According to Stephanie Kirschner, Executive Director of the Society for Design Administration, one of the things she always hears from A/E/C administrators is, “What can we do to get our staff to submit their time sheet on time?”

We had the same conversation during the financial management segment of the BusinessTRAK workshop (held at the new Center for Architecture & Design on April 26, 2016).

What can you do to get your staff to submit their time sheet on time? Try these tips (some a little risky, some a little funny, some very effective):

• Public Recognition: Who doesn’t love a gold star (or a thumbs up)? Publicly praise those who turn in their time sheets on time. If you don’t want to display an elementary school style rewards chart, a company-wide email or shout-out during an all-staff meeting has the same effect.
• Bribe Them: Offer them cookies (or any delicious, sweet concoction) if they turn their time sheet in on time. And for those who also don’t have any time sheet errors, they get two cookies.
• Public Humiliation: Announce over the PA system, “May I have your attention, please? [insert employees’ names here], please turn in your time sheets now. You are the last [insert number here, e.g., 3] employees who haven’t responded to our repeated requests.”
• Explain Why: Do your staff know why they need to turn in time sheets in a timely manner? Maybe if they understood the correlation between you being able to track their time and rightfully billing your client in a timely manner, maybe they’ll start responding to your call-for-time-sheets.
• Punishment: While it is illegal to withhold pay, you can delay it for a few hours, or make it inconvenient for them to get by switching from direct deposit to a manual check, for instance. Or, make the time sheet procrastinators pick up their paycheck from their boss upon completion of their time sheet. (How many times do you think they would willingly do that before they started turning in their time sheet on time?)
• Department Competition: Pit each department against each other in a fun, friendly competition. The first team to get all their time sheets turned in by the deadline gets served ice cream cones by the losing department. The winning team gets an extra 30 minutes for lunch. The winning team gets an afternoon snack, or tickets to a ballgame, or gets to decide which charity is sponsored, or . . . whatever you can think of that will get the departments excited about winning.