Timesheets are yesterdays technology

Time Sir, as we know it:
For most cultures, time is considered to be a fundamental quantity, i.e. time is not itself defined from other fundamental qualities such as mass or space. Rather time is a special beast, and is itself defined by the units by which it is measured, which for us would typically be seconds, that quantity known by every child as (s)he counts off the rumble of distant thunder, 1 green giant, 2 green giants, 3 green giants etc. I say ‘most’ cultures because of course some view time in quite a different, almost incomprehensible way, such as the native aborigines of Australia who believe time to be two parallel streams of activity. There is the daily objective reality of time, and there is also dreamtime, a spiritual cycle more real than our current perceived reality. As the oldest civilization on earth, this viewpoint must also surely deserve some respect.

However, for most of us, most especially for those who need to measure time in order to assess productivity or to understand work flow within the organization, time is commonly viewed as the non-ending passage of one moment to the next, and it is this relentless progress of time in a continued linear fashion, that shapes our very existence, and its importance cannot be overstated. From a craggy limestone rock, weathered by the years with rain wind and frost to that obscure physical quantity, ‘Planck Time’, considered the smallest quantized value of time there is, with one second equivalent to 1.855×1043 Planck times, we cannot escape, if even if we wished to, this fundamental quantity of our Universe. Simply put we cannot stop time in its tracks, and we must therefore accept that time is an inherent part of our existence, how ever bold or fallible that may be.

And its because time is so elementary, its use as a non-renewable resource determines much of our daily schedule, be that begging in a storefront or wielding the cheque book of a billion dollar corporation, an unavoidable consequence of our ever expanding material universe.

So just how important is the quantity of time in the context of business? Well, as material resources continue to decline at an ever increasing rate, and as our own lives accelerate with the gilded trappings of modern technology, the careful, mindful use of time plays an ever demanding role in our culture, clearly indicating that Best Practice Management of Time becomes paramount for the success or failure of any business enterprise.

First, let us consider the amount of work done in a given time, also called effort or labor productivity. For example if it takes one person 1 hour to dig a well, then the effort to do the job is calculated as 1 person hour. However, if another person joins in right at the start, then our efficiency will be seen to double as it should in theory take half the amount of time to dig a well of the same dimensions. Of course this can only be an approximation, as additional amounts of time may be lost as each man jostles for space as they dig, or perhaps time may be saved as they decide to operate synergistically, perhaps digging in series or in relay. Regardless, the point being made is that each and every business should keep a tight reign on the time used by its staff in the daily running of the business – to measure the productivity of their staff and hence the production of that businesses services or widgets. The analogy would be to imagine you have a fleet of trucks to deliver your products across the country. Do you measure the amount of fuel used in a week or do you not care? If you do care, do you take whatever steps necessary to save fuel, or do you accept this as a tightly coupled consequence of your business? Well, as fuel costs continue to rise, it is a given that at some point you will be made to care, else your business will simply hemorrhage.

At MetriQ we know that we have achieved an excellent measure of success, helping businesses around the world save time and as a direct result money, most especially through the replacement of the humble, but now very dated timesheet.

TimeSheets on the brain:
Timessheets were initially developed so that an employee would be able to account to his/her employer for the amount of time spent doing a particular task or activity. While suitable for the latter part of the industrial revolution, with the coming of age of the digital world, digitizing the ubiquitous timesheet into a software product has done very little to change the way in which this most valuable of metrics has been collected. Not only is the tool outdated, but timesheets are also prone to a number of unspeakably obvious errors, that are enough to make your hair stand on end.

Timesheet Illusions – big and small

1. Time to fill complete a Timesheet: Perhaps the major villain of all the faults of timesheet, is in the actual collection process. That is to say, it takes time to fill in a timesheet. And when you summate the amount of time over a year, coupled with the number of staff and the cost of each staff, it soon becomes apparent that just 10 minutes in a day is enough to cost your business a lot of money. Consider a medium sized organisation of 750 staff. Using highs school maths, we can say that if each member of staff are expected to complete their timesheets every 15 minutes, and if it takes them just 30 seconds per entry, then if the average cost of an employee is just $100 (includes their salary, office space and overheads), that business would loose about $5 million dollars a year. Surprised? So were we! You can calculate how much your own business looses each year by putting in your own numbers into this online cost calculator, to see just how much your business is loosing (http://www.metriq.biz/Company/CostCalc.php).
2. Rounding errors: Timesheets typically have a start and end date/time column or have pre-stamped entries showing 15 minute sessions. Neither of these are a reflection of the time necessary to actually complete the job. In fact, if you come right down to it, it’s not difficult to assert that no single task has ever been completed in ‘exactly’ 15 minutes (see Plancks time above). So if a job or task starts at 10:00:00 am and is finish at 10:26:04, then the timesheet entry will most likely read 10:00:00 to 10:30:00. When consolidated, the time collected will read 30 minutes, leaving the bigger question, so what ever happened to the other 3 minutes 56 seconds? Why isn’t it accounted for. And if this error is added up across the day, it approximates to an hours activity lost forever.
3. Forgetting to fill in those timesheets: If you have ever filled in a timesheet, you’ll know how easy it is, even after years of habit, to forget to complete these unpleasant recorders of time. When this happens, you are then forced to rely on mental recollection, and that’s as good as sticking your finger in the wind and giving an error prone estimation. You may as well let a monkey guess for all the benefit its doing the business in terms of data amylases.
4. Coworker Interruptions: If you get interrupted by a coworker or perhaps the telephone rings while you are working. Do you add this time to your timesheet? Do you make sure the person you were talking to on the phone gets a 3 minute addition to their charge-out – or do you still carry on working for the client you were on before the phone rang? One engineering firm boasted to us that as long as they got paid, they didn’t care where the money came from! Does this make good ethical business sense? Would you use this companies services if you knew this is how they operate. If not, what about your own business – do you take the same happy go lucky care free approach? If yes, then beware because you may get caught.
5. Breaks Concentration: You have a deadline. Your boss wants the next edition on his desk by 10 am tomorrow. What you really don’t need at this point is the added nonsense of having to fill in a timesheet, breaking your concentration, making you irritable and generally not a good person to be around as you flap away. But you must still account for your time – so what can you do!
6. Super Mundane: The actual process of filling out a timesheet is by all means, mundane and boring. Very few people could actually put their hand in the air and say in all honesty, – “I enjoy this process”.

So why do businesses world wide persist with this archaic methodology? Because until quite recently – they had no choice. And if you really want to be unsettled by this news, consider this. In the United States, current estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for July 2007, indicate that the current workforce is 146,000,000. If we assume that just 1 person in a hundred employees keeps a timesheet, and with a cost of six thousand dollars a year (http://www.metriq.biz/SavingYouMoney.html), this equates to 8.5 billion dollars in lost income, just completing the humble and yet grossly wasteful timesheet. Can your business afford to waste money like this?

Timesheet Revolution
At MetriQ we have spent a number of years developing an alternative to the timesheet that requires no human interaction at all. The user simply clicks on the software they wish to use, and the MetriQ software will begin timing the use of that software. As the user changes to a different software product, MetriQ again begins timing for that new software package – and so it continues, so that at the end of the working day each and every second has been accounted for, even those that were interrupted by phone calls or going to the restroom. And MetriQ is no dunce, as it can recognize when you are away from your desk or when a co-worker interrupts you – recording the time ready for you to account for it later. In other words, given the sophisticated nature of modern computers, we say that timesheets are a redundant technology – an old fashioned data collection process that can be completely replaced by an intelligent software product, freeing you and your staff from timesheet slavery.

At MetriQ we believe that a computer should be clever enough to know exactly how long its been use, by who, on what and for whom, and without ever being told.

We also believe that the days of the timesheet are numbered and rapidly coming to a close as alternative technology emerges, and the value of each second wasted becomes more apparent to those in business who’s operating costs keep escalating.

If you would like to understand more about the MetriQ software product and how it can help you save time and money for your business, then try the software for yourself. It’s easy to install, easy to use, and with a reputation that is second to none in the business of Intelligent Business Timing. Download a free trial version from http://www.metriq.biz