“Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.” ~ Joy Gumz

Project managers face an enormous task ensuring the delivery of products and services. They can make their lives easier if they have project management software to help them.

This article will help them realize the significance of using this productivity app. Let’s discuss some of the benefits that they will generate from its use.

1. Faster Onboarding and Training of Employees
2. Better Management of Workloads
3. Tracking of employee time and estimates for compensation
4. Quick Analysis of Hours Worked Data
5. Improved Planning
6. Manage Expectations of Customers
7. Final Thoughts

Faster Onboarding and Training of Employees

A project management software has a calendar and file administration features that can help HR to onboard employees faster. New hires can have their profile pages where the human resource staff can share and store essential documents such as vacation lists, employee handbooks, payroll info, and medical benefits forms. A to-do list can have priority tasks for new hires.

The software can also be a central location for new hires to fill out and submit forms. There’s no time wasted in writing and sending several emails for every task. The calendar feature can alert new employees about meetings, upcoming training, and even company events.

Better Management of Workloads

Project management provides resource planning, forecasting capabilities, and resource utilization report. HR managers can understand the task assignment of each employee through the reporting feature. It shows details such as payroll, onboarding, time used on recruitment and compliance assurance to help identify issues and set realistic targets and objectives.

HR managers have a quick way of knowing the different skill sets of their workers to ensure that they have adequate staff for each job requirement. They can allocate administrative tasks to junior HR associates, and senior HR employees can perform other necessary tasks, such as training and compensation management.

Understanding resource availability is another feature of project management software. HR has an idea of the capabilities of each employee to handle a task. It’s possible to assess which tasks take up a lot of time.

Tracking of employee time and estimates for compensation

A project management application may have time-tracking features for quick creation of hours worked reports. It can provide automatic and manual monitoring of employees. For automatic tracking, the app runs in the background and records onscreen activities. It can monitor the time an employee spends creating a document, reading emails, or browsing a website. For manual monitoring, it allows him to record his login and logout times digitally.

If the company has freelance workers, it can use the automatic time-capture feature to compute compensation based on the actual time spent on a specific project. Small-scale businesses that have project-based works can use it to track billable hours to serve as benchmark salaries for their workers.

This software also allows HR to visualize the data through online timesheets for a quick understanding of total hours worked per employee, as well as financial details like unbilled and billed tasks.

Quick Analysis of Hours Worked Data

Timesheet administration is an excellent feature of project management apps because HR can categorize tasks to assess their significance to the company. They can keep track of billable and non-billable activities to gain an essential understanding of the work quality that employees render and how it affects the delivery of services and projects. Data analysis across skillsets, roles, and departments can highlight problems with the business structure or identify areas that need improvement.

It is also vital for HR to have an open viewpoint because other factors, such as project status, planning efficiency, and manager performance, can contribute to employee utilization and productivity.

Improved Planning

Using the generated timesheets, HR can also assess planning efficiency. An employee who only utilizes 10% of his time on billable work may not be underperforming. It may be due to poor planning. Productivity and utilization figures don’t represent the business status, the efficiency of the managers, and the present workload.

An excellent resource scheduling software and project planning software can help supervisors assign tasks and deliverables efficiently. They also offer some valuable information on the designed usage and output of each worker. It’s effortless to analyze Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as planned vs. completed deliverables and proposed and actual utilization. Management has an accurate picture of employee performance.

Scheduling and planning balance the resources, determine poorly utilized resources and identify future training requirements and skills shortages that can affect future utilization and productivity.

Manage Expectations of Customers

Implementing project management software and timesheet software can also manage customers’ expectations regarding project delivery. The Sales Team may eagerly sell a product or service without providing realistic time frames or estimates. Project managers may not have highlighted the acceptance criteria, deliverables, and risks, which lead to a general reduction of employee productivity. Account managers may have to deal with constant customer issues instead of upselling. Project team members may spend time firefighting issues instead of focusing on the essential deliverable.

Implement a process for project management is vital for the business for full encapsulation of the service or product delivery methodology from the initial inquiry to project delivery. Ensuring that everyone involved in the service and product delivery process has a solid understanding of the scope, deliverables, risks, and acceptance criteria can lead to fewer budget overruns, less slippage, and fewer project issues. Managers can focus on more productive work.

Final Thoughts

Project managers need not find their professional lives stressful because they can use productivity tools to help them. Project management software can be useful for the onboarding and training of employees and improved workload management. It can also track employee productivity for analysis. This app can also help improve planning and manage customer expectations.

Author's Bio: Alina Burokova is a professional writer with extensive experience. Aside from writing articles about project management, she’s also writing PrepScholar reviews about their courses to help students to prep for tests in the US. She always strives to provide compelling content.