One of the best things about working in the city is being able to get out for a run at lunchtime. A great way to split up the day.
In some ways working in an an office makes life a bit easier because it puts some boundaries around your time.
These days 80% of people want to work from home, so you know it’s here to stay because the best organisations want to attract and keep the best people.
Working from home is brilliant, you get to make more sensible decisions about the use of your time: run when it suits you best, drop the kids at school, work after they go to bed. This has probably allowed the biggest increase in productivity for professional people in years, and will also allow them to be lot happier. Maybe lawyers will be able to marry someone that’s not a lawyer.
Amongst the trends we can expect to see is a more flexible approach to expected hours. Part time work doesn’t have to be for new mums. People could work for a few different companies and reduce some of their personal risk. Like a portfolio.
So expect to see a further blurring of the lines between employees and contractors. This is going to be a huge issue in the next few years. California just voted to keep Uber drivers as contractors, not employees with benefits like healthcare. The HR issues around all of this are many and complex. Make sure you have good advice. Make sure you have a good payroll provider (no-one with less than 200 employees should do it in house anymore because of the compliance complexities).
But, CFO hat on, make sure that all your people use timesheets, and they complete them everyday. You don’t have to track every 6 minutes. For most people 15 to 30 minute blocks are fine.
It will be the most important data you will every collect. Not just for compliance and payroll, although I struggle to understand how you could do that effectively without them, but for the valuable insights into your biggest costs. There are plenty of simple systems you can use these days.
Absolutely use other important tracking methods for your client work but I still maintain that because you are paying people ostensibly by the hour you need to measure who worked hours when, on what, and why.
Enjoy the great outdoors.