Email the Editor    Email a Friend    Print this Page 

Imagine its 4:30 in the afternoon and you've already mentally checked out of the office, daydreaming of the weekend that awaits you. Suddenly your Inbox chime goes off and you snap back to reality when you read a message that goes something like this:

"Hello. Your goal was to work on your project for five hours today, but you've only logged three and a half hours. Are you sure you've correctly accounted for all the time you spent in the office today? Love, Ogre."

After seeing the signature at the end of this message, you'd probably think it was a joke.

But employees at Union Street Media in Burlington, Vt. know to take the message seriously – in fact, working with Ogre is a part of working at the Web design firm every day.

It's not a derogatory nickname for an office grump, but an in-house software tool for tracking productivity.  

"Time tracking is like flossing your teeth. You know it's good for you, but no one wants to do it," says Andy Vota, vice-president of Union Street Media. "A machine doesn't forget and there's no emotion – it's going to e-mail you at 4:30 every day if you haven't logged your time."

The Web site design and marketing firm focuses on high-end Web sites for realtors. The small company, located in a refurbished former schoolhouse, has 16 full-time employees and six part-time workers or contractors.

The need to develop an in-house tool for time tracking was felt when the company realized it had difficulty billing its clients based on how much time staff were spending on each project, according to Ted Adler, founder of Union Street Media.

Now Union Street is able to automatically generate invoices based on time dedicated to a project.

"Earlier it was so time consuming, we used to invoice quarterly," he says. "Now we're doing it monthly or even weekly."

The results are an improved cash flow, and invoices sent to clients more often and for lesser amounts. In addition customers can see a detailed list of exactly how long was spent on a task, what the task was, and who performed the work.

"That makes for happier customers," Adler says.

In times of economic uncertainty, the company sees staff productivity as more important than ever. The Ogre project started just one year ago, when the warning signs of economic troubles were just starting to be made apparent. Now a recession seems imminent.

share: