S2, Ep6: Time tracking

In this episode, hosts AnnE Diemer, Claire Baker, and Krista Lane peek behind the HR curtain to unpack workplace time tracking, from basic clock-ins to billable-hour logs and time audits. They discuss why some industries and roles require detailed tracking for compliance – payroll accuracy, meal and rest breaks, and overtime rules that vary by state – as well as nonprofit requirements to separate lobbying and advocacy time. They contrast useful time tracking (ensuring fair pay, staffing coverage, and identifying efficiency improvements) with harmful or “bullshit” tracking used to micromanage, squeeze productivity from every minute, or justify performance decisions, including an example where strict arrival-time enforcement was used to fire someone. The conversation highlights how different roles and personalities experience tracking differently, and concludes that time tracking is nuanced and should fit the work and workplace needs.

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Transcript

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Time Tracking - Show Notes & Transcript

Acknowledgments

This episode was produced by AnnE Diemer, and it is hosted by AnnE Diemer, Claire Baker, and Krista Lane. It was edited by AnnE Diemer. Music was composed for the Royalty Free Music Library by Rik Pfenninger. 

We also thank our friends who gave feedback on early takes of episode 1, and those we spoke to about making a podcast— especially Kamrin Klauschie, Kevin Landucci, and Jenna Lane for their invaluable expertise and advice.

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This transcript is auto-generated and lightly edited, so it may contain small errors. If you're using it for accessibility and something is unclear or affecting your understanding of the episode, please reach out to team@hrpeepshow.com and we'll help sort it out.

Transcript

Krista: Welcome to HR Peep Show, where we pull back the curtain of life in human resources in the United States.

AnnE: I'm AnnE Diemer.

Claire: I'm Claire Baker. 

Krista Lane: I'm Krista Lane, and we are your hosts. We may be new to podcasting, but not when it comes to people work. We are each fractional consultants at the intersection of people and operations with a collective several decades of experience, both in-house and consulting under our belts. 

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AnnE Diemer: 00:27

Today, we're peeking behind the HR curtain to learn about time tracking. In a world where companies are now tracking clicks and keystrokes for their employees, we're taking it back to basics and thinking about logging our time at work. Some industries require it because you're tracking billable hours. In others, you're clocking in and out of your shifts. Nonprofits track time in order to have a record of how much time was spent on lobbying activities. So there's many good reasons to track the time that employees are working. And also there are some really bad reasons to track time that employees are working. And we're going to talk about both. But first, we're going to talk about me. As you all know, I'm an HR consultant and I track my time because that's one of the ways that my clients pay me. But recently, I've been trying to use time tracking for more than that. I want to understand how I'm actually spending my time and how it is or isn't effective. And I've learned a lot from it. But when it comes to workplace time tracking, I'm not always a fan. So let's start with kind of a broad question. What do we mean when we're talking about time tracking? What are some of the different methods to record employees' working time?

Claire Baker: 01:41

I mean, I'm mostly thinking about people who are paid hourly, which comes with responsibilities about meal and rest breaks and overtime and what is payable versus not payable. But I also have some hourly clients and so have to track my own time and it's not the same thing, in like in my mind, these two things are not the same thing. So totally.

AnnE Diemer: 02:16

But that's so interesting. Like I agree with you. And also, like, why aren't this they the same thing? Because they're still tracking time, but it does feel different when your manager's asking for it or when you I don't know. Can we break it down a little bit more?

Krista Lane: 02:32

Well, it's thinking about like the productive use of time, right? Like you're it's kind of like an accountant itemizing every expense and allocating it to a proper category. So, you know, if we want to fully like it, it's cumbersome and it's time consuming to do it, but it can give you a really granular outlook on where exactly time is going. You know, a lot of, you know, the big the big consultants, right, use it for billable hours, lawyers use it for billable hours, things like that, because not every unit of time is billable. Um and certainly their incentives might be misaligned if they are only trying to work billable hours or something like that, or minimize their spend in the non-billable category. Um I think we probably all do that intrinsically, even if I'm not like trying to cut by 10 per c cut overhead by 10% or whatever. But but yeah, I think it just comes down to the fact that there's different uses for like different understandings of the value of different units of time and that we've that, you know, a business will allocate and value certain types of time more than others, right? Even if the rate is the same.

AnnE Diemer: 03:44

Totally. Claire, you were talking about time from kind of a compliance point of view, making sure that folks have meal breaks and rest breaks. What type of time tracking does that look like? And does it help advocate for employees?

Claire Baker: 03:58

So, I mean, like I tracking time for payroll sucks for everybody. Like it's it's such a pain in the ass. And it, you know, it creates this whole other like bucket of conversations that you have to have. Um, it it can feel really micromanage-y, and it just there's a lot more to track, and it just takes longer. But I I think there are some jobs that it just makes sense to be hourly. Like it does not make sense to pay these people a salary, or you may have um like the federal salary minimum is not very high, but you have certain states that have salary minimums that are significantly higher. And so, like some people like their position just doesn't pay that much. And so they have to be hourly. And from our point of view, in HR or payroll or compliance, whatever it is, we need to have accurate time records because we need to know if we owe you overtime, or um, we need to know if you're not able to take a break. Like that is a big deal in states that have laws about that. And so part of the reason that you know we're so up your ass about it if you're an hourly worker, is because companies do and should take very seriously um compliance and making sure that they're actually paying you for your time. Then again, I actually had a question today about uh I'm doing a new implementation of a new HRIS, and with that came a new time tracking system. And one of the hourly employees asked me, I can't see the seconds on my time clock. Can I turn on seconds on my time clock? And I'm just sitting there thinking, like, what is the situation where this comes up? And I'm just picturing this person watching their time clock, waiting for it to switch over from 4.59 to five o'clock, and like not having that second counter, and like not be and I'm I'm so I think also hourly takes the focus away from the value that you're actually providing in that time, which is a whole other conversation. But yeah, I think when it when it's my own time though, and they're billable hours for a client or something, like I have control over how much those hours are actually like what is the rate for those hours, and I also have to sell more hours, like once that package is up or once that project is up or whatever. So I have more of an incentive to like provide value in those hours versus like the hourly employee who's like playing Minecraft in the handicapped stall while they're on the clock.

Krista Lane: 07:12

And so that seems like a very specific example.

Claire Baker: 07:18

Does every not everybody does that?

Krista Lane: 07:21

I no.

Claire Baker: 07:25

I don't I don't play Minecraft though, so it's not me.

AnnE Diemer: 07:30

There you go. That's the important clarification there. Okay, so when we talk about hourly workers, if there are some non-HR people listening to this, what we mean is hourly workers are not exempt from overtime rules. We're now gonna get into the weeds of HR a little bit. And so they have to be paid for overtime. And an important reason for hourly workers to track their hours is so we know when they're working overtime. Depends on the state, what is considered overtime, but some states it's more than eight hours a day, and some it's more than 40 hours a week. And so that's an important reason to track time because you want to know when you're going over. Sometimes you have to get that approved, etc. And for some folks, like the person you were mentioning, Claire, they might be counting down the seconds just to make sure that they worked eight hours that day and they can be done. And while that's a depressing anecdote, it also makes sense and I see where it's coming from. So when is time tracking bullshit and kind of micromanage-y versus when we have to do it for compliance reasons, when we have to do it to make sure workers aren't taking on too much work? How should employees be able to tell the difference between that?

Claire Baker: 08:46

I think the problem is more when a manager expects you to squeeze the most out of every second. And that is very subjective and not realistic. And it it just I I think that like we have to accept that some minutes are more productive than others. Also, like time isn't always the best like measurement of productivity either. Like, you know, somebody could be doodling and they look like they're not busy, but like their mind is working, and and so I I think that that's the most bullshit use of time tracking.

AnnE Diemer: 09:32

Yeah, I would agree with that. I the first time I ever had to track my time was the first nonprofit that I worked at. And I felt super weird about it because I felt like I was like proving my value. And so if I like looked at my time and I had only worked seven and a half hours that day, I was like, okay, what can I do for another 30 minutes to make this legit? But I also didn't know who was even looking at my time cards and what it was being used for. And I later found out, because it became part of my job as HR, that really they weren't using it to see how much time I was working specifically. It was thinking about how much time was going towards lobbying and advocacy activities, which do need to be tracked differently for, you know, 501c3 stuff that we're not going to get into the weeds to now. But I was feeling super paranoid about it, and no one was even using it. And so I think that was kind of a bullshit use of time tracking too.

Krista Lane: 10:30

I think for me, the most egregious example of where it was not really relevant to anything was when a manager on a team I worked on used entry time, like entry clock in time. Not even and we didn't actually have time cards in this place. It was just, did you show up at your desk? And someone noticed. But they used this as like an enforcement period of like everybody must show up by 9 a.m., basically to fire someone. So there was somebody they didn't like on their team and they wanted and they struggled to come in on time, like on time. Like they were usually one of the stragglers, right? That came in. Like everybody's coming in between nine and ten, but like, you know, and for the most part, the company had never cared. So it just felt very like fake and uh deeply inauthentic for this manager to be like, you know, send sent a really formal memo out that was like, for the next month, we were gonna be we're gonna be uh, you know, doing a maximum enforcement on our time tracking policy. And you must be in your seat by 9 a.m. every day, um, unless you have like an interview or a specific like meeting that you can document on your calendar that you are there at 9 a.m. for instead. And then two weeks later, like lo and behold, this person was late three times by like not very long, um, you know, maybe five minutes, and and then they were let go. And I'm like, I that was just like uh because it wasn't even related to time, right? It was a really it was related to a different performance issue, and this was the tactic that they used to get rid of this person rather than like having real conversations with them or you know, any other method you can think of to do performance management. But um subtle.

AnnE Diemer: 12:19

And I think that's in a bad way a good example of what we're talking about because time tracking, seeing what time people come in, what time people leave, how much time people work, that's such a small part of our actual work every day. Why would we hinge firing decisions on just that? And and like you said, it's just like a metric that they needed to justify something else, which I don't love, but also can't do anything about. But yeah, it's just, it's such a small the amount of time that we work is such a small part of working because sometimes there's an hour where you're really productive, and there's sometimes an hour where you're not really productive. And either way, it's an hour, you know?

Claire Baker: 13:02

Yeah, but I mean, there are also jobs where like you're at the cash register and like somebody needs to be standing at the cash register, and it doesn't matter if there are cut there are no customers or there's a line, you're at the cash register for however long your shift is. And and I think in those cases it makes a lot more sense. But it's when you have people doing white collar work or kind of like knowledge work and they're driving a desk and things like that, like it's it's an uncomfortable fit to have people working hourly. And I mean, there are reasons to do it that makes that also like scheduling type stuff, anything that's kind of uh there there need to be a certain number of people available at a specific time. But like that whole you need to be butts in seats at 9 a.m. unless it's a service position or something. Like in my high school, they used to lock the doors after the first bell. So you had to walk past the office. And like, I guess that's fine if you're like 16, but like your example, Krista, reminds me of that where it's like I'm a grown-ass adult. Like, if it takes me until 9.03 to get to my desk, then so be it. Like if I don't have a meeting, like I'll stay until 5.03 and probably 7.03. So, like, who cares?

Krista Lane: 14:38

But yeah, it really shouldn't be like that, I don't think. Because yeah, it just doesn't like what what is that actually serving? Right? Like some in some cases it's about covering a manager's inability to properly manage someone out, or you know, and sometimes it's just covering their difficulty with the discomfort of having a hard conversation, or, you know, thinking that being a micromanager is the way to manage, um, or you know, a sign that they're doing a good job. Sometimes that can speak to their and to the incentives that they're receiving too as managers from whoever their boss is, right? You know, what metrics are they following? Like I think there's there's a kind of a chicken egg problem that happens with so many metrics where we end up changing our behavior to meet those metrics rather than using the metrics as like a guideline that can maybe drive, like not necessarily drive decisions, but um informed decisions. Like are you know, are you using them to drive decisions or informed decisions? And when you're using them to drive decisions, you lose the plot very quickly.

AnnE Diemer: 15:51

I agree with that. I think there's definitely, and you listed a lot of them, a lot of reasons that time tracking can be bullshit, can be micromanagey and not helpful. But I think Claire also named some reasons that it can be helpful. So compliance, making sure that people are getting their rest breaks and meals breaks as needed, making sure that people are getting paid over time, and setting reasonable expectations for folks who do have to be at a certain location for a fixed period of time. So definitely some good reasons to do time tracking. And it's I think it depends on the type of role. Does that sound right? That it's like knowledge workers versus other types of roles? I don't know. When is it most useful?

Krista Lane: 16:40

I mean, another good use case that that I've used it for is even among um like a team of exempt workers, um, I did like a time time audit. Um, and the goal was to understand where people's time is going and where we can make efficiency improvements. So that ended up justifying like investing in a tool that could support certain aspects of admin that were taking too long. Um, like, oh, well, it turns out for like one or two people, this doesn't matter as much. But for if you expand that to a 10 or 15 person team, it makes a really big difference. That amount of time saved really adds up and it is actually worth that investment. I don't really think that answered your question, but I just thought of it and wanted to add it.

AnnE Diemer: 17:27

No, it did. This is exactly what I'm thinking about is there's the compliance reasons, but there's also some like human reasons to think about tracking time. And that's what I feel like I've been leaning into recently is I was for a while just tracking my time because it's like that's how I'm getting paid and I and I need to know what hours I worked for which clients. But I've been trying to do it for like my administrative time too, because then I understand how I'm fitting that in and yeah, where would I maybe want a tool to create my invoicing or something like that. And weirdly, one of the most interesting things that I found is kind of I was doing my time audit is when I have to switch tests between tests or between clients really fast with like 10 minutes each, I'm definitely least productive on those days versus when I have like big blocks of time. Now it depends on the person what's going to feel productive and what's not going to feel productive. But for me, just being able to see that and like note how I was feeling when I was working that day was really helpful in informing like, okay, how can I set myself up for success? And I did that by looking at my time. So I think that is another way you can use it.

Claire Baker: 18:32

So this may just be my brain, but like the whole time concept of a time audit like does not work for me and like really stresses me out. And so I I actually don't have trouble with like tracking my time. And I find it a really good, I use this tool called Timeuler that's now called early, but I don't like that name, so I still call it Timuler. And it like that sort of chess clock aspect of it where like bang, I'm in, bang, I'm done with this task, bang, I'm back in. Um, and it has a little clock at the top of my um, I don't even know what that's called, at the top of my screen, so I can see when I'm I'm clocked in and I don't forget about it because it's not in the browser. Like I find that really useful. It's great for my billable hours clients, but um, if I have to track like what I'm doing for my own time, uh, like maybe this is my classification and I have trouble with classification, but like I just it does not work for me. And somebody once tried to convince me to download this, I don't know, spyware thing that would just like look at what was at the front of my screen all the time and it would look at my calendar and it would like track what I was doing because it was supposed to be for like a time audit or whatever. But I was, I was just I mean, first of all, I don't want to give something that much access to especially with the type of like information I'm looking at on my screen all day long. But also like if my calendar says that I'm in a meeting, that does not mean I'm in that meeting. And like just because like I might be on the support chat in this window and working on this other thing in this other window, and like texting with like my friend or slacking with somebody in this other window, and all of those things are happening simultaneously, and like the whole time audit thing just cannot capture that. And I think I probably am much more interrupt-driven than you are, Annie. I do a lot less of that, like just sit down for a solid chunk of time type of work. But yeah, I I just like I find it very difficult to like jam the whole billable hours model into that sort of thing. And so, like, if one of those three things is a billable time, like that is top priority of all of those notifications that I'm getting at that time.

AnnE Diemer: 21:17

That's a great example of the complexity of time tracking. There isn't one right answer here, like, yeah, it worked really well for me. No, it doesn't work really well for you. And both of those things can be true. Time tracking can be really helpful for compliance reasons, and it can be micromanage and getting managers off the hook from having hard conversations. Like, there's so many things that can be true with time tracking. And I think that's why we shouldn't just create these like general rules, or you see so many like LinkedIn influencers posting this is the way to optimize your time. It's like, no, you have to figure out what works for you. And then HR has to figure out what works for the business and kind of seeing the big picture.

Krista Lane: 21:59

I think to your question about What types of work do well with time tracking? Like it turns out there's so many different types of work, whether like even within, you know, quote unquote knowledge work, there there can be so many different use cases that could be valuable that even the three of us have already talked about. And then there's like clock in, clock out. I don't know. Like there's I just end up like I'm so used to working with engineers where everybody's exempt and they hate time tracking. Like I did this whole thing with the interns where they were hourly at first and then I had to convert them to exempt employees because they were so mad that they weren't treated like engineers when they were getting paid more than I was. So they were certainly exempt, um, or could be exempt. And it was this whole process. But in doing so, it really gave me a lot of insight into like how the culture of a role can really impact whether or not being hourly feels appropriate. And just like the idea of like, can you get the job done? And does that actually relate to time? Or is it about your presence and what you can get done with the time that you are present? And those are two really different things. And those, you know, make more sense for you to be hourly in the latter case, where like being in a cash register from this time to this time, in you know, whether or not you're actually doing much work. You know, same thing with like a receptionist type job, like where you're sitting at a front desk. You know, that matters a lot. I used to really enjoy a lot of those because you could study school.

Claire Baker: 23:31

Well, and like healthcare too, it's not it's not always, you know, um lower relatively lower paid jobs. Like man, my ex was a nurse and the California Nurses Union, you need a PhD to like fill up the time card. Cause I mean, you have like shift differentials. So if you work on a weekend or overnight, it's paid differently than if you work during the day. If you are on call, you get paid like a half rate for sitting around on the couch. But then if you get called in, you get paid so much. And then if you stay overtime when you're called in, you get paid so much. And, you know, they get into the day of rest stuff and the, you know, more than 12 hours stuff all the time. And so, so I mean, I think that is like a cash register in that when a patient needs you, there needs to be somebody there. Like people can't be waiting in line. So yeah, I mean, I think it's there are there are plenty of use cases where hourly is more comfortable. There are plenty where it is an uncomfortable fit, but it's still the best solution. And in those cases, I kind of try to create policies to be more flexible than if it were a you know, cash register type situation.

AnnE Diemer: 25:05

Those are all really good examples. And I think they kind of show the complexity of all this. Behind the HR curtain, we found that there isn't one right answer when it comes to time tracking. Sometimes it's very necessary. You have to do it for compliance reasons. Other times, it can just help someone like me stay organized and deal with their own time blindness. And there are times where your boss is just being micromanage-y, and for obvious reasons, we recommend against that. But I think the overall takeaway we have here is there's nuance to time tracking, and that nuance should be reflected in whatever processes you set up to enable time tracking in your workplace.

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Krista: That's it for today's episode of HR Peep Show with your hosts, Claire Baker, AnnE Diemer, and me Krista Lane. Thank you for listening and stay tuned for future episodes covering both hot takes and practical advice to build sustainable people-driven companies. To view transcripts and full credits or find out more about us, go to hrpeepshow.com.