Remote working is the new norm. About 88% of global organizations worldwide have allowed for work-from-home opportunities during the pandemic. Due to productivity stats, many organizations would gladly continue to provide remote working options.

Companies with work-from-home options experience a lower turnover rate, and it has been observed that 77% of remote workers are indeed more productive.  

But it is the extent to which remote working can accommodate collaboration and solid communication that determines whether the remote team can perform well. It is more of a concern when delegating tasks to new remote software engineers as business owners, and in-house managers may feel reluctant to give a new remote employee responsibility.

Whether you are working with an outsourced development team or managing an in-house team of software engineers who work from home, you may think about having a tracking system to monitor the working process. However, not all developers are accepting such conditions.

So, what could be the optimal solution that can help you reliably track working hours and keep your development team in comfort? Read on to get more details on time tracking software for developers.

The Benefits of Using Time Tracking Software for Developers

So why should you take the extra effort to track your developers’ time? Some managers tend to think that if the task is done, then everything works well. But in reality, managing a tech project without proper time tracking is almost impossible, hence why it has been an age-old mantra from managers to log the working hours. But software development teams are not always keen on time tracking. They need to be properly motivated and shown the actual benefits of time tracking.

Here Are Some of the Main Advantages:

• Time tracking tool helps increase profitability by giving you a clear view of where the money is spent. In addition, it helps monitor the project budget and allows for proper prioritization of tasks. 
• It helps with accurate billing and payments. It avoids confusion when the same developer is working on different projects and has an overlap of tasks by accurately tracking the time spent on each task.
• With time tracking, you can ensure that your offshore programmers have clear objectives and goals, and they correctly understand and prioritize their tasks.
• When time tracking, information is transparent and well maintained, it helps in boosting up productivity. 
• It gives a better view of the project progress and aids in efficient project management.
• It enhances communication and collaboration as team members can be easily made aware of their progress and have a clear view of any process done remotely.

Do Software Developers Hate Time Tracking?

One of the significant downsides to time tracking is the possible reaction from your developers that you will be monitoring every activity they do at work. Now let us clarify this notion.

Software developers hate micromanagement. So, they try to avoid uncomfortable situations where they have to answer long calls when they could be coding.

How Time Tracking Can Become a Burden to Software Developers:

Time Tracking Becomes a Task That Requires Considerable Effort

When developers have to manually log their hours and keep extensive information on every little thing they ever worked on for a weekly timesheet filling, time tracking is a hassle. An integrated and automated solution could make the job all the easier. 

Time Spent Does Not Equate to Work Done

Story points for a user story measure the effort required or difficulty of a particular task. But whereas time is a simple measure of time spent. Combining these two under the same umbrella could be inaccurate in measuring productivity and could confuse work expectations.

Time Tracking Could Be Mismanaged

When management uses time tracking as a tool to scrutinize developers and micromanage them, it is not going to be received favorably. 

As you can see, it is not the time tracking part that they find annoying but the lack of better ways to do so. You can quickly get your developers on board to efficient time monitoring with the right motivation and goals.

In fact, if software developers were to be equipped with proper hassle-free time tracking tools, it would be a great help for them to keep track of their own work hours, be better with work organization, planning and manage their schedules. They can also use the time tracking data to justify their overtime charges and get additional support to finish a difficult task.

Some Benefits Software Developers Stand to Experience When They Can Reliably Track Time:

• It helps with better time management 
• Be focused on the priority tasks 
• Take control of how they spend their time

How to Implement Time Tracking Software to Work Comfortably

Manual work hour logging can itself be problematic. It could lead to inaccurate time tracking, excessive overtime, time theft, and more. It also adds an extra burden to the managers and the developers as they have to keep track of the work hours and log them without fail or risk losing proper remuneration.

You need to ensure your employees feel safe and not always under a watch when they adopt your time tracking software.

The best way to adopt and implement a time monitoring strategy is to remember the following fundamental principles:

• Use time tracking tools as a means to master your productivity and not to control your team. 
• Establish and communicate the objectives and reasons why time tracking is required 
• Define the basic guidelines on how management should be using time tracking. 

Find a good time tracking solution that fits your needs. To start with, you can check out TrackingTime: 

• Complete automated time tracking solution that provides features to help manage your productivity, get timesheet reports, monitor real-time workload, and more. And it can integrate well with your collaborative workspace platforms with features like Asana and Trello. 
• It makes time tracking a part of your overall work process. 
• Ensures developer autonomy and master during the time tracking. Avoid using time tracking data to scrutinize and micro-manage developers.

Wrap Up

Managing a remote team is a challenging task. But with the right tools and policies, it will be no different than managing an onsite team. Best software for developers are tools that help you be worry-free and find optimal ways to manage your software development team and ensure you stay on schedule. 

While it may seem a hassle to keep tracking time for every activity, the reality is that these tools save you a lot of time and add much-needed productivity to your teams. They may progress transparently and allow for easier collaboration which is essential for the success of a remote team. 

Adopt the right time tracking software for developers, motivate your software developers into realizing the value of time tracking and follow through to make your remote team all the more efficient.

About the author:

Iryna Bilyk is an expert content marketing manager at YouTeam – a marketplace for instant engineering team extension. She passionately discovers and writes about technology, innovations, and software development solutions.

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