on. Toggl Track makes this process simple with our easy-to-use start/stop timer, so you can record time accurately in real time. If you forget to start the timer, you can manually add time entries.

2. Create clear project and task categories

To make your time data actionable, organize your time entries by project and task categories.

Create projects for major initiatives and break them down into tasks. For example, if you’re working on a marketing campaign, you might have projects like “Content Creation” or “Social Media Management” with tasks such as “Write Blog Post” or “Schedule Posts.”

3. Generate custom reports

Once you’ve tracked your time consistently, it’s time to generate custom reports that provide meaningful insights. Toggl Track allows you to filter and customize reports by team member, project, client, and more.

To do this, go to the Reports section, select the date range, and use the filter options to break down time by the category that matters most to your business.

• Time breakdown by team member: Understand who’s spending time on what by filtering by user.
• Time breakdown by project: See how much time is allocated to each project, helping you manage budgets and deadlines.
• Time breakdown by client: Track billable hours for each client you work with.

4. Review report regularly

Regularly reviewing your time management reports is crucial for identifying areas where you can improve efficiency. Set a recurring reminder to review your reports weekly or monthly to catch any issues early, such as any time you spend on low-priority tasks or team members needing support.

5. Use visual summaries

Visual reports like pie charts and bar graphs make it easier to understand time allocations at a glance.

Toggl Track offers these visual summaries, which can highlight time spent by project, task, or team member. This makes it easier to spot trends and adjust to optimize time usage.

6. Customize your reports

Customization is one of the standout features of Toggl Track, enabling you to tailor your time management reports to suit the specific needs of your business. Whether you need to track billable hours, project progress, or time spent on specific tasks, Toggl Track allows you to adjust settings and filters to generate the most relevant reports.

Toggl Track’s Enterprise plan offers personalized onboarding and training for businesses with more complex needs. You’ll receive customized solutions built by Toggl’s engineers to meet your team’s unique requirements, ensuring your reporting is as efficient and relevant as possible.

What to do with time tracker data once you have it

Once you have the time entries and associated data in one place, put the intel to good use and break it down into key focus areas. Here’s how to use that data to improve efficiency, win back your team’s time, and set an accurate project budget.

Identify and resolve bottlenecks

Look at your reports to find specific tasks, projects, or people holding you back. For example, you can combine your task management and time tracking apps (e.g. Asana) to determine which clients take up most of your team’s working time. Compare that with revenue to see if the client is getting more value than they’re paying for.

You can also look at timesheets to determine how much work each team member completes across clients in a day, week, or month and cross-reference with their time off. Without doing complex calculations or digging into Excel sheets, you’ll find your top performers.

Another way of looking at it is comparing how much time specific tasks take up in your overall workflows. For example, if the wireframing part of the design process takes up 40% of the workload, the work should be delegated, outsourced, or completed by extra staff.

Supercharge your team performance

One key feature of good time tracking software like Toggl Track is the ability to examine individual and group performance. The end goal is not to micromanage or conduct surveillance. Instead, you want to find out who is overworked and who could help them out.

For example, you can use Toggl Track to find out:

• Who works the most, and when
• Your most time-consuming tasks
• The ratio of billable to non-billable hours
• Time spent on tasks vs. budget for specific clients
• Estimated vs. actual task time

Having a strong reporting functionality in your time management app lets you help your team and optimize their workload instead of monitoring them.

Communicate with your team

A time tracking tool should never be used as part of a blame game. Instead, encourage your team members to use data as a tool for collaboration. For example, if you spot that someone is struggling, give them an extra set of hands or postpone their deadlines to support them.

This is the only way to get long-term buy-in from your team members. The data should reinforce trust and transparency and not pit your team members against one another.

Show your clients value

Imagine you run a marketing agency and create assets for a client in the insurance industry. You create a landing page for them, and through some analytics work, you show the client that the page (copy, design, and research) took 10 hours to create and now nets the client $5,000 per month. If they paid $5,000 for the work, this means that after the first month, they’re making a clean profit and a fantastic return on investment.

Time management reporting can prove the value of your work to your clients so they can connect the work with the value they get. They can justify their investment (not costs), and you can, in turn, build long-lasting partnerships.

Boost team performance and profitability

Time management reporting benefits everyone in and outside of your business. You’ll see improved performance, employee satisfaction, and profitability.

Remember that better time management is about creating smarter ways to work, improving team dynamics, enhancing client relationships, and ultimately, growing your revenue.

If that sounds like something your business could benefit from, book a demo with Toggl Track to see how we can transform your business with smart time management reporting.

Making the wrong hiring decision can cost thousands of dollars. Do it wrong, and you’ll lose more than money and time, though. You’ll have to start the hiring process all over again, hoping that someone amazing comes along.

But there is a better way — investing in the right methods for screening candidates.

We’re going to walk you through not one but eleven different ways to screen candidates, from a cover letter to a skills assessment and all the way to paid job trials — each of them with its pros and cons.

Let’s find out the top ways to get the best possible job candidates in the market.

Introduction to 11 popular methods for screening candidates

Method	Screening Objective	Pros	Cons
CV Screening	Evaluate candidates‘ experience, qualifications, and career progression.	– Quick overview of candidates’ history. – Easy to compare between candidates.	– Can be biased (e.g., due to names). – Doesn’t assess soft skills or fit.
Cover Letters	Gauge motivation, communication skills, and cultural fit.	– Can reveal a candidate’s passion/motivation. – Shows writing skills.	– Time-consuming to read. – Can be generic or deceptive.
Phone Screening	Preliminary assessment of skills, fit, and motivation.	– Efficient. – Immediate feedback.	– Limited depth. – Doesn’t assess non-verbal cues.
Skills Assessments	Test specific abilities relevant to the job.	– Objective measure of skills. – Can tailor to specific job needs.	– Can be stressful for candidates. – May not reflect real-world scenarios.
Video Interviews	Evaluate interpersonal skills, fit, and deeper insights into CV details.	– More personal than phone. – Saves time/travel costs.	– Technical issues. – Can be impersonal compared to in-person.
ATS Screening	Automated initial scan for relevant keywords and qualifications in CVs.	– Efficient for large volumes. – Reduces manual work.	– Can overlook qualified candidates. – Impersonal.
Reference & Background Checks	Confirm accuracy of CV, gauge reputation, and assess past behaviors/performance.	Confirm accuracy of CV, gauge reputation, and assess past behaviors/performance.	– Can be time-consuming. – Limited by honesty of references.
Social Media Screening	Gauge cultural fit, personal interests, and potential red flags.	– Provides informal insights. – Reveals potential cultural fit.	– Privacy concerns. – Can be misleading or out of context.
Take-home Assignments	Assess practical skills and problem-solving in a more relaxed setting.	– Reflects real-world tasks. – Allows for creativity.	– Time-consuming for candidates. – Risks of plagiarism.
– Real-world assessment. – Fair compensation for the candidate’s time.	Engage candidates while testing skills in a simulated environment.	– Engaging & interactive. – Can test a variety of skills.	– Can be seen as gimmicky. – Might not be suitable for all roles.
Paid Trial Projects	Evaluate a candidate’s skills and fit in real-time, on-the-job scenarios.	– Real-world assessment. – Fair compensation for candidate’s time.	– Requires investment. – May raise expectations for permanent positions.

What is candidate screening?

Candidate screening is the process of evaluating job applicants and reviewing their information about skills and qualifications, for the purpose of finding candidates that meet your job requirements.

There are numerous ways to screen candidates, depending on your goals and available time and resources. We’re going to show you 11 that will make your hiring decisions easier and help you hire great talent.

What should you look for when screening candidates?

The candidate screening process should give you enough information to make a good hiring decision. Given that screening is often the first step in the hiring process, you should be able to quickly go through a pile of different data points in a short time frame.

These are the items you should watch out for:

1. Relevant experience. Prior experience in a given role, niche, and industry. The candidate should have a certain number of years in the right background, doing a similar type of work to the role you are looking to fill.
2. The required skills. Besides the experience, job candidates should have the hard and soft skills needed to do a job well.
3. Educational background. The job candidates should have a certain level of education or different types of certificates that give them a solid foundation for their work.
4. Cultural fit. The best job candidates not only know how to do the job and have the right experience but also fit into your team in terms of core values and culture.
5. Career progression. How have the job applicants progressed through their careers so far? Do they have the potential to progress if you hire them?
6. Achievements and results. What kind of results have they achieved in their previous roles, and do they have any proof to show for it?
7. Job tenure. How long have the candidates stayed in each of their previous roles? Some hiring managers prefer not to hire job hoppers.
8. Fit with the job requirements. Does the candidate tick all the boxes in the job description, and can you objectively predict that they will perform well in the role you’re hiring for?
9. References and recommendations. Do they have references from previous roles that could vouch for them and their good performance?
10. Gaps in employment. Are there any periods where the candidates did not work, and what were the reasons for it?
11. Personal presentation. How does the candidate present themselves during the screening process? This entails their resume, phone screening, video interviews, writing skills, and more.
12. Location and relocation. Where is the candidate located? Are they willing to relocate for the right offer and if it is a requirement?
13. Salary expectations. Does the candidate’s ideal salary match what you can offer for the position?
14. Eligibility and legal criteria. Can the candidate legally work in your country or area of residence? Do they need special permits or visas, or are there any other obstacles to their employment?
15. Communication skills. How does the candidate articulate their thoughts in writing, on video, and in person?

This might sound like a lot of things to watch out for during the candidate screening process, but these are the foundations of making a great hire based on solid proof.

What is pre-screening or initial screening of applicants?

Pre-screening is what happens before the actual screening process. Before you sit down to have a conversation with the job applicants, you need to verify if they have what it takes to do the job well and if they tick all the boxes.

Pre-screening is usually automated, as opposed to the process of screening candidates, which can (but does not have to) be manual in nature.

Why is candidate screening important?

The candidate screening process is crucial for a successful hiring process. When you screen candidates, you ensure that the information they provided is accurate and that they meet all of your screening criteria. But let’s get into more specific details.

Efficient hiring process. The average job ad gets around 118 job applicants. If you hire remotely, multiply that number by at least 3. Candidate screening helps you go from 118 to a handful of the very best candidates in a short time, so you can make better use of your time.

Quality assurance. Hiring mistakes are very costly, and a proper screening process ensures that only the very best job applicants make it through to the final rounds.

Cultural fit. You can screen job candidates for cultural fit, too, and find out if they align with your core values, mission, and vision.

Cost savings. The total cost of hiring a new employee can go up to $16,000. If you make a mistake in your hiring process, that’s a lot of money down the drain. Proper candidate screening helps save money.

Shorter time to hire. When you screen candidates at the beginning of the hiring process, you can fill positions more quickly as you can find out if they meet the requirements early on.

Legal compliance. Discriminating against certain parts of the population is not just immoral but also illegal and could lead you to hire bad candidates just because of an unconscious bias. Screening applicants ensures that you have a fair and unbiased hiring process.

Better employee retention. When you hire the right candidates, they stick around for longer. Good candidate screening ensures that your employees are there for the long haul.

Protection against fraud. Make sure that job applicants are who they say they are by comparing their resumes and real-world skills.

Improved onboarding. As you screen job candidates, you’ll get more familiar with their strengths and weaknesses, and you can prepare a better, more personalized onboarding strategy.

Improved employer branding. You can become known as a company that respects its job applicants and ensures that the hiring process is quick, respectful, and effortless for everyone involved.

#1 – CV or Resume screening

CV screening or resume screening is the process of going through candidate resumes and making sure that their qualifications and skills match your job requirements. You typically have to do this manually by reading the resumes one by one.

That’s rather time-consuming, which is why many businesses automate it. Instead of hiring managers, apps like ATS can “read” your candidates’ resumes to pick up on keywords.

Recruiters like this traditional method because it has been around for a while, and they’re familiar with it. However, it is time-consuming and inefficient, and in many cases, candidates tend to fabricate their experiences and skills.

In fact, screening a resume can be compared to judging a book by its cover. A recent survey found that at least 78% of applicants lie on job applications and resumes. It’s virtually impossible to gauge a candidate’s technical fit based on their CV alone.

Likewise, candidates aren’t typically fans of resumes. They take a long time to prepare, and they need to be personalized for each job opening. Also, they don’t accurately reflect the actual skills the applicant has.

#2 – Cover letters

Cover letters are (outdated) written documents where candidates have to explain their motivation for applying, as well as why they’re a good fit for the role. Most businesses require them along with a resume — a double whammy for applicants who need to spend hours preparing both.

Recruiters like cover letters because they give candidates space to talk about themselves and their motivations. In combination with resumes, they can tell you a lot about a candidate and whether they meet your screening criteria.

However, cover letters aren’t a favorite for hiring managers because they only show the candidates’ writing skills. And must we even mention how candidates feel about cover letters? In 2024, don’t expect any candidate to get excited about having to write yet another cover letter.

In recent years, many businesses have stepped away from using cover letters to screen candidates. The reason is simple — the cons outweigh the pros for everyone involved.

#3 – Phone screening

With this method of screening candidates, you call them on their phone to verify their information and ask further questions about their skills and qualifications. It’s easy for both the applicants and the hiring managers, and with the right script, it can be pretty effective.

Hiring managers are in favor of phone screening as it’s a quick way to screen job applicants before inviting them to show up on video or in person. At the same time, they are not ideal because you miss out on many cues, such as non-verbal communication and body language.

Candidates are okay with this method, too — provided the calls are scheduled and short. However, phone calls don’t allow them to fully show their skills.

#4 – Skills assessments

Skills tests are short tests that have questions or tasks that the candidates need to solve to show they have the right skills for the job. Modern skills tests such as Toggl Hire allow for a super quick way of screening applicants, as they can be done in less than 15 minutes. After this, both sides find out if they’re a great fit for each other.

From the hiring side, skills tests are a great way to screen job applicants. They are much faster than reviewing resumes, and the hiring manager can see if candidates have the job-specific skills to do the actual job. On the downside, some candidates can cheat on these skills tests.

As for the applicants, they are fans, according to the feedback we get at Toggl Hire. It’s one of the most efficient screening methods for them, as they can do the skills tests in 15 minutes and immediately get feedback about their results.

#5 – Video interviews

Video calls are a superb replacement for in-person interviews, as they allow more flexibility and are ideal for remote roles.

Hiring managers think that video interviews are convenient as they facilitate the hiring process, as they can talk to multiple candidates in a short time frame. However, they’re best when used in combination with other screening methods. After all, some candidates are just great at interviewing but not other things (like the important on-the-job things they need to be good at).

Candidates think that video interviews are a great way to show off their communication skills and present themselves in the best light possible. However, they may not give them opportunities to show their real-world skills in the interview process.

BONUS – Asynchronous video interviews

Take the power of video interview and x10 it — that’s what you get with a One-Way Video Interview. The ultimate way to screen job applicants early on in the process is to invite them to take part in a pre-recorded video Q&A on their skills, experiences, and knowledge.

What’s the point? Async video interviews serve as an additional screening method early in the recruitment process. Both recruiter and applicant commit a minimum amount of time and effort to confirm technical and cultural fit before engaging in a deeper conversation.

For instance, Video intros (our built-in video interviewing feature) bring significant benefits to the screening process:

• They’re quick, lasting no longer than 10 minutes (typically 2-3 questions)
• An expert-created pool of interview questions offers the ultimate convenience
• You screen candidates’ critical skills at scale by interviewing multiple applicants at once
• Candidates love the friendly user interface and unlimited re-records
• It’s quick and easy to give meaningful candidate feedback through Toggl Hire

Upgrading your candidate screening process with asynchronous interviews could help your team spend less time in poor later-stage interviews and keep hiring managers happy.

#6 – ATS screening

ATS or applicant tracking systems are apps similar to CRMs that store all the information about candidates during the hiring process. They take resumes and other associated info and run them through algorithms to find the best applicants quickly. For example, they can analyze work experiences (years, positions, etc.) or identify keywords the candidates used in their qualifications and skills.

Most hiring experts are in favor of applicant tracking systems as they are quick and easy to use, especially compared to reviewing resumes manually. However, they may cause you to lose valuable candidates just because they did not use the right keywords or the right resume format.

This is the same reason why the typical applicant is not in favor of an applicant tracking system. While they do speed up the candidate selection process, they also pose a risk. Many suitable candidates get disqualified because of technicalities.

#7 – Reference and background checks

In this part of the screening process, the hiring team calls up previous employers and asks them about a specific employee and their performance. The aim is to find out if the information they provided is accurate and, even more so, to learn more about their soft skills. A background check is similar but may include checking for criminal history, drug screening, and more.

For businesses, this is a good way to screen candidates, as previous employers can provide useful information to stop you from making the wrong hire. Reference checking can be completely free, provided that the person in the previous company can talk about an employee who worked there.

On the other hand, background checks can get pretty expensive. Also, in many cases, it’s illegal to do them before you officially make an offer to the candidate.

#8 – Social media screening

You can screen candidates by taking a look at their social media profiles and finding relevant information. Most of the time, you’re looking for a strong online presence, especially if you’re hiring for marketing roles. However, you can also look for inappropriate behavior and reasons why (not) to hire someone.

For hiring managers, this method of screening potential candidates can be effective — for the right roles. However, there are dangers involved as it might not be fully legal, depending on where you are located.

Many candidates are also not in favor of using social media as a way to do screening, as they see it as an invasion of privacy.

#9 – Take-home assignments

The shortlisted candidates can get an assignment they can do at home and in their free time. Once you’re past the interview stage, you can give your best candidates a small test task to do and determine if they have the skills and not just a good resume.

Most hiring managers will state that take-home tasks are one of the best methods to screen potential employees as they can determine how they do the job and how well they stick to deadlines.

For candidates, this is a recruiting method that allows them to see what real-world situations would be like in a specific role. It is more time-intensive compared to interviews, but then again, it is reserved for only the best talent from your entire applicant pool.

#10 – Gamified job simulations

You can give the candidates a feeling like they’re working alongside you from the comfort of their own homes. Present them with a scenario and give them a practical problem to solve as a part of their recruiting process.

For example, you can give potential developers a small coding task to figure out what went wrong with a few lines of code or to create new code from scratch. Of course, the task should be relevant to your specific job role and company.

This can be a great addition to other screening tools for hiring managers. It takes a bit more time to set up and monitor, but it can provide valuable insights while boosting the candidate experience.

For candidates, this is a fun way to do work and learn more about the company simultaneously. However, it requires a bigger time investment than a skills assessment or face-to-face interviews.

#11 – Paid trial projects

When you’ve rounded up the very best candidates, you can give one or more of them a chance to work on a paid trial project.

This can be a project where they work within your team, like we do here at Toggl. The best candidates work alongside us for a few days so we can see if we’re a good fit, both in terms of skills and culture.

It can also be a paid test project where the candidate can complete a task or project for a certain fee. The most important thing for this screening technique is for the task to be meaningful and resemble what they would do if hired.

Companies love this approach because it allows them to screen candidates and see how they perform in real time. However, it can also be a pretty complex and expensive way to learn more about a candidate’s capabilities.

On the flip side, candidates are generally in favor of this method. However, if they need to do a paid trial project alongside your team while they already work at another job, it can make scheduling difficult.

What are the best candidate screening methods?

For some, screening interviews work well; for others, screening resumes may be the key to an amazing selection process.

Regardless of which screening method you choose, it’s best to combine multiple methods for maximum effect. This way, you can offer an amazing candidate experience and be sure that you’re making the best possible choice of a job applicant.

Not sure where to get started? How about a skills test?

With Toggl Hire, you can browse a huge library of soft and hard skills tests to find the right one for your next role. Hire based on solid evidence, not your gut feeling. Browse our assessment templates and get started today!