Organizational Change Management
Introducing time tracking in an organization can lead to fear among employees about how their work will be perceived and what it will mean for their privacy.
Ultimately the introduction of time tracking may increase stress when people feel their independence and way of working are threatened.
It is important that employees do not get the feeling that “Big Brother” is watching. Be clear about what the data will be used for. If people think that the data will be used to rate their performance, they are likely to register their time in a way that they believe will make them look good. This can cause the organization to end up with timesheets that do not reflect reality and can therefore not be used for billing or chargeback purposes, or to optimize resource allocation.
The critical success factors are trust and transparency and that is where organizational change management comes into play. Consider the following steps in your organizational change management plan:
Clarify the purpose and benefits
Provide an answer to the “What’s in for me?” question. Explain the value of time tracking for the service delivery organization, the teams and employees. Whatever the company’s motives and goals, share them with the people to help clarify any concerns they may have. Common reasons for tracking time include billing or chargeback for services, identifying overtime for payroll reporting, identifying (un)profitable services and projects, understanding which teams or individuals are overworked or underutilized and improving resource scheduling. Possible benefits of time tracking include:
- Protecting against burnout
- Ensuring a fair allocation of work
- Showing who has capacity and who is struggling
- Making overtime visible and regulated
- Revealing how people work best
- Identifying workflow inefficiencies
- Revealing unconscious behaviors and unproductive practices
- Providing project progress, project cost overruns and project scope creep
- Enabling more effective timelines and schedules
Explain what it doesn’t mean
Let the organization know that time tracking is not about surveillance. The timesheets do not provide a single source of data for evaluating individual performance or quantifying progress. While it can help in understanding productivity, it does not provide any insight into the quality or success of the work performed.
Time tracking is not a way to introduce micromanagement. It is not there for managers to review every activity of every employee. While certain managers may initially be tempted to do this, they will quickly learn that the time tracking data allows them to focus only on timesheet summaries that show anomalies and trends that are headed in the wrong direction.
Setup your communication and training plan
Invest in communication. A simple email will not be enough. Organize sessions where the previous points are explained and where you can capture and respond to the feedback of the employees.
Consider a separate communication plan for managers and team leads. They need to be the advocates of time tracking.
At the same time, be clear about the obligation employees have to submit their timesheets on time, and the consequences if they do not. Being vague or nonchalant about time tracking expectations and obligations will lead to employees not taking their responsibility seriously.
Don’t forget about new hires
Time tracking takes continuous effort and attention. Even if you are able to embed time tracking in the culture of your organization, do not forget to make it part of your organization’s onboarding process for new employees.
Finally consider the following 5 golden rules when introducing time tracking:
- Make sure you have clear guidelines
- Do not use time tracking as the basis of performance reviews
- Make time tracking data transparent
- Filling in a timesheet each day is much better than at the end of the week
- Do not attempt to track every little thing