Building a Habit for Daily Time Tracking

This team challenge addresses a critical issue in business services organizations: inconsistent time sheet submissions by services resources. Time tracking plays a vital role in accurate billing, resource allocation, and operational efficiency. However, consulting staff often deprioritize it, viewing it as tedious or irrelevant. This challenge focuses on building a habit of accurate time tracking by simplifying the process, enhancing clarity, and tying engagement to meaningful rewards and outcomes.

How it helps

This challenge reframes time tracking as a manageable, valuable habit by addressing these pain points. By integrating user-friendly tools like Produce8 and establishing clear processes documented in knowledge management systems, technicians gain a transparent understanding of expectations. Gamification and recognition further enhance engagement, shifting the perception of time tracking from a chore to a meaningful contribution.

How it works

Participants commit to filling out their time sheets daily for four weeks, supported by a combination of self-reporting, clear processes, and gamification. The team will use their time tracking system of record alongside Produce8 to reference their daily timeline for accurate entries, and self-report daily habit building to build accountability. Leaders will foster a supportive culture through clear communication and recognition of consistent effort.

This challenge also emphasizes the importance of well-documented processes, ensuring technicians understand how to log their time, when to submit entries, and the impact of their compliance on the organization.

Steps to follow

Ensure Tools Are Ready:

• Confirm that Produce8 is fully set up and that the team has been onboarded properly.

Document and Communicate Expectations:

• Clearly outline the time tracking process in your organization’s documentation or knowledge management system. You can add a link to that documentation in the challenge.
• Include step-by-step guides on how and when technicians should log their time and self-report compliance.
• Make the documentation accessible and emphasize its role in supporting both the team and the organization.

Host a Kickoff Meeting:

• Introduce the challenge in a team meeting, discussing the importance of accurate time tracking and its impact on operational efficiency and billing accuracy.
• Demonstrate how Produce8 simplifies time tracking and supports employees in staying organized.

Communicate Metrics and Incentives:

• Highlight the metrics tracked during the challenge, including self-reported compliance, working hours, daily timelines, and workday sentiment rating.
• Outline rewards such as team shoutouts, small prizes, or leaderboard visibility to motivate participation.
• Address questions or concerns about expectations or tools.

Prepare Leaders and Champions:

• Equip leaders or champions with the knowledge and tools to support the challenge and resolve questions during implementation.

Challenge Launch:

• Begin the challenge by encouraging technicians to log their time daily in the system you normally record it in, using Produce8’s tools to help ensure accuracy.
• Monitor compliance metrics and provide regular updates to participants on their progress.

Ongoing Support:

• Use reminders and notifications to reinforce self-reporting and time sheet completion.
• Share insights on how accurate time tracking is benefiting the team and organization.

Recognition and Evaluation:

• Celebrate weekly milestones with rewards or recognition.
• Share results and progress updates with the team, using metrics from Produce8 to illustrate improvements.

How to use this challenge in Produce8

Get Set Up: For new users, log into Produce8 and connect it with your daily work tools. This setup will help you measure your activities across different applications, offering a detailed perspective on your work habits.

Collect Baseline Data: Again for newcomers to Produce8, allow the app to observe your typical workday activities for a week. This step is vital as it captures your existing work patterns, which will serve as a reference point for any challenges you track in the app.

Create An Instance of the Challenge: Browse this and other challenges in the app at Produce8 Challenges or on the website at Produce8.

• Select this challenge in the app and click ‘Start This Challenge’ and follow the instructions.
• Select Public Challenge and share the link with your team if they are already signed up to the application, or share the sign-up link from your administrative dashboard and the challenge link in an email to your team.
• Or, to create a custom version, click the Create Challenge button and add a title like My Time Sheet Compliance Challenge and a short description.
• Add Challenge Targets: Self Reported Action
• Click ‘Start.’
• In your afternoon report, rate how your workday went and if you followed this habit.

Key Metrics in Produce8

• Daily Self-Reported Action: Tracks the habit of submitting time sheets.
• App Interactions: Counting the daily interactions with the time tracking system of record.
• Working Hours Metric: Provides a reference to compare logged hours with time sheet entries.
• Timeline: Helps participants recall activities for accurate entries.
• Workday Sentiment Rating: Reinforces daily check-ins with Produce8.

Outcome

Solving the time tracking issue is a really tough one for business services organizations, but so crucial to the success of any services business. It does not matter if you use real-time time entries for billing, end of day, or are just trying to use time tracking for non-billable reasons like workforce capacity planning, it's simply one of the most important workflows you rely on and need the team to engage on.

Building a new habit takes time!

The best way to think about how to get good at time tracking is to approach it like any other habit you are trying to create. It can take 30 days or more to build habits and in order to make them work you need daily engagement with them. Use Produce8 to help support those efforts in your team and try to have some fun with it. Everyone wins when you get it right.

Related Research

"Is Tracking Time An Outdated Approach?"