How Pubsphere uses Hubstaff to stay ahead of the competition

Pubsphere has, for the past 10 or so years, been producing high-quality, engaging trade show exhibitions for their clients. However, they’re not just throwing up booths and putting logos on walls. No, they’re looking to provide a well-built brand experience for their exhibitors — regardless of what the product is.

As an exhibition building company, Pubsphere manufactures booths for shows and exhibitions of any size. “We are creating complete booth solution for clients all around the world,” says Philippe Chenard-Cox, Design & CAD Supervisor at Pubsphere. And it’s true. From start to finish — concept creation, mock-ups, estimates, manufacturing, management, international logistics, transportation, installation, and removal — Pubsphere wants the be the one-stop-shop for any brands show needs. However, to work everywhere, they also needed to be everywhere.

Pubsphere operates from numerous offices all over the world. To make sure they’re able to accommodate their client's needs, they have many team members who are always on the road. By having employees working on-the-go, they can take on more projects, acquire more clients, and complete projects faster without sacrificing quality. However, being based all around the world presented a few problems.

On top of having to keep up with their international competitors, Chenard-Cox and the Pubsphere team started to notice some problems that needed solving. For one, in a digital age, they were still using a punch card to track their employees’ time. While this may be fine for a small team, they weren’t that small anymore. With team members all over the globe and many more contract employees, they needed a solution to an outdated system.

Additionally, as their employees worked on projects, there was no process to let the management team know how long everything was taking. “Many of our staff work overseas,” says Chenard-Cox. “It became impossible to track real-time progress and activity only with paper records.” Pubsphere needed a way to stay on top of projects, track time, monitor their employees all over the world, and pay their team members without sacrificing any of the software they were already using.

“I spent at least six months testing applications with a couple of coworkers,” says Chenard-Cox. They would test a time tracker or a project management tool with their team, but something was always missing. They couldn’t find the right tool that could cover all their needs entirely, just put band-aids on some issues.

Then, they tried something new. “We wanted to find a complete solution that linked to our main project management platform.” says Chenard-Cox. Additionally, they needed a better way to track their team while on-the-job. “Sadly, no application was perfect. Then we found Hubstaff.”

The main draw Pubsphere saw in Hubstaff was the ability to track time on-the-go. Using our iOS or Android apps, team members can track their time and location while they’re away from the office or while doing on-site work. Managers can set up geofences around job sites that allow employees to clock-in automatically when they show up to specific, pre-set locations. Pubsphere can better track their team member's exact location and accurately know how much time they spend on the job.

One big capability Pubsphere needed from the software they chose was the ability to integrate with their project management tool. Luckily this is something Hubstaff does perfectly. In addition to over 30 other integrations, Hubstaff seamlessly works with the applications your team is already using. That means you can go about your work without Hubstaff getting in your way. Plus, your employees can track time directly to projects from other apps. Now that’s genuine integration, if you ask us.

Upgrading from paper timesheets to Hubstaff was, as Chenard-Cox put it, “a huge jump.” Pubsphere is now able to accurately track their employees’ time while they’re working so that everyone gets paid for the work they do, right down to the second. This way, they have a better idea of how long each project takes to complete and can plan for future projects more accurately. As a bonus, managers are now able to monitor the activity of everyone as they track time. This means they can see how active each employee is and even monitor them with keyboard and mouse activity, app usage, and optional screenshots.

Removing the confusion of paper timesheets, unknown clock-in locations, and other overly-drawn-out admin tasks is the best step Pubsphere could have taken. “Our main office will always be the center of our work, but having many people on the road who can track time with their mobile phones, that we can monitor, is a great thing,” says Chenard-Cox. “Knowing where everyone is working, whether by GPS or Job Sites, is extremely useful.”

Since integrating with Hubstaff, Pubsphere has found simplicity in otherwise mundane and daunting tasks. They’ve simplified payroll and accounting, and no longer have to guess and check on timesheets. Best of all, with such a large international team, they’re fully equipped to be where they need to be, regardless of the circumstances. They can provide the best service possible without sacrificing the way their company has been running and growing.