Gamification of Time Tracking: Higher Motivation & Increased Productivity
Time tracking is a burden and unnecessary paperwork, they say. If a company charges its clients by the hour, it’s feasible to explain to its employees why time tracking is vital. However, they will still dislike it. It’s a true challenge for firms that harvest time worked data for analysis and productivity improvements. For many teams, it’s a never-ending struggle between management and employees.
Gamification in time tracking
Believe it or not but time tracking can be fun and engaging. How? Instead of tracking time, you should start playing the time tracking game. As in any game, there should be challenges and awards. The entire team should participate and see how everyone performs in the game. It is what gamification is about. Generally speaking, gamification is giving elements of a game to daily activities. Gamifying time tracking can motivate employees to do their timesheets better and on time and increase the team’s overall productivity.
First, unless you already do that, everyone in your team should start tracking time using employee time tracking software, such as Trackabi. Use the collected data to reward employees who manage to reach specific goals — update their timesheets on time, not be late to work, etc.
Achievements, rewards, & karma
Achievements in time tracking is the same approach as they use in computer games. When you reach a goal, you get an achievement. The same should happen in your team.
For instance, give the “Superhuman” achievement to everyone who managed to add at least 8 hours daily during the last week. Give the “Early-Bird” achievement to those who start no later than at 9 am every day. Give the “Sloth” achievement to employees who never have more than 5 hours daily in their timesheets.
These funny achievements can already stimulate employees when they receive them and when they see what others get. But you can also materialize achievements. Present a small gift at the end of a month. Reward with a day off or 15-minute longer breaks during a week. And so on. It will create good incentives. However, don’t let the team get carried away. They shouldn’t focus on the virtual achievements too much and, what’s worse, shouldn’t try to trick the system.
The achievements approach is a good incentive, and nevertheless, for a large team, it can quickly become cluttered and unclear how everyone performs. It’s good to use a rating. In computer games, it’s usually called karma. Karma points can be added or deducted with every earned achievement. Monitoring total karma and karma trend can show how an employee manages his time tracking tasks.
Best way to gamify time tracking
In Trackabi the achievements functionality is available out of the box and is super easy to use. You can create various achievements based on data from timesheets, vacation schedules, and project assignments. After you spend approximately 3 minutes on setup, the system will automatically handle all calculations and send achievements to employees when they reach the specified goals. For every achievement, you can set karma points and see how karma changes for every user.
Does gamification work?
It does. Our team adopted gamification in time tracking some time ago. Many were very skeptical that this approach would have any positive influence. However, the results proved that it’s worth the effort. About 10% fewer delays with timesheets preparation, about 15% fewer employees late to work, about 25% more employees switched to automated time tracking from manual timesheet editing.
The success in gamification depends on how you manage it. Think about relevant achievements and reasonable goals. They shouldn’t be impossible or too easy to get. They shouldn’t provide a lot of space for tricking. Also, make sure you can give the rewards you promise in exchange for achievements earned.
Be careful
Avoid focusing on earned achievements too much and carefully use them as performance indicators. Those who have a lot of hours in their timesheets are not necessarily hard workers. Those who never got the “Early-Bird” achievement are not necessarily bad performers. Try to fine-tune your achievements structure to be sure that anyone who works well can earn a reward.
Another essential point, the game shouldn’t turn into the primary activity and the main distraction for your team.
Summary
Gamification is a great way to motivate employees to do their best when it comes to such a treadmill task as time tracking. It’s effortless to start gamifying your processes. Give it a try. In the worth case scenario, your team will have fun for some time.
