Timesheets, Incentives, and Five O'Clock Beers

Timesheets. Despite incredible advances in biometrics, smart time clocks, and increasing availability of mobile and tablet solutions to make easier employee time tracking and time reporting, many organizations still have to deal with a weekly or bi-weekly struggle of collecting, verifying, or processing employee time sheets. Filling out timesheets stink, and chances are you might have been on both sides of the timesheet pendulum in your career, as someone who was horrible at turning in a timesheet by the deadline, or as someone that had to deal with chasing down slackers that can never seem to get it together by the deadline.

One organization has come up with what might be the most clever solution yet for incenting staff to get their timesheets filled out and turned in on time - the digital 'Drink Time Sheet'.  The idea? Set up in the office a refrigerator full of free beer, but have it electronically locked, and linked to the office's timesheet system. Once all the week's timesheets are submitted, a siren sounds, the refrigerator unlocks, and the staff can celebrate the end of the week with a few Friday beers.

Check the video below, (email and RSS subscribers need to click through), to see the Drink Time Sheet in action.

What do you think? Could this kind of idea work in your organization? Maybe if not for time sheets but for some other kind of administrative, boring, and entirely necessary process that always seems like a struggle to complete?

Have a great weekend!