Efficient Timesheets for Construction Teams

Timesheets don’t need to be the ugly chicken-scratch time cards your predecessors used. Instead, utilizing modern timesheet technology lets you keep your time tracking useful, sleek, and streamlined.

New time-keeping methods, like Traqspera, are cloud-based and only take seconds to update even from the field, providing you with unimaginable data streams that you can use for calculating costs for just about any facet of your construction company. In addition, implementing timesheets is incredibly manageable even for multiple offsite teams, and getting your team not only onboard but pleased to do so, is much easier than you think.

Why Your Crew Might Object to Timesheets and How to Change Their Minds

While sometimes it might not feel logical, or you might chalk it up to laziness, it’s not uncommon for employees in any industry to put up resistance when you first mention implementing timesheets.

Just the word ‘timesheets’ envoke feelings of:

• Outdated and clunky paper cards and time punches
• Employers not trusting you’re putting the work you’re being paid for in
• Dread over the additional workload of timesheets on top of already jam-packed todo lists

But any team, construction or otherwise, can benefit from tracking the number of hours worked, even in a team setting. It’s especially beneficial to your company and, maybe most importantly, your customers. With accurate time tracking information broken down by task and project, not only are you accurately able to bill them; you can run reports without waiting for billing, better bid on future jobs on similar projects, precisely track equipment usage and vehicle wear, and easily manage regular, double-time, and overtime to keep staffing budgets on track.

Often, there will be one or two team members that immediately express frustration at implementing time tracking. The easiest way to mitigate these feelings is by clarifying and reinforcing that you are not necessarily managing your individual worker but rather purely tracking the time of the project, by explaining that you’re not going to hover, that you don’t need updates on time every fifteen minutes. Let them know that this isn’t that you don’t trust their work ethic.—it’s for financial reports.

When first integrating timesheets into your construction business’ workflow, it’s best to allow your crews to ease into it. Not only does this help to naturally build the process into their routine, it often diffuses a lot of the tension we see. Our recommended process includes announcing the business reasonings for implementing timesheets, reinforce that it is business, not personal, and letting your team know the value that tracking time brings your construction company.

Have a short Q and A and address any questions your crew might have. Take notes regarding concerns, and if you don’t have an answer at the time, make sure you follow up. Letting questions sit for too long only leads to distrust and can be interpreted as timesheets not being that important.

Plan for multiple forms of training from written to visual, hands-on, and 1:1 to account for all types of learners. Be sure to illustrate the benefits of time tracking and why timesheets matter to your business again in these trainings.

Traqspera can help you with your timesheet rollout plan and provide additional support for crewmember and management training, educational material, and employee support. Our seamless integration with Spectrum and Vista products provides the industry-leading timesheet option for medium to large construction businesses.

Contact our product team today to set up a free custom timesheet demo for your business and see just how easy we can get your business on track!