This paper examines how digital timekeeping tools and billable hours impact workers in post-industrial fields like web development. It finds that workers feel pressure to track their time closely and meet billability targets over 70% to avoid being seen as unproductive. Workers described the symbolism of seeing their billable hours in red as needing attention or fixing. The paper also explores how billable hours blur the boundary between work and personal time and influence intensity of work efforts.

1. Sam Ladner, PhD “ New” Voices in Labour Brock University, March 21, 2009 Billable Hours: Time Reckoning, Technology and Labour Markets

2. What role symbols of time play in postindustrial work discipline? What coercive powers do they have? How are they constructed? This paper is about…

3. Bell, 1973 Florida, 2004 Lazzarato, 1997 The unit of analysis: Web workers

5. Roy, 1959 Marx, 1977 Thompson, 1967 Whipp, 1987 Castells, 1996 Time in the literature of work

6. Digital time keeping: an example

7. Billable hours Workers track time using digital tools “ Billable hours” are sold to clients “ Non-billable” hours are simply time sold to employers

8. ICTs count time “ Uhm, I really only check it when I have meetings or Outlook, I’ll open that, a meeting pop up. That’s kind of when I’ll be conscious of, oh okay, it’s 11:00 o’clock.” – Angie, Interaction Designer

9. Symbolism of less than 8 hours “ Well, yeah…red is like an error message, I definitely associate the two. It needs your attention. Something needs to be fixed. If something goes red, you need to fix it. I guess.” “ So, you’re six hours. Fix it.” “ Yeah, make it 8. Somehow.” [laughs] – Andrew, Interaction Designer

10. Tracking time and intensity of work effort “ [Project managers are] in charge of the hours they put on a project. That’s the big problem is like you can have 80% of your project gone with 50% of it only complete and they will look at an art director and say you’ve got to do this faster. You’ve got to do this faster and now you think that you’re 50% through and what you thought you needed 50 hours for, you now have to do it in 20. ” – Jessica, Research Director

16. Yto c A elatb? What is to be done?