"My customers took to it really easy and they actually use it. Most of them are impressed with the leadership our organization is showing by using the system. It has made a big difference in how our customers view us."

- Travis Browne
Founder
Foundation K9

Juggling Job-Share Employees with Web Based Project Management Software

In a recent article regarding seven major job trends for 2006 - 2008, careerbuilder.com's CEO Matt Ferguson notes that more flexible work arrangements are in every company's future. Job sharing is one of the trends that many employees value, where two workers share the 40-hour work week for one full-time position, piggybacking off one another to get the tasks of one job done.

Web-based time tracking software is ideal for the job sharing situation. "Without communication between the job sharers, neither the employees nor the boss knows exactly who is responsible for what part of the shared job or tasks" says Entrepreneur.com's David Javitch, the Employee Management Columnist.

Javitch adds that the ideal job-sharing employees will act much like nurses, who at the beginning and end of each shift, carve out time to fully inform the person taking over for them about the tasks in progress and any critical needs they need to address that day.

"If your workers don't do this or don't do this completely, information may be lost and/or misinformation may be communicated," Javitch warns.

Looking for task management software and other resources?

With a web-based time tracking software package that includes public messaging, tasks, milestones and project management, your job-share employees will be able to keep each other and you up to date with every task in your project, in addition to being able to keep track of all time spent.

Another potential challenge, Javitch adds, is that sometimes one of the job sharers is not available to respond to inquiries or an action because he or she is not physically present. The result could be a delay in communicating or delay in productivity.

Again, the perfect way to solve this problem is to make sure both of the job sharers are keeping the online project management system up to date. In addition, during critical times in the stage of a project, you may have to ask both job sharers to keep in touch via e-mail so they can receive messages from the web-based project management system.

Ferguson adds, "Work/life balance is a major buzzword among US employers as employees struggle to balance heavy workloads and long hours with personal commitments." With almost half of US employers open to the idea of more flexible schedules and the need for good workers increasing as the pool of talent decreases, managers need tools such as web-based time tracking software to be able to deal with these flexible schedules and to accommodate the needs of the employees they need.