As a tech entrepreneur, I’ve always been fascinated by innovation, growth, and how people leverage software in their daily work. New and improved Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions automate and accelerate productivity in many ways, but leaders commonly lack the understanding of how they can improve productivity by using these tools at scale. 

Personally, I am deeply passionate about productivity - this gets me back to time and time efficiency. Software applications have empowered employees to collaborate and work more efficiently. It seemed that each version of boxed software (Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) came along to enrich your workflow, search faster, work faster, and be easier. Next came big tech with their productivity tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Google Docs, and countless others. 

Personally, I was always on the hunt for a faster, better, richer email tool. Also, internal social media, be it Slack, Facebook Workplace or Microsoft Teams made team interactions easier than ever. Slowly, all these tools became more and more integrated - Slack overload became the new email overload, Zoom fatigue is a massive problem… Currently, the employee experience is fraught with simple but time-consuming tasks like the struggle to keep files organized, managing permission rights etc.; not to mention keeping up with digital tool sprawl, and the communication across those platforms as well. This is leading to incredible inefficiency, harming productivity, and is increasingly making work more difficult to get done. 

So why did I start Time is Ltd? 

We are at the beginning of the next stage of “software productivity,” one that is more human and collaborative. I believe that over the next 10 years, advances in innovation will not come from innovating software itself, but rather from human interaction by leveraging the best available software.

Time is the most valuable asset in the world. Software, automation, and AI technology have helped to reduce manual tasks and optimize the use of time. Think about how some processes that used to take 8 - 10 hours have been reduced to  2 - 3 hours; that has and will continually reshape the world. 

What we economists refer to as “productivity” today, is simply output from resources given, but that doesn’t acknowledge the variables of a task being completed easier or faster - which is an important aspect of this equation. 

Examples of this are everywhere in SaaS. Here’s a simple explanation of this idea in the context of a real-world scenario. A prospect signs a contract online via DocuSign which is automatically synced with your CRM system, which then informs the relevant stakeholders via email, and then is celebrated on Slack. This illustrates a fully integrated workflow that would have taken several hours and human resources in the past to complete. Now just think about how many hours are saved with every single interaction like this, every single day - especially if every company worked like this.

Companies aren’t measuring time, and it’s hurting the bottom line.  

Every small and medium-sized business (SMB) to the modern enterprise keeps track of every other business variable (overhead costs, ROI, employee churn, etc.), so why not TIME? Have you ever thought about how much a meeting costs or what senior management can do to free up their employees' time to work on what matters most? A single meeting could cost thousands of dollars - from the number of attendees paid to sit in a chair, and resources spent in preparation for the meeting to the direct cost of keeping employees from doing their work. And that's just ONE meeting. Check out our article on how to improve meeting culture from our data scientist, Ludek Stehlik. 

Consider that this large meeting is on a recurring schedule, and suddenly that becomes a  recurring expense amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. How many meetings have you attended that were a complete waste of time? This puts a direct burden on employees to make up for that lost time. On a massive scale, this has a significant impact on the bottom line, the employee experience, and output…AKA productivity. 

Compared to a decade ago, when it was almost impossible to get these insights, today’s companies have the data readily available at their fingertips. A company can see how well its employees are collaborating through digital tools. In fact, you could gather this information in minutes to understand what’s killing your workforce productivity and optimize accordingly.

The Time is Ltd. platform provides the insights and business intelligence you need to improve the employee experience. 

Time is Ltd. could have saved us hundreds of thousands/millions of dollars.  

I started Time is Ltd. to solve a problem - one I personally experienced as a CEO and Co-Founder at my second venture, Socialbakers (now Emplifi). Leading a fast-growth startup company, I quickly saw the challenge time management posed in our company. In a startup, you have limited resources, and every minute counts. Seeing the high-growth company come to its own productivity and collaboration issues was the biggest pain and challenge. 

I would have been able to make faster, more informed decisions and would have saved millions of dollars in building the company if I had access to the data that Time is Ltd. provides today. 

I urge every business leader / CEO / Chief People Officer - basically, anyone who REALLY cares about their employees - to go beyond empty corporate messaging, and seek to truly understand how their employees collaborate through Employee Experience & Employee Engagement analytics. 

There are 3 important aspects of the employee experience companies should measure to build an effective framework for understanding their productivity. 

1. Understand company time and where it is allocated‍

Look at where every team is spending their time when it comes to collaboration activities. Identify the split between different types of productivity or collaboration methods such as emails, meetings, files, Zoom/ video-conferencing, etc. 

2. Identify efficiency issues

Look at the gaps that might be affecting your productivity and work on fixing them - I think if they frustrate you - maybe they frustrate the rest of the team too. 

3. Redesign your workflow with collaboration data 

Think of Time is Ltd. as the new Google Analytics for company time and efficiency. Business leaders can leverage the next generation of collaboration analytics to improve the employee experience and engagement, boost productivity, build highly effective teams, and efficient companies by maximizing resources. 

The Takeaway 

I started Time is Ltd. to help businesses mitigate inefficiencies across every organization through the use of collaboration data. Reach out to me if you want to improve employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention rates by identifying, and resolving sources of disengagement. I sincerely believe that with more internal insights, business leaders can make even better and more well-informed decisions that drive the employee experience forward, make stakeholders happy, and empower managers, directors, VPs, and C-suite to structure their companies in a way that helps them achieve higher revenue and operate at a lower cost. 

Reach out to me on LinkedIn or get in touch with me directly at Jan@timeisltd.com