Custom « The Problem of Time Management » Essay Paper Sample

 The problem of time management and control of labor costs has plagued many organizations. Employers are constantly at a loss regarding what to do about absentee workers, lazy workers and pretenders in the office. In every office, there are employees who do not take their work as seriously as they should. Some employees come in to work late or leave early and are still remunerated like other hard working employees. The problem of poor time management has led to failure in many businesses.

 First, it is important to recognize that in most organizations, labor cost take the largest proportion of expenses. It is therefore important to control the labor cost. In many organizations, employees are remunerated on a per hour basis. It is, therefore, important to keep track of the number of hours worked by each employee. This is effectively done by use of a time tracking system.

 Time tracking systems have undergone evolution with time and development in technology. Initial time tracking systems involved employment of a time checking employee who manually recorded time spent by each employee in the office. This strategy proved expensive and useless due to the inefficiencies of men. Later, punch cards were developed. This tracking system involved manual punching of holes into a sheet or swiping a punch card through a time recorder to indicate time of entry and exit from the office. This system has some loopholes, since; an employee can swipe the card fraudulently for an absent friend. Nowadays, thanks to technology, we have very accurate and reliable time tracking systems. Some of the current time tracking systems include; time clock plus systems, 5 PM, one day later and Chrometa.

 Time tracking systems have a lot of benefits for both the organization and its employees. The system should not be perceived as a dictatorial move by the management of an organization. First, a time tracking system ensures that there is quantum merit remuneration of employees. This means that employees are paid as much as they have earned. Workers who work for many hours are paid more, whereas workers who work few hours are paid less. This creates discipline and motivates the employees to work hard. Furthermore, the most hardworking employees are duly recognized and rewarded. The system also recognizes the extra time spent by an employee at the workplace and thus allows easy calculation of overtime remuneration.   

 To the employer, a time tracking system will enable reduction of unnecessary labor cost. Absentee and lazy employees are paid accordingly. Since the system automatically sends entry and exit data to a database, it becomes very easy for the employer to calculate and prepare a payroll. The payroll is prepared on the basis of time spent at the workplace. This system is especially necessary in factories and industries where employees are paid on a time basis. When the payroll is easy to create, it also becomes easy for the employer to make payments promptly.

The time tracking system has been proved invaluable to some organizations such as consultancy firms. Advanced time tracking systems has the capability to increase revenue for consultancy firms through automatic billing. This means that the system automatically counts the time spent with a customer in consultation, and automatically sends an invoice to the firm. This hastens payment and eliminates the hassles of manually dropping bills to the customer.

Time tracking systems are also regularly used by project management firms. The timesheets build a body of knowledge about how much time it takes to complete a given task. This enables the project management team to estimate the amount of time required to carry out similar tasks in the future. The time tracking systems also have the ability to keep track of resource costs and project expenses in order to facilitate better budgeting for future projects. Furthermore, time tracking systems make the company’s costs more visible, thus, allowing managers to reduce them accordingly.

Memo

To:        The stakeholders

From:   The project manager

Date:    31st August 2011

Subject:  Implementation of a new time tracking system

 Following what our employees have been doing in the workplace, have come to a conclusion that most of them are not doing what they are supposed to do in the area of their work at the right time, and others are not attempting to do the work at all. In so doing have come up with an idea of implementing a new time tracking system because all we had there before have all gone in vain. This tracking system will be indicating how long an employee have worked if he has worked overtime or have not worked at all or was absent from work, they will be remunerated accordingly. It will also be indicating the employees who are just there, and not attending to their duties. The implementation of this time tracking system will help the employees, and motivate them to work hard, and not only sit on their jobs. The employee who will be with the highest performance appraisal will be rewarded accordingly.

This time tracking system will indicate what a certain employee is suppose to do each and every day, and he or she is in which department. By indicating this, it will have a positive impact to the organization as well as to the employees because the organization will be able to achieve the set objectives, and the employees will also utilize the knowledge and skills they have when doing their work. It will also have a negative impact on the lazy employees because they will not be idle anymore even on the absentees it will be indicating employees who are absent.

Time tracking system is extremely crucial in organizations because everyone in the organization will be very busy and focused on attaining the set goals. The hard working employees will be noted, and rewarded according to their hard work. I would recommend the management to implement this time tracking system in their organizations, and employees will work effectively and efficiently.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Project Manager.