Rob Bertholf

Time Doctor allows me to monitor the team's efficiency.

Rob Bertholf

Bertholf Consulting

Can you tell us a bit about your company? What do you do?

Bertholf Consulting provides a range of web marketing & technology solutions. One of our divisions is the WordPress plugin division where our most successful WordPress plugin is RB Agency. This plugin provides modeling & talent agencies a solution to streamline their business operations. It is used by hundreds of companies all over the world and is translated into 8 languages.

Before using Time Doctor, I had some difficulties tracking timeline of projects for my report and payroll.

Can you tell us how you use Time Doctor in your company and what the benefits are from using the tool?

I'm using Time Doctor to manage the team. Time Doctor allows me to monitor the team's efficiency. By using Time Doctor, I'm able to monitor my team's work timeline - what they are working on, what they are viewing, and what they have accomplished so far. Time Doctor helps increase our productivity because my team focuses more on their tasks since they know I'm aware of their activities on their computers and turning Time Doctor off to view non-related work will result in reduced pay. Since Time Doctor also has the Projects feature, I can review all of the previous tasks and timeline for all of our projects which helps me create our payroll.

Do you have any stories about using Time Doctor in your company? Any examples of how you used it with your team and what happened?

Yes. Before using Time Doctor, I tried all sorts of project management tools which unfortunately didn't help me much in increasing our productivity. My team is hardworking but like every team without accountability and oversight, it is hard to maximize our productivity. Prior to using Time Doctor it was hard to be informed without constantly pinging them on messenger. Several years ago I had found out about this amazing software called Time Doctor. I had everyone install it. And boom! On that very same day, I recorded screenshots and saw that some of our employees were using Facebook and YouTube. I was able to warn them and remove the logged time. This has increased our team's efficiency and accountability.

How many staff do you have and where do they live? Are they in an office or working from home?

The RBPlugin division has four full time employees who work remotely from home.

What challenges did you have before that are now solved by using Time Doctor in your company?

Before using Time Doctor, I had some difficulties tracking the timeline of projects for my report and payroll. I also had very little oversight of my employees' time allocation.

What other software and tools do you use in your business that you can recommend?

Currently, we're using Skype to communicate daily tasks and Trello for project management.

What other advice can you give people about working with a remote team?

When working with a remote team, one must figure out what works best to keep the teams productive and motivated. It's important to have an open line of communication. Create a Skype group chat (we've also used Slack) to keep everyone in the loop but make sure it will not be distracting with too much chatter coming through. Time Doctor is one tool I would recommend to help keep things on track and monitor the team without the need to breathe down their necks. It is important to create a systematized approach to projects. We use Trello for tracking projects. This tool gives me an idea of what tickets are open, what projects are pending, and what work is in progress. Finally, we've found that by paying team members above market rates, we've increased quality and retention. There are a lot of people who want to work virtually and many will do so at a reduced rate, however we believe in taking care of our team so that they will take care of us. This approach has resulted in low turnover and most of the team has been with us since we opened the division nearly 5 years ago.