Timesheet Efficiency When I started out my working career in consulting we had paper timesheets. These were (supposedly) to be filled in daily, submitted weekly, and data from them entered into accounting system monthly. However, people being people, accountant only checked them once a month, so they were generally only submitted once a month, and thus usually only filled in once a month when prompted by project managers. This resulted in inaccurate and late timesheet information.

This affected billing, time and materials projects would take up to four weeks to be invoiced, and thus it could be up to 60 days before payment was received. Why then are some companies constantly challenged with getting employees to accurately complete their timesheets while other firms have no problems? The difference is usually leadership and data ease of data entry. Most consulting companies employ skilled intelligent people, and a manager who fills in his timesheet information promptly and accurately can legitimately expect his staff to do so. However if system is cumbersome and difficult to use then there will be constant conflict.

Easy to use computerized timesheet systems mean more employees are successfully filling out timesheets as they work rather than writing time into a diary or calendar and then transferring information at end of week (or month). It has been well proven that debtors are easier to manager and projects more easily monitored closer that timesheet information is processed and invoiced to time work is carried out. It is just much more simple to collect all your billable hours (more chargeable time!) if employees record their work as they do it.

If you’re a supervisor, you can’t possibly handle all of work of your department directly. That’s why effective delegating is one of most vital skills you can possess. In fact, it’s absolutely crucial to your success.

Consider these words by steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie: "The secret of success is not in doing your own work, but in recognizing right man to do it."

So what exactly is delegating? It’s simply act of entrusting an activity to another person. More specifically, delegation is downward transfer of formal authority from superior to subordinate. You empower an employee to act for you, while you remain accountable for outcome.

Effective delegation involves following process: working with an employee to establish goals, granting them sufficient authority and responsibility to accomplish goals, often giving them freedom to decide how goals will be achieved, being available as a resource to help them with assignment, and evaluating and rewarding their performance.

Benefits of Delegating If you’re a new supervisor, delegation can be a major challenge because you might be apprehensive about giving up control or lack confidence in others’ abilities. But effective delegating offers a variety of benefits. It will free up some of your time, enhance your leadership skills, plus help subordinates expand their capabilities — all of which will benefit your company overall.

Nine Steps to Effective Delegating To help you delegate more effectively, here are some suggestions from Thomas R. Horton, author of Delegation and Team Building: No Solo Acts Please, and other experts:

1. Decide what tasks need to be delegated. Delegate any task — from administrative to technical — that someone else can perform better. Hand off jobs you dislike most, that are least critical to performance of your job or that will provide valuable experience for subordinates. But never delegate any task that would violate someone else’s privacy. 2. Choose right person for job. Assess skills and capabilities of subordinates and assign task to most appropriate person. Be sure to delegate entire task because this gives subordinate added responsibility and increases their motivation.