Employers are confronted with the difficulty of monitoring their workers’ productivity while they work remotely as remote work gains traction in the modern world.
Measuring the productivity of remote workers may be challenging, and many companies find it tough to identify the best tools. And approaches to ensure that their remote teams are performing up to par.
Among the most important things to happen in modern history was the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since 2020, it has had a significant impact on almost every aspect of human existence.
Reducing physical processes and moving towards the digital world is one of the main developments. Businesses are being forced to adopt more remote working practices and abandon the traditional office setting.
Many of these organizations are finding it difficult to adapt to these developments. Keeping an eye on remote workers’ productivity and supervising them are two of the major concerns.
You’ve come to the right place if managing your remote workers also presents challenges for you.
In this post, we go over several non-intrusive ways to track remote employee productivity.
So let’s get started without further ado.
Understanding what productivity means for working remotely
Employers must first define productivity in the context of remote work before they can track how productive their remote workers are.
This might include KPIs like hitting deadlines, finishing projects on schedule, or accomplishing specific goals.
It’s critical to set clear expectations for remote workers. This will make sure they have the tools and assistance they need to live up to them.
Putting more emphasis on the quality of work completed than on the quantity of time spent on a job is one method to measure productivity for remote work.
This may be particularly crucial for intricate or creative initiatives. When the quality of the finished output may not always be directly correlated with the quantity of time invested.
Employers may also take into account how a worker’s efforts affect the company’s overall performance. This includes when a project is finished and leads to more sales or happier clients.
Put time-tracking software into action
The next thing you can do is monitor how your staff members use their time throughout the day by utilizing an employee productivity monitoring tool.
When an employee starts a new work, these tools often urge them to set the built-in timer to begin and end at the proper times.
How you handle this implementation will determine whether you force staff to log everything they do throughout the day or restrict its usage to certain tasks.
In any case, you’ll be able to check in and monitor how your staff members are spending their time, determining which staff members are most productively occupied and which ones have free time.
However, there are several drawbacks to this approach.
For instance, time monitoring isn’t the best tool to monitor unscheduled meetings and phone calls. And there’s always a possibility that your staff members are lying about how much time they spend on work-related tasks.
Tools
The following are a few of our top applications for monitoring how much time remote workers spend working on their projects:
Teramind
Harrison Tang, founder of Spokeo shares: “Although I do not recommend using it just to spy on employees, Teramind is a fantastic tool to monitor employee activities if your main goal is safeguarding your company from cybersecurity risks.
Users may utilize audit and forensics tools to investigate issues, identify insider threats, access behaviour analytics, and stop data loss using Teramind. Teramind provides both on-premises and cloud-based options.
Guard InterGuard
InterGuard is perfect for remote worker monitoring, even though it can support any kind of workforce. It can monitor worker location, activity, idle vs. active time, and output levels.
Its six-view interface makes it simple to analyze stats. If you need to protect your data if a remote colleague is fired. It also provides endpoint shutdown and data recovery capabilities.
Make lists of tasks
Task lists are useful in project management applications, however, they are more suited for individual tasks that are delegated to individuals than for large-scale projects.
Compared to just project monitoring, they provide a few significant benefits. For instance, you may determine if a project is unevenly distributed, meaning that one person is allocated 70% of the project’s work.
You may also keep track of chores such as administrative duties that are not related to a specific project.
Additionally, there are certain issues with using task lists to keep an eye on workers who are working from home.
To begin with, you will want a method to assess the relative difficulty of each activity since not all tasks will be assigned the same level of responsibility.
In addition, assigning and overseeing jobs becomes labour in and of itself; managers or staff members must create new assignments for each activity they complete and don’t forget to cross them off.
As a result, even the most effective task systems eventually have inconsistencies that lower tracking accuracy.
Make frequent comments and check-ins
Tommy Clappers, founder of Asbestos Australia Removalist shares: “Making frequent comments and check-ins will assist you in maintaining alignment with your subordinates on performance evaluation.
It’s critical to provide remote workers with constructive feedback in addition to acknowledging and rewarding their accomplishments.
This is especially important in a remote setting where employees may more easily feel alienated.”
Promoting employee self-evaluation
Encouraging remote workers to evaluate their output helps keep them interested and motivated.
Employers may request that workers monitor their personal development and provide periodic reports on their productivity levels.
This may assist managers in identifying areas where they may need to provide more training or direction, as well as workers in identifying areas. Where they may need more resources or assistance.
Examining the Output and Work Quality
Finally, a crucial tactic for gauging the productivity of remote workers is to examine the calibre and production of their work.
As Carl Jensen, co-founder of Compare Banks puts it: “Employers may assess the quality of work and make sure staff members are fulfilling expectations by looking at finished assignments and projects.
To get feedback from clients or other stakeholders, this may include conducting surveys or using other feedback methods in addition to going over reports, presentations, and other deliverables.
It is crucial to remember that assessments of productivity and work quality should be made objectively rather than subjectively or with prejudice.
Employers must set explicit standards for assessing the quality and production of their work. And notify staff members ahead of time of these standards.
Employers can make sure their remote teams are meeting deadlines and producing high-quality work by putting these techniques into practice. Not forgetting measuring their workers’ productivity properly.”