How to Track Employee Tasks and Time: A Practical Guide for Modern Teams

Managing a team without visibility into tasks and time is like flying blind. Projects slip, hours go unaccounted, and nobody knows who's overloaded until someone burns out.

This guide covers practical strategies for tracking employee tasks and time—without creating a surveillance culture that kills morale.

Why Tracking Tasks and Time Actually Matters

Before diving into the "how," let's address the elephant in the room: tracking isn't about micromanagement. Done right, it solves real problems:

• Accurate client billing — Agencies and consultants need precise hours for invoicing
• Payroll accuracy — Hourly employees deserve correct pay
• Project estimation — Past data helps predict future timelines
• Workload balance — Spot who's drowning before they quit
• Compliance — Many industries require time records for audits

The goal isn't surveillance. It's visibility that helps everyone do their job better.

The Two Sides of Employee Tracking

1. Time Tracking (When people work)

This covers:

• Clock in/out times
• Hours worked per day, week, month
• Break time and overtime
• Attendance patterns
• Timesheet generation for payroll

2. Task Tracking (What people work on)

This covers:

• Assigned tasks and deadlines
• Progress status (not started, in progress, done)
• Time spent per task or project
• Blockers and dependencies
• Workload distribution across the team

The magic happens when you combine both—you see not just that someone worked 8 hours, but what they accomplished in those hours.

5 Methods to Track Employee Tasks and Time

Method 1: Manual Spreadsheets (Free, but painful)

How it works: Employees fill in a Google Sheet or Excel file with their hours and tasks.

Pros:

• Zero cost
• Full control over format
• No new tools to learn

Cons:

• Easy to forget or fudge
• No automated reporting
• Time-consuming to maintain
• No real-time visibility

Best for: Solo freelancers or teams under 3 people.

Method 2: Project Management Tools with Built-in Time Tracking

How it works: Tools like Asana, Monday, or ClickUp let you log time against specific tasks.

Pros:

• Tasks and time in one place
• Visual boards and progress tracking
• Team collaboration features

Cons:

• Often expensive per seat ($10-30/user/month)
• Can be overwhelming with features
• Time tracking is often an afterthought
• Requires discipline to log time

Best for: Project-focused teams who need robust task management.

Method 3: Dedicated Time Tracking Software

How it works: Apps like Toggl, Clockify, or Harvest focus purely on logging hours.

Pros:

• Simple and focused
• Good reporting and exports
• Often have free tiers

Cons:

• Separate from task management
• Still requires manual start/stop
• No context on what the time was spent doing

Best for: Teams that already have task management covered elsewhere.

Method 4: Chat-Based Tracking (Teams/Slack Bots)

How it works: Employees clock in/out and update tasks directly from their existing chat apps.

Pros:

• Lowest friction—no new app to open
• Works across timezones automatically
• Reminders happen where people already are
• Often includes automated timesheet generation

Cons:

• Depends on team already using Teams/Slack
• May have fewer advanced reporting features

Best for: Remote and hybrid teams who live in Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Method 5: Automated Tracking (Screenshot/Activity Monitoring)

How it works: Software runs in the background capturing activity, screenshots, or app usage.

Pros:

• Requires no employee action
• Detailed activity logs

Cons:

• Creates surveillance culture
• Damages trust and morale
• Privacy concerns (especially in EU)
• Measures activity, not outcomes

Best for: Specific compliance scenarios only. Generally avoid.

Best Practices for Tracking Without Killing Morale

1. Be Transparent About What You Track

Tell your team exactly what data you collect and why. "We track hours for accurate payroll and project estimates" lands very differently than mysterious monitoring.

2. Focus on Outcomes, Not Activity

A great employee might solve a problem in 2 hours that takes someone else 8. Track progress on goals, not just time at desk.

3. Keep It Low-Friction

Every extra step reduces compliance. If logging time requires opening a separate app, navigating menus, and filling forms—people won't do it consistently.

4. Use the Data to Help, Not Punish

When you spot someone working excessive hours, offer support—don't just demand more output. Data should identify problems to solve, not employees to blame.

5. Give Employees Access to Their Own Data

Let people see their own hours, patterns, and productivity. It makes tracking feel collaborative rather than authoritarian.

What to Look for in a Tracking Solution

When evaluating tools, consider:

Combining Task and Time Tracking: The Ideal Setup

The most effective approach tracks both tasks and time in one place, with:

1. Simple clock in/out — One click, ideally from where employees already work
2. Task boards — Visual kanban or list view for work items
3. Automatic associations — Time logged connects to specific projects
4. Workload visibility — Managers see who has capacity and who's overloaded
5. Automated reporting — Timesheets and summaries generated without manual work

This gives you complete visibility without constant check-ins or status meetings.

A Note on Remote and Hybrid Teams

Tracking is especially important—and challenging—for distributed teams:

• Timezones complicate attendance — 9am in New York is different from 9am in Singapore
• Async work means flexible hours — "Online time" doesn't equal "productive time"
• Isolation affects wellbeing — Hours worked doesn't show if someone's struggling

The best solutions for remote teams include timezone-aware scheduling, flexible attendance policies, and ideally some way to check in on team wellbeing—not just productivity.

Putting It Into Practice

If you're starting from scratch:

1. Define what you need — Is it just payroll hours? Project billing? Team visibility? All of the above?
2. Choose one tool — Don't make employees log time in multiple places
3. Start simple — Basic clock in/out and task lists. Add complexity only when needed.
4. Communicate the why — Explain to your team how this helps them, not just management
5. Review and adjust — Check monthly if the data is useful and the process isn't burdensome

Worth Considering: Asa.Team

If your team already uses Microsoft Teams or Slack and you want something that handles both tasks and time without adding another app to manage, Asa.Team is worth a look.

It's a bot-first approach—employees clock in, manage tasks, and check schedules directly from their existing chat app. Timesheets generate automatically, and there's built-in wellness tracking that surfaces when someone might be heading toward burnout (without invasive monitoring).

There's a free tier for teams up to 5 people if you want to test it.

Final Thoughts

Tracking employee tasks and time doesn't have to feel like surveillance. The best systems are low-friction, transparent, and use data to support your team—not control them.

Start with clarity on what you're trying to achieve, pick one tool that fits naturally into your workflow, and focus on outcomes over activity. Your team will appreciate the structure, and you'll finally have visibility into how work actually gets done.