The Challenge
Starting a business project and doing so well that you soon have to double or even triple your staff seems like the dream of any entrepreneur. And that's exactly what happened to SEO in House, an SEO and online marketing agency that already has 28 employees and offices in Barcelona and Girona.
But such rapid growth is not without its problems. In fact, it multiplies them exponentially. One of them was to find a system that would improve the time management of their growing team, as well as help them distribute tasks and projects efficiently and fairly.
"We were going crazy handling a lot of excel documents with ambiguous and unreliable data. It was chaos because we realized that what was recorded in the spreadsheets did not match the reality of the work done for clients. The result was mistrust in the team and a lot of turnover," recalls Raquel Vidal, General Manager of SEO in House."
The solution
The solution came almost four years ago, thanks to WorkMeter and its EffiWork and WorkProject software, which were perfectly adapted to the needs of this young company.
?"We were looking for a tool that was not a purely control tool, but one that would provide us with relevant data to make better decisions. We liked WorkMeter's approach from the very first moment because it was very focused on people. It is a tool that helps the team to do its job better."", says Vidal.
However, as is the case with almost everything, the beginnings were not easy. Raquel Vidal comments, "When you make a change of management model, you have to explain it very well to avoid uncertainty among the staff. There is a process during which you gradually get to know the advantages of the system and overcome resistance. One of the good things about WorkMeter is that it has a very professional support system that trains you in the implementation and use of the tool".
SEO in House is using the complete WorkMeter solution, all three integrated software products, and is currently using it for various functionalities such as time recording, time management and productivity improvement.
Another application that has been most useful to them is the one that allows them to measure the amount of internal resources they dedicate to each client's projects. This way we know with certainty the amount of hours we dedicate to each one of them, we can report that time to the clients and readjust the projects based on that data".
Raquel Vidal defines the complete WorkMeter solution as "an integral tool that offers you a gale of useful data in real time. Whether you choose the basic or the most complete function, it provides you a lot of reliable and scientific information in a single application. Before, we had many tools, each one to measure a different thing, and without the rigor that WorkMeter offers us"?.
?Another aspect that has surprised the managers of this young company is the ease with which their employees have made the application their own and use it on their own initiative for their personal improvement. "At first some employees, especially those who had been there longer, were reluctant because they felt controlled. But now employees are using it on their own initiative to analyze and improve their own productivity. They are the ones who use the tool to organize their tasks and draw up reports on how they are managing their time. In this way, they avoid accumulations of work and organize themselves better.”, explains Raquel Vidal.
A point of improvement? "Perhaps, to be perfectly perfect, it would be interesting to incorporate an interface that allows managing not only the time but the tasks themselves, since sometimes a client can require up to 500 tasks in a single month."
For Vidal, the tool has been 90% adapted to her company needs. “ ?"Thanks to EffiWork we have been able to implement a flexible work system in the company. We have flexible and intensive hours, we know the productivity of our team and we have teleworkers at both locations." Some improvements that, and this is the key, are proven by irrefutable data. Only the first year we managed to improve our productivity by 80%", she argues.
Workers time record
?The versatility of the tool was recently demonstrated when the company received an unexpected visit from a labor inspector who asked about its schedule control system, expanding on Time@Work, not only allows an accurate record of the working time of all its professionals, including those who work flexible hours or work from home, but also offers this information in real time. In fact, Raquel Vidal recalls, "we gave the inspector an excel print of the information that he required at the same time". Test passed!
?Would you recommend WorkMeter?
??"Of course! Not only because the improvement in terms of productivity with the tool is brutal, but because of its human team and the service they give you. They are very decisive. As soon as you have an incident, in less than 24 hours they have solved it. I recommend it without a doubt."?
EN 
ES 
