Credit: elvtimemaster
Time tracking plays a pivotal role in business operations, as organizations leverage time clocks, clock card machines, and digital attendance machines to record the arrival and working hours of employees. With the fallout from COVID-19 forcing office workers to work remotely, companies have turned to time tracking software to monitor employee attendance. Bearing more functionalities than traditional trackers, these tools not only track time; but they also enable users to monitor billable hours, breaks, productivity, leaves, and task durations.
Given their varied competencies, time tracking systems continue to grow in popularity even when the global workforce has started to return to the office. A report by Global Industry Analysts estimates the time tracking software market size to climb from $1.9 billion in 2020 to $5.1 billion by 2027 at an impressive annual growth rate of 15.3%. This implies that more businesses will avail of these platforms despite the dwindling number of days employees get to work remotely.
A Necessity for Hybrid Work
One of the factors increasing the demand for time tracking software is the current dominance of hybrid work. As employees work from home, companies can monitor their workforce’s attendance, tasks, and task progress using these tools. While comprehensive solutions like collaboration software and project management systems sometimes have built-in trackers, stand-alone tools are preferred by many users since these offer more flexibility and integrate with various applications to expand their coverage.
For this year, most offices implement a hybrid work arrangement, which sees employees work from home and in the office for a set number of days per week. A report from Gallup found that the number of hybrid workers has increased from 42% in February to 49% in June and is anticipated to reach 55% by the end of 2022. Time tracking apps are expected to be widely used in this period since traditional time clocks typically aren’t capable of monitoring remote workers.
However, recent work-from-home software statistics reveal that 54% of workers are likely to return to the office by January 2023. Conventional knowledge could lead one to think that this would adversely affect the demand for time tracking software, but there are other factors at play that are expected to buoy the market.
BYOD Drives the Market
A vast majority of companies worldwide have been adopting a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy of some sort and most employees use personal devices while in the workplace. According to Cisco, 95% of organizations permit employees to use personal devices at work, and research from IBM found that 82% of companies believe that smartphones are crucial to business productivity.
With BYOD as a prevailing trend, time tracking applications enter the picture by linking these devices—whether they’re laptops, smartphones, or tablets—to one system that monitors employee attendance, productivity, and task progress. In this way, employees won’t be limited to using office tools or singular devices to complete tasks, with managers observing the entire operational process through the application. This shows that time tracking solutions deliver a lot of value in the office, probably more so than traditional time clocks and attendance machines.
Another factor that works in the favor of the time tracking software market is routine. At the height of the pandemic, a lot of organizations used and got acquainted with the benefits of these solutions. The successes derived from their usage would likely lead to continued subscriptions even when return-to-office mandates are put in in place.
What’s more, bosses have been paranoid about employee productivity ever since the mass adoption of remote and hybrid work arrangements. And time tracking apps enable them to see the progress of each member of the workforce, including team leaders and managers.
Spacious Room for Growth
Surprisingly, despite their numerous benefits, time tracking platforms aren’t as widely used as some SaaS solutions. A study by Timewatch reveals that only one in eight professionals use a dedicated time management system. In addition, 88% of people leverage an assemblage of tools like calendars, to-do lists, emails, and spreadsheets to monitor attendance and productivity.
While this appears like bad news for the time tracking industry, software providers can actually capitalize on the given scenario since their products can consolidate the functions of the aforesaid tools and track time and tasks more efficiently than any of them. Evidently, there is a need for the functionalities of time tracking platforms, with 56% of professionals claiming that they do not have their daily tasks and schedules under control. These tools impart order in the aforesaid areas and populate reports for filing and gathering insights.
The fast-growing time tracking software market size implies that many organizations will eventually discover the benefits of these solutions and leverage them in the long run. Therefore, the software’s adoption rate is bound to pick up this year and in the coming years.
Now, the question is which type of time tracking platform is ideal for most organizations.
On-Premise Vs Cloud-Based
On-premise time tracking solutions have captured the market ever since the technology’s inception. Many of the market’s leading trackers offer downloadable programs that monitor employee shifts and online activity. The on-premise segment, slated to grow annually by 13.3% during the forecast period, is expected to extend its dominance in the next few years.
However, cloud solutions have hit their stride of late and are expected to outpace their downloadable counterparts in terms of growth through 2027. The report by Global Industry Analysis indicates that the cloud-based time tracking software market is projected to expand by 18.4% annually. It could eventually overtake the on-premise market, but this doesn’t mean that cloud-based trackers have all the advantages.
On-premise trackers have the edge with regard to control over data, security, and customizability. These are also less likely to experience downtime since they are reliant on user hardware. On the other hand, using an on-premise solution come with higher fees and more tedious maintenance procedures compared to cloud solutions.
Meanwhile, cloud-based trackers are cheaper, more accessible, require less complex infrastructure, can be implemented instantly, and have better scalability. Their drawbacks include limited customization and the potential for higher fees in the long run.
There is no universally better option between the two types since their performance is relative to the business needs they address. What consumers can do is take advantage of free trials and free plans to see how each tracker performs. If they don’t have time for testing multiple products, they can check product reviews and user comments from various sources to have an idea of how a product performs.
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