The ultimate adventure—how Roadgames made time tracking employee-friendly

Imagine your office job was creating adventures all over the world. Sounds like the dream, right? But let’s be honest, for most of us, that’s as far as it will go—unless, of course, you’re on the Roadgames team. In that case, developing exciting adventures is your daily mission.

Whether it’s for team-building events, company anniversaries, or just friends looking to do something fun together, Roadgames combines fun scavenger hunts with educational tours and allows people to see their city through a new lens.

But Roadgames isn’t just creating feel-good experiences for other teams; as a company, it strives to build the best possible working environment for its employees, too.

Since its founding, Roadgames has worked to introduce many employee well-being policies for its team. Believe it or not, many of these policies rely on effective time tracking.

Yeah, we know what you’re thinking. Can a time tracking app really benefit employees? It can, actually, and more than you’d expect. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s start at the beginning.

Where it all started

Much like DeskTime, Roadgames began as an internal tool meant only for the employees of a Riga-based IT hub called Draugiem Group. Over the years, it transformed into an independent company with a small but passionate team and a worldwide presence. Right now, the company provides scavenger hunt games all across the globe, from Latvia to Egypt, from Spain to Japan.

From the very beginning, Roadgames knew DeskTime and time tracking would be part of the company culture. But the team wasn’t looking for a way to micromanage, in fact, it was the exact opposite.

“We see it as a self-accountability tool,” says Dāvis Kurēns, the CEO of Roadgames, “Something that allows employees to keep track of when they arrive to the office, or how many hours they’ve worked.”

Dāvis himself admits that he wasn’t always such a fan of DeskTime. When he began working at Roadgames two years ago, he was initially skeptical.

“When I heard of time tracking, my first question was: why? Who’s watching? But, during the onboarding process, I realized that no one is monitoring every minute of your day. The purpose is for you to see how you spend your own time.”

Roadgames takes care to explain their DeskTime usage rules to new employees and especially, managers. While Dāvis doesn’t have a habit of checking DeskTime in his daily duties, he has a quick glance at the team’s productivity stats once a month.

“It’s a good way for a manager to check the overall “temperature” or mood in the office,” says Dāvis, “We’re a small team, so work can get intense; that’s why it’s important for me as the CEO to keep track of how people are feeling and what their work habits are.”

When an employee suddenly drastically changes their working habits—for example, starting work much earlier or later than their normal hours—Dāvis can check in with them to see if they need support or a break.

“Just recently, we had a case where I gave an employee some time off because I noticed something was wrong; they’d been overworking themselves. Once the employee is back, we’ll focus on creating a plan that keeps their workload manageable.”

Introducing employee wellbeing policies with DeskTime

In addition to self-accountability, Dāvis points out that DeskTime made it extremely easy to introduce new perks for the team. For instance, Roadgames embraced a fully hybrid work model, even offering employees the option to take workations abroad.

DeskTime also allowed the team to maintain a flexible work schedule. Roadgames employees can start working anytime between 8 AM and 11 AM. With team members each starting their work day at a different time, DeskTime offers an easy way to keep track of how many hours everybody spends at the office and make sure nobody’s abusing the policy.

“Our team follows an agreement to log 7 hours of productive time per day, 35 hours a week,” says Dāvis. And, while many offices initially require new employees to be in-office full-time before they pass the trial period, DeskTime allows the Roadgames team to extend all flexible work benefits to onboarding employees, not just seasoned team members.

“DeskTime gives employees the chance to prove that we can trust them 100%. This allows us to give them more leeway and flexibility than they would get in a standardized 9-5 environment.”

Key takeaways

When used correctly, time tracking is a two-way street that benefits both employees and managers. The team can show they can be trusted with additional workplace benefits, while managers can get peace of mind that their team is doing what they’re supposed to.

“I believe that time tracking shouldn’t be about monitoring everything an employee does,” says Dāvis. “Instead, it should be seen as a tool to help your team understand how they’re spending their own time.”

And Dāvis is absolutely correct—approaching time tracking from a collaborative perspective will increase trust between you and your team. With a boost in transparency, honesty, and openness, you’ll see a boost in employee engagement, loyalty, and productivity, too.