Building service contractors have almost all the staff working at remote sites. The people could be, on a daily basis, moving around between different locations. That will challenge the work planning and managing the work which is very much time consuming. Companies could have hundred or even thousands of mobile workers working remotely changing between locations. There is a potential threat for ineffectiveness and non-profitable operations. With real time time tracking and work management solutions the above mentioned challenges can be made a lot easier. Real time itself means that information is provided as it is right now. System means that there is a logical approach towards collecting data from remote sites. The life of supervisors and management will be a lot easier and they are able to put more effort on developing operations and making it profitable. Huge game changer!
Get rid of paper based time sheets
Imagine a following situation. You sell 3 hours of cleaning services to your client and the cleaner stays there for 2 hours before leaving. The cleaner fills out the paper based time sheet and writes down 3 hours of work because that is stated in the plan. The company then pays for 3 hours since that was reported. This could go on for ages! The scenario is a story from real life. I actually received a phone call from potential client describing the problem with these exact words. This scenario will lead eventually to many problems, if not interrupted immediately.
Real time electronic time keeper tracks the exact working hours from site when the cleaner reports work start and work stop times. The work time tracking solution calculates automatically the hours of work done. The working hours are in context to many other things such as work loading, work planning and quality etc. In the matter of fact, collecting the real working hours from site, will be the success for improving performance. The hours can be benchmarked with work loading and quality. If the hours are in line with both of them, you are on the right track! If not, there are many points to check. Is the work loading calculation right, what kind of work plan have we set in place, are the working methods used the right ones, is the cleaner doing the job as planned etc…? A long list of questions! With the right tools, the management are able to set things right in no time. Industry specific work time and work management solutions should cover most of the features, not only work time tracking. A set of right tools should be in place in companies enabling profitable business in low margin industries.
A bonus from using electronic work time tracking
The work times collected in reliable way, can be utilized in so many ways. One very popular topic to discuss is “once we collect all the work times automatically from our staff, can´t we just use the data for payroll as well”? Absolutely! This is something a lot of companies do nowadays. Payroll process is a very much time consuming process for the payroll administrators. All the hand written time sheets with all the different hand styles can sometimes be a real mess! One might end up making corrections after payroll is processed due to human errors. When all the data is collected through a work time and work management system, the process will be significantly more straight forward! The system creates a file per employee with all the work times. The supervisor can then go through the reported hours and accept them for payroll. The payroll system then calculates the salaries based on the working hours reported and the rules in the payroll software. Smooth and easy!
Using proper software solutions for managing the operations are the key for efficient operations. Using only pen and paper will leave too many loose ends for supervisors to manage. A proper software solution will give a systematic approach in managing the cleaning operations.
