The old way of evaluating team workload using handcrafted spreadsheets, anecdotes, and manager intuition is a thing of the past. In an ever-changing and sometimes remote environment, this approach contributes to burnout, unfair distribution of tasks, and inconsistent delivery of projects.
Optimizing team performance for the future begins with analyzing workload intelligently, and TrackDek is paving the way for this paradigmatic transition. Intelligent data replaces guesses to build better planning, balanced distribution of workloads, and revolutionary productivity for teams.
The Shortcomings of Yesterday's Workload Management
Before looking to the future, it is important to recognize the weaknesses of traditional workload management:
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Subjective and Biased: Managers estimate workload by who looks "busy" or who complains the most or the loudest rather than relying on verifiable data, resulting in unfair distribution of tasks.
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Reactive Planning: Issues are only identified and dealt with once a deadline is missed or an employee reports burnout, which is reactive instead of preventive.
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Invisible Work: Time spent on essential yet often untracked activities, such as meetings, mentoring, or administrative duties, is often overlooked and creates invisible deficits in capacity.
- Data Lag: Manual data collection always means workload data is looking in the rearview mirror, and you don’t have the information you need to modify in real time.
Smarter, Faster, Fairer: TrackDek's Workload Analysis
TrackDek changes the way you manage workloads by delivering data that is real-time, objective, and seamlessly integrated into your workflow.
1. Smarter: Data-Driven Productivity
TrackDek goes beyond simply assessing time use by providing actionable intelligence.
- Objective Measurement of Capacity: TrackDek provides real data on the actual time you spent on defined tasks, as opposed to undefined non-task engagement. This means your leader can now assess your actual available capacity for new work beyond mere subjective busy vs. free engagement.
- Identifying Hidden Capacity: TrackDek captures all time worked, even time that occurs in communication apps or required software, that captures invisible work. It will also provide a more precise understanding of resource utilization and identify pockets of time that are easily optimized or reallocated.
- Performance-Time Association: The system assists in linking time spent with output attained. This association is fundamental to data-driven implementation, helping managers know not only who is doing the work but also how effectively work is being performed.
2. Quicker: Real-Time Management
For dynamic teams, the speed of insight is very valuable. TrackDek ensures you manage work before burdens get too heavy.
- Live Workload Visualization: Managers have a live dashboard showing even now who is assigned what work, what their estimated time to complete is, and who is actively waiting for their work to be complete. This means, as a manager, they can promptly identify work backlogs and reallocations or the opposite.
- Proactively Eliminating Bottlenecks: If one team member has spent considerably more time on a task than estimated, TrackDek would notify that there is no longer an accurate estimate on the task, allowing the manager to reassign work, pull that team member off of the task, or adjust the schedule for the project so the project can still continue.
- Effortless Time Tracking Software: Employees simply log time to each task with very minimal effort, ensuring that the data providing the workload analysis is fresh and accurate each time...no factor-related lag time.
3. More Fair: Equitable Distribution of Responsibilities
Equity is the most important component of any high-performance team. When there is faith in the process, employee engagement increases.
- Equity-Based Distribution: Managers can offer rationale for every task on project assignments in the form of information about previous performance and capacity supplies, which omits bias and guarantees work is ascribed based on ability and availability, supporting equity in workload distribution.
- Prevention of employee burnout: If an employee continues to work past the standard workday or is spending an inordinate amount of time on highly complex work, TrackDek can alert the manager early on, allowing them to check in with the employee, rebalance work, or reinforce deep work and help ensure employee health and engagement with the ever-evolving modern workforce tools.
- Objective employee performance evaluations: Data around workload supplies an objective basis for discussion of employee performance, rewarding workers who continuously contribute based on measurable contributions and outcomes.
Reimagining Workload Management
The future of workload analysis is about leveraging integrated data to build an environment of trust and enable an efficient organization. TrackDek equips you with the workload management tools to keep your team effectively operating at their best, optimizing for balance, fairness, and ultimately, increased success.
