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Behind every successful and profitable company is a clear understanding of how and where their time is being spent. It’s safe to say time is the heartbeat of what you do, and what we do at Teamwork.com.
In 2019, the European Union (EU) introduced a directive requiring all employers within EU member states to implement time tracking systems for their employees. While full implementation of the directive is up to individual member states, we can definitely get on board with mandated time tracking!
Coming from a place to protect workers’ rights, the EU Working Time Directive (EUWTD) requires employees to accurately track and record daily working hours—including start and end times, and any overtime worked. Additionally, this time tracking information must be available at any and all times.
Panicking? We got you! Let us help you get ahead of incoming law changes and ensure you have a time tracking system in place that is easy to use, quick to implement, and accessible to report on.
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Take on the EUWTD with these 8 features
Before you begin clocking in, it’s important to define some parameters and do this important first step: set up working hours. Since the EUWTD is all about respecting work-life balance, let’s ensure your time is protected off the hop.
1) Working hours
Whether you are a full time, part time, or contract employee, set your working hours for every day of the week. Do you work 8 hours Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Do you only work mornings? Set your unique hours so everyone knows the time you’re available for.
Now the time has come to actually log your time. Good thing we have numerous ways to do so—and time tracking is natively built in on every plan! Whether you like to log time as you’re completing the work, or bulk log at the end of the day or week, we have flexible and intuitive options to fit your flow.
2) Logging time on the fly
It’s a good habit to log time as you actually spend it on the work since details are fresh in your mind and there's no risk of forgetting to log it in the first place. Tracking time in Teamwork.com fits into your natural flow of work wherever you are in the application since there are a plethora of places to spin up our log time modal.
Log time from a project, a task list, an ever-present quick add menu, the overall time section, or “My Work”. You can even boot up our in-app timer to begin counting your hours and minutes right then and there. There are numerous ways for time logging to complement your way of working so it doesn’t seem like an extra, disparate step.
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3) Logging time in bulk
That being said, we do know many users that like to log their time under one roof, and some even in one sitting. If you think this is your preferred method, My Calendar and My Timesheet are holistic places to log time from that’ll be nice and convenient for you. Whether you log time from an event synced from Google Calendar or a time block carved out for a specific task, My Calendar is a great place to plan your week and log time from as the days go by. Alternatively, if Friday afternoon bulk time-logging seems attractive, My Timesheet is the one-stop-shop for this methodical approach, providing full time-logging closure.
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We know sticking to new habits is challenging. But fortunately we have a trick up our sleeves to help time tracking become as second nature as possible.
4) Time reminders
Configure automatic email and in-app notifications to remind the team to log their time. Reminders can be scheduled based on predetermined criteria, or with one-click you can send a one-off nudge. No need to chase down team members with this handy automation!
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Let’s not forget that according to the EUWTD, time tracking information must be available at any and all times. So to help you get a birds-eye view of your time tracking data and monitor your team’s progress, here are two features you’ll be referencing often.
5. Company timesheet
Enjoy a read-only weekly view of your team’s time logs. At a glance you can see what exactly your team is logging time against, if someone is approaching their daily capacity, and if someone has (or hasn’t) logged their time. Export this timesheet and share with a wider audience for instant visibility.
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6) Time report
This report provides a crystal clear breakdown of your team’s time—splitting out billable, non-billable, and billed time. Bar chart and gauge visualizations make this report skimmable yet packed with detailed information, all while a customized table allows you to configure time data by a myriad of factors like client, users, tasks, projects, and more.
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By this time, you’re probably catching on that time tracking and capacity management go hand in hand. Seeing that the roll out of EUWTD is rooted in protecting work-life balance, we wanted to end with a couple of our scheduling and capacity planning features.
7) Workload planner
This dynamic weekly view allows you to manage users' tasks and their workload on a short term, day-to-day basis. Assign tasks to team members and see how their daily capacity is impacted with intuitive color coding—a skimmable and granular view of each person's capacity will ensure they’re not working over.
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8) Unavailable time
Have mandatory training? Does a public holiday fall mid-week? Long vacation coming up? Add ad-hoc unavailable time, with a custom duration and description, so your actual availability is represented and you’re not expected to work when you’re not around.
Roll out the EUWTD with Teamwork.com
As experts in all things time, we know that if managed correctly, time is the difference between a profitable or unprofitable company, a happy or unhappy workforce, and healthy or unhealthy client relationships. Hopefully these 8 time tracking, reporting, and planning features will help you roll out the EUWTD when the time is right, and Teamwork.com can provide the perfect time tracking solution and peace of mind.
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