Time Tracking for Triple Bottom Line: A Guide

The Basics of the Triple Bottom Line

The triple bottom line consists of three key components: the three Ps of sustainability.

• People
• Profit
• Planet

This model encourages companies to take part in sustainable business practices and care about more than their financial profitability. It’s about setting and achieving growth targets with sustainable development—both in the short and long term.

Why the Triple Bottom Line Matters

One of the key questions about the triple bottom line is why it matters in the first place. While the concept has little positive effect on a company in the short run, it can have many benefits over a longer term. This is especially true in a world where sustainability matters more day by day—leading to enhanced customer and employee loyalty for firms that care about their impact.

The Challenges of Implementing the Triple Bottom Line Framework

The main challenges of the TBL are felt in the short term. One of the most prominent ones is of course a reduction in profits, which can be significant for certain types of companies. However, most businesses—especially those in the IT industry—won’t be affected much by this. Instead, such firms might experience difficulties implementing an effective triple bottom line strategy, with issues including:

• Struggling to define achievable goals
• Failing to balance priorities correctly
• Struggling to track progress toward set goals

Fortunately, with a bit of planning, you can overcome these challenges easily. This is where time tracking software can come in handy—which leads us nicely to our next point of discussion.

How Time Tracking Supports Triple Bottom Line Targets

Time tracking software is a powerful tool that can help your team perform their best. However, lots of businesses also use time tracking to achieve triple bottom line goals. Here are a few ways you can use time tracking for profitability and sustainability:

• Setting clear short and long-term goals
• Tracking progress toward your targets
• Optimizing your team’s efforts

Let’s now explore these in depth.

Setting clear short and long-term goals

The first step towards any goal is defining it clearly. A high-quality time tracker like WebWork can help you with its Task Management functionality. You can define specific goals like spending a given amount of time on sustainability initiatives every month. Your staff will then be able to see and manage these tasks for themselves to help your organization achieve its targets.

Tracking progress toward your targets

After setting your targets, the next natural step is to track your progress toward them. This is where triple bottom line and time tracking go hand-in-hand, as high-quality apps are perfect for tracking progress over time. This is especially true if you set time-based goals for your sustainability initiatives. You can get detailed insights into how effective your TBL efforts are over time, which will allow you to make any necessary adjustments to reach your sustainability goals.

How to Set Triple Bottom Line Goals with WebWork: Step-by-Step

Having explored how time trackers can help your sustainability efforts, let’s now take a look at specific examples with WebWork.

Define clear objectives with project and task management

As mentioned before, the first step in time tracking for profit, people, and planet should be defining your short and long-term goals. You can do this with WebWork’s Project and Task Management features—using Project Management for long-term goals and Task Management for short-term ones.

Track your sustainability efforts in detail with reports

To monitor your firm’s progress in time tracking for social responsibility, you can use WebWork’s time reporting functionality. This will help you not only track progress but also help speed it up through improvements to your team’s productivity.