Why Hour Logging in Offices is a Red Flag for Many Employees

Let’s not beat around the bush. In the eyes of employees in companies, hour logging is about as popular as having appendicitis and a root canal at the same time.

But why is that the case?

Speaking from years of experience, I know that the main problem lies in the false assumption, that hour logging is designed to measure attendance and productivity of employees, which clearly explains this “fear” of hour logging. The above points can indeed be by-products of hour logging, but that’s not our main focus of attention here. It’s more to do with hour logging in ERP-systems being used as a way of logging and monitoring direct personnel expenses to cost objects (clients, jobs, areas).

This is done in order to measure success and to identify budget overruns early, so that the company can be proactively managed. It is primarily about the success of projects and with that, the success of the company and all its’ employees.

Hour logging creates the foundation for monitoring and evaluating a company’s success and it’s surely safe to say, this statement summarizes it in a nutshell. Experience shows that great success can be achieved as a result of company’s accepting hour logging, when its economic requirement is clearly explained to employees in small workshop and then, just like that, hour logging is no longer a “black box” for employees.

A common argument, which I have often heard about in the field, has to do with the amount of time required for hour logging. This is ridiculous, to say the least. One log-in entry takes maximum five to ten seconds, even without the many possible automatic functions and assistance in PROAD. Even with a total of 20 log-in entries per day, you are talking about a total time expenditure of significantly less than 5 minutes a day.

Hour logging is indeed a time factor, if you write time on a slip of paper and then at the end of the day – or worst still- at the end of the week add them up. Then further drawbacks arise, that, in the worst case scenario, up until the end of the week jobs look good thanks to missing times in the performance-target analyses, although that isn’t the case.

That’s why times should always be recorded after finishing a job.