8 effective ways to remind employees to submit timesheets on time

Establish submission deadlines

Setting deadlines is essential so employees get a sense of routine and understand the consequences of not finishing this task on time. You can help your employees with the whole process in many ways and ensure no one suffers. The worst thing you can do is let your employees ignore their duties until it’s too late, so regular reminders are important. In the next part, you can read about some good methods of keeping your employees organized and helping them fill out timesheets on time.

8 easiest ways to remind employees

Many people wait until the very last moment, resulting in delays and inaccurate submissions. Reminding your employees regularly helps prevent forgetfulness and excuses. This can be done in a very non-stressful and even motivating way.

Send automated company-wide emails

Sending automated emails is a reliable way to remind your employees. The subject matter can be light-hearted. Make sure people have the motivation to open and read the email. Use an emoji, joke, or anything to make the email stand out and appear more friendly so the person wants to read and remember it. It’s wise to change your emails regularly, as people get used to repetitive emails and stop reacting to them. It’s also wise to consider the best time to send your emails so they don’t get drowned in other emails and accidentally ignored.

Create a shared calendar reminder

A friendly reminder is the best solution to help employees keep track of their duties. Set it on time, a few days before the deadline, or even a week. Regular reminders can be helpful but shouldn't be too frequent, as it may feel overwhelming. Adding a note with some tips to the reminder is an excellent way to communicate and appear more involved.

Show reminders in your time-tracking application

Utilizing a time-tracking application will help you with the whole timesheet process significantly, including reminders. Most software and applications should have various customizations and ways to automatically send out reminders on the phone, by email, etc.

Send personalized email reminder

Making the message personal will make the recipient feel more involved, and they may react better. People mustn’t forget the message, and making it more suitable for them will help. Also, everyone prefers reading personalized emails rather than common, bland ones. According to Inbox Insights, 60% of the most successful email marketers consider personalization one of the best ways to increase engagement, as emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

Send automated chat message

Get to know your employees' favorite communication method and use this to your benefit. For example, if you have a company chat, it should be possible to send an automated message or inform them more personally. After all, reminders are useless if nobody sees them.

Use mobile notifications

Everyone relies heavily on their mobile phone these days. When you send a message to your employees’ phones, you can be almost sure they will notice it. However, depending on this method too much is not a good idea, as you don’t want to come out as annoying and exhausting. Protecting the “right to disconnect” is important, as you can accidentally cause additional stress if you send too many notifications in your employees’ free time.

Remind employees verbally

Of course, communication is the key, and just because we have technologies to help us communicate better doesn’t mean you should dismiss communication in person.

Offer an incentive

When your employees submit timesheets precisely and on time, don’t forget to acknowledge this. Express your appreciation so they stay motivated and feel good about a finished task. Positive affirmations can go a long way regarding your employees’ behavior and motivation.

Simplify the time-keeping process

Even with established rules, some other issues may occur. For example, an Adobe study shows that 56% of enterprise workers and 65% of SMB leaders find filling out timesheets a leading distraction from actual work. On top of that, deadlines can be stressful, and many people have trouble filling their timesheets correctly.

However, there are many ways to eliminate all these problems. Get a timesheet software that will fill out everything automatically for your employees or at least make the process much easier. As a result, your employees will always have their timesheets filled out in time, and they will be much more precise. Good software should provide you with many ways to customize your time-tracking process so the timesheets get filled accordingly and on time - which can be uncommon with the usual methods.