Skip time tracking. Do this instead.

The alternative that won’t nuke morale

Author

Nick Avaria
September 11, 2026

You know you should track time.

Your team should track time.

But you hate the idea.

And your team hates it more.

It probably feels like surveillance to them, and it kills morale.

The data is only half-real anyway because everyone rounds up.

By the time you've fought the culture war to get it in place, you've burned six months of political capital to get to a number you're not even sure you can trust.

So most agency owners never implement it.

Which means most agency owners settle for never knowing what their team is doing.

The middle path most don't know exists is DLER (Direct Labor Efficiency Ratio)
It gives you the directional answer time tracking gives you, without needing to track any time.

The formula's simple:

Revenue generated by billable staff, divided by fully-loaded cost of that same billable staff.

Target: 3.33 or higher.

3.33+, your team is productive, you don't need to look under the hood.

Below 3.33, there's a problem.

But the silver lining is you can pinpoint it to the specific pod or department that's dragging the average down (all without ever forcing your team to log hours).

Caveat: DLER doesn't tell you what's wrong.

If your ad-buying pod is running a 2.1, you know they're inefficient, but not why.

For that, you eventually might need time tracking.

But DLER tells you where to look.

Which means when you eventually go to your team and say, "hey, we need to look at how this pod is spending its time," you have a specific, defensible reason for asking.

Totally different conversation than "we're going to start tracking time everywhere."

Full walkthrough of how to calculate it for your agency (spreadsheet template included) will be on Thursday 17th.

I’m setting up a 90 minute webinar to show you the specifics.

In that time, I’ll also walk you through:

  • Which clients make you money? Rank accounts using revenue, delivery hours and the true cost of the people doing the work.

  • Should you hire? Model the revenue your current team can support before adding another salary.

  • What should you do with an unprofitable client? Know when to raise the price, reset the scope, meet in the middle or part ways.

And I’ll also give you exclusive access to:

  1. Client Profit Ranking Template (See your billable rate and identify the accounts that need attention first)

It’s normally $297 for a seat, but the first 10 that register with the code ENCORE10 will get in for free.

UPDATE: There’s only 2 free seats left, after they’re gone the code will stop working.

The caveat to me giving away so much value is you have to show up live.

I won’t be sending out any recordings.

(click ‘Get Tickets’ then ‘Add a voucher’)

Nick

P.S.

Here are three more ways I can help: