10 Time Tracking Statistics to Learn From

Accurate time tracking is one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal when it comes to monitoring the pulse of your business. In order to have a true understanding of an organization's efficiency and identify any weak spots in operational methods, it's vital that business owners use the data at their fingertips to track how work hours are actually being used!  

To prove that point, we’ve collected ten time management statistics from across several industries that highlight the reality that businesses face. These statistics show that good time management can have an astounding impact across multiple areas of a business, from employee retention to overall productivity and more! Read on or contact our team at Horizon today to learn more. 

Benefits of Good Time Management for Your Business

Study after study has shown that effective time management can have cascading positive effects for both small and large businesses alike. Whether business owners are managing teams of five to ten people or are overseeing corporations that employ thousands, good time management practices can help boost productivity, save time and cost on payroll, and keep good people on board with you. Implementing these practices might seem challenging, but nearly every metric proves that it’s well worth the effort! 

Ensure Accuracy with Payroll and Working Hours

Inaccurate payroll records cost businesses untold amounts of wasted money and time each year. In addition to the time spent rectifying mistakes and addressing the issues those mistakes cause, like missed payroll deadlines or inaccurate pay to employees, poor time management can also interfere with the accurate tracking of working hours. This is obviously an essential aspect of business compliance, especially where overtime work and underage employees are concerned. Errors on those fronts can lead to costly fines and other trouble with governmental agencies. 

Boost Productivity for Your Company

Another benefit of accurate time tracking is increased productivity across the board. Good time-tracking practices can help your business identify areas where time is wasted or hours could be better spent for improved productivity. This can range from catching onto and stopping time theft to cutting out nonessential meetings and other tasks that don't contribute to your production goals.   

10 Time Management Statistics to Learn From

In order to truly understand the value of good time-tracking practices, it's important to look at industry-wide trends and identify how those trends could apply to your business and operational model. As stated above, we've compiled ten time management statistics that we think are worth exploring – primarily because they highlight how much time, money, and overall productivity can be lost without good time-tracking strategies. As you read through these statistics, take the time to apply them to your own organization and see if any of these could be affecting your productivity. 

1) 43% of Hourly Workers Admit to Time Theft

This first stat is a startling one – as many as 43% of hourly employees surveyed in a recent poll admitted to time theft of one kind or another, from misrepresented hours to taking extra time on paid breaks and more. These seemingly small shortfalls add up; time theft is one of the leading causes of financial loss in the HR area! In fact, businesses lose about $50 billion each year to time theft, and that number is only increasing. Good time tracking practices, like time audits and effective tracking of total time for your employees, can help save you these lost profits. 

2) The Average American Employee Logs 38.7 Hours per Week

As of 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average employee working in America logs 38.7 hours per week, just shy of the “standard” 40 hours most of us associate with full-time employment. This equates to about 7.74 hours per day. It’s important to remember that this number is the average, and includes part-time employees in addition to full-time workers.  

Still, this statistic shows that the majority of the country spends close to 8 hours per day at work, which highlights the importance of accurately tracking that time over the months and years.  

3) Almost 50% of Employees Leave a Job After Two Payroll Errors

This statistic reinforces the role that an efficient and effective HR department can have in overall employee retention – something businesses throughout the country are still struggling with as we lean into 2024. 77% of businesses report struggling to fill open positions, and other surveys show that as many as 31% of employees quit a position within the first six months of being hired. This statistic shows that team members are incredibly likely to leave an organization after only two payroll errors, and we think the average person can empathize. Retain your team by implementing good time-tracking practices that prevent these kinds of errors.  

4) An Average Worker is Only Productive for Roughly 3 Hours Per Day

This startling statistic is true, applies to a variety of industries and organizations, and, thankfully, is addressable! Employee productivity reports across the board show that the average worker is only truly making good headway on their tasks for about 3 hours a day – less than half of the time they're actually on shift. That number seems low on its own, but when compounded on a daily basis, the true amount of lost productivity and time throughout the course of a year can be staggering. Whether this time is lost to employees scrolling social media during work time or your organization not focusing team members on specific tasks throughout the day, improving your time tracking can help identify where this time is being wasted and how it can be recovered. 

5) Roughly 15% of a Company's Time is Spent on Meetings

Nearly everyone in a corporate setting has been involved in a meeting that could have been an email, but this statistic drives home how much time companies can spend on non-production activities. Meetings have their uses, but it’s important to remember that they should be goal-oriented and on-task in order to reduce wasted time – this is especially true for small businesses and those that do remote work. One hour a day for a recurring meeting might not seem like much at first, but that time adds up! 

6) 'Buddy Punching' Costs Businesses Roughly $373M Per Year

As this statistic indicates, buddy punching significantly contributes to time theft and can cost businesses a significant amount of money throughout the year. When one employee regularly clocks in another who is not yet onsite and ready to work, those minutes of paid time with zero productivity add up fast. Time audits are an excellent way to get a handle on buddy punching and similar time theft strategies before they start really digging into your organization's profits.  

7) Nearly 10 Hours Per Month is Spent on Manual Payroll Processing

In another blow for outdated manual payroll systems, this statistic shows how much time is wasted when an organization manually tracks billable hours for different tasks and inputs them into a payroll system each month. This kind of administrative work is unproductive and, due to the manual nature of the process, can result in costly errors! Modern automated tracking systems can speed up this process and reduce or eliminate potential mistakes altogether.    

8) 73% of Organizations Say They Prefer Automated Time Tracking Software

Automated time tracking has become the winning strategy for time management in the last decade, and this survey proves it! Businesses across every industry and of nearly every size are discovering that they can save time, lower costs, and improve their overall efficiency and accuracy by cutting down their to-do lists and investing in automated time-tracking tools for their organizations.   

9) 22% of the American Workforce is Projected to Be Remote by 2025

Before the pandemic, only about 7% of Americans worked from home. That number skyrocketed to as high as 55% in October 2020 before settling back down to 14% in 2023. Now, sites like Upwork estimate that more organizations will offer remote work opportunities leading into 2025. Remote workers can be challenging to monitor accurately, especially where timekeeping is concerned. If your organization is bringing on more remote staff, it's important to be ready to manage their time and productivity data.  

10) Around 38% of US Employees Still Use Paper Timesheets

Despite the rise in popularity of time-tracking software and other automated time-tracking tools, a significant portion of the country's businesses still rely on paper time sheets for tracking time. Considering the earlier statistics regarding how much time is spent each month manually processing this information, there are countless hours being spent on administrative work throughout the country that could be shifted to other, more critical tasks if these businesses made the leap to automated tracking software.  

Horizon is a Trusted Partner for Businesses Across the Country

Whether your organization needs a refresh on its time management skills or you’re ready to invest in automated software that eliminates the hassle and multiplies your productivity, Horizon is here to be your trusted HR partner! For decades, we’ve helped businesses across a variety of industries boost their efficiency and improve their focus through our industry-leading payroll and time-tracking solutions. 

Top-Rated Solutions for Time Tracking, Payroll, and More

From automated time management systems to comprehensive tracking tools and more, our solutions are designed to get your organization where it needs to be with no hassle! Our intuitive software makes payroll processing a breeze, and our variety of HR tools ensures that we have an answer to the issues your business might be facing. 

We Tailor Our Services to Your Unique Business

Our services are designed to accommodate a wide range of business needs and are customizable and scalable to your unique business and the challenges you’re dealing with. Whether you need a completely automated time tracking system that handles all of your payroll needs or you’re looking for ways to improve your employees’ efficiency, we’re here to help! 

Expertise in the Field for Over Two Decades

For the past two decades, we’ve worked with organizations across nearly every industry and size, from large operations to small local shops. In that time, we’ve developed a unique understanding of what our clients need from us, and we’ve designed our services from the ground up to meet those needs. 

Contact Us Today for More Information

To learn more about our top-rated HR and payroll services, contact our team at Horizon today!