7 simple ways to encourage your team to update its tasks and time

In the dynamic world of projects and professional services, effective management depends on accurate, up-to-date information.

Knowing who’s working on what, when, and how much time is spent on it is crucial to sound planning, capacity optimization, billing and, ultimately, the organization’s profitability. Yet encouraging every team member to regularly update their tasks and time can be a challenge.

The good news? With the right tools and practices, this process can become far less tedious, and even “painless”.

Together, we’re going to explore 7 simple ways of achieving this, illustrating how a resource management tool like Teambook can transform this necessity into an integrated and beneficial part of everyday work.

7 simple methods (illustrated by Teambook)

1. Facilitate access to the tool!

Friction linked to access to the tool is a major obstacle. A tool that’s easy to access encourages its use.

What sets Teambook apart is that it requires no installation; all you need is a simple web browser. You can start using it in seconds.

What’s more, Teambook has a pricing policy based on projects, not users. It does not charge per user, which means that anyone in the company can access the platform at no extra cost. This lack of a barrier to entry encourages widespread adoption by the entire team.

Last but not least, Teambook’s interface is designed to be simple, intuitive and visual, making it easy to learn and use. Less complexity means less resistance to use!

2. Offer the flexibility of mobile access

Your teams aren’t always behind their desks. Whether on the move, telecommuting or even on site, the ability to update information in real time is a key factor.

Teambook offers mobile applications available on iOS and Google Play. This enables team members to access their schedule and enter their time wherever they are, whenever they want, integrating the update into their daily routine without geographical constraints.

3. Integrate yourself into their daily workflow

To make updating a reflex, the tool must integrate naturally into existing habits. Teambook offers the possibility of synchronizing schedules with favorite calendars such as Google or Outlook. Seeing their Teambook schedule appear directly in their personal calendar helps team members visualize their commitments and remember to update their progress or time.

What’s more, the ability to integrate with other tools via API or Zapier means that Teambook can be connected to systems already in use by the team, reducing the need to juggle different platforms.

4. Automate reminders

Forgetfulness is one of the main obstacles to regular updates. Automated reminders can eliminate this problem. Teambook can send e-mail notifications to announce schedule changes, or remind team members to submit their timesheets.

This automatic feature relieves management of this repetitive task and ensures that reminders are sent out consistently, helping to maintain update discipline.

5. Increase visibility and show team planning

When team members understand the importance of their data for the group as a whole, they are more inclined to provide it. Teambook’s visual planning board provides a clear, global view of the organization: who’s working on what and when, and who’s available.

This visibility enables each person to see where they stand in the overall schedule, and to understand that their own updates are essential for collective accuracy and workload optimization. Better visibility also helps prevent colleagues from being overloaded or projects from being understaffed, a direct benefit felt by the team.

6. Show the concrete impact of the data (for the team and the organization)

Teams are more motivated to provide data when they understand its usefulness. Explain how up-to-date time and task information is used tooptimize utilization and profitability. Show how this data is crucial for medium-term capacity management and future planning, contributing to the company’s stability and better visibility of their own future workload. Point out that accurate information enables workloads to be analyzed for fair distribution, increasing colleague satisfaction by ensuring that no-one is constantly overworked or under-utilized.

For service companies, emphasize that time updating is essential to ensure that time spent is correctly invoiced, guaranteeing the continuity of the business.

7. Keep time recording as simple as possible

Timesheet entry is often perceived as an administrative chore. To encourage your team, it’s essential to make this process as quick and easy as possible.

Teambook makes this task a whole lot easier, by enabling planned times to be copied with a single click to quickly create timesheets; all the user has to do is change the actual values that differ from what was planned!

Conclusion

Encouraging a team to update its tasks and time doesn’t have to be a constant battle. By adopting methods that simplify the process, offer flexibility, fit into the daily routine and demonstrate the tangible value of data, you can transform this administrative task into a fluid and beneficial element of teamwork.

Using a comprehensive yet simple resource management tool like Teambook, with features such as schedule copy for real time, mobile apps, calendar synchronization, automated reminders, schedule visibility and easy access with no installation or cost per user, can go a long way towards achieving this goal. The benefits are clear, both for the team (greater visibility, fair distribution, simplicity) and for the organization (greater efficiency, improved profitability, reliable planning).

To find out how Teambook can help your team, you can take advantage of a free 30-day trial, with no credit card required.