Using Open Source and GPL Software to manage your time can be both time and money saving. Our highlighted open source package WR Time Tracking Software, has proven its value through numerous case studies.
From a manager’s perspective, Time Tracking allows you to improve existing and develop new processes by noting the following elements:
- Repetitive tasks ripe for automation
- Too much time spent on administration functions
- Proper focus of time
- Better use of time
Productivity
While monitoring the time each employee spends on each task may appear very “Big Brother”, one organization was able to increase their employee productivity by 5%. On average, each employee was spending 30 minutes per day going through morning email and deleting unwanted messages, something they would not have realized without time tracking software. They implemented an Open Source Spam Filtering solution called Spam Assassin after which time spent on cleaning inboxes was reduced to 5 or 10 minutes each employee.
Project Focus
When working in today’s fast paced environment, it is sometimes hard to ensure all your resources are working on the company and/or department priorities. By monitoring the time spent on various tasks and projects, you can ensure (with minimal work) the appropriate amount of time is spent on the projects that need to get done.
A project based organization was having a really hard time staying on top of regular maintenance issues while executing their projects. After implementing WR Time Tracking Software, they were able to determine the following:
- There were over 200 critical maintenance tasks outstanding (some had been outstanding for as long as a year)
- There were 6 new maintenance tasks per day being requested by clients
- Each maintenance task took 4 hours on average to complete
- There were only 3 resources available to work on both maintenance and project tasks
- Their clients would be satisfied if maintenance tasks only took 7 days to complete
- The project life cycle was approximately 6 months due to insufficient resources
As a result, this organization realized they needed to reduce the staff members who were not able to work on these tasks, double their available resources in order to achieve Speed Of Service for maintenance tasks of 7 days and regain their focus on project production. After executing a 3 month Operations Plan designed to trim down their head office staff and train an offshore outsource team they were able to eliminate the backlog.
Note: They achieved this with a net decrease in overhead.
Now this organization has been able to satisfy their clients and cut their Project Life Cycle down to 3 weeks or more (depending on the scope of project) and take advantage of opportunities in the market. Previously they were missing opportunities simply because their time to market was too long.
Overhead Reduction
In todays competitive marketplace, overheads must be controlled for maximum profit. A basic statement, yes, however organizations that are not using a time tracking application like WR Time Tracking Software are likely paying too much in HR expenses. Time Management and exposure to what your people are working on will help you identify tasks that can be automated, eliminated, or outsourced (either onshore or offshore).
Using WR Time Tracking Software only takes an average of 5 or 10 minutes per day for an employee to track their time based on their interface. Given the price tag – which is free – there is no satisfactory answer to why managers are not maintaining a closer eye on what their employees are doing and improving their organization’s profit one task at a time.
For more Open Source software applications that have been tested and proven within a live environment, visit:
www.FreeGPL.com
Open Source for Enterprise”
Link: freegpl.com
