With remote working scenarios, it is evident that employers or managers need to find solutions to effectively monitor employees working from home. If you have yet to find an appropriate strategy to implement, do not worry – you are not alone. The only thing you have to do now is not to skip this post.
So, how to monitor employees working from home? This post will cover exactly that.
Remote offices are great for employees. There is no doubt about it. While they do save time, money, and effort on both ends, overcoming new challenges can be difficult at times.
To maintain a well-functioning remote team, it is the responsibility of managers to ensure the team’s productivity. As remote work is different from an in-office format, it becomes necessary to implement suitable work-from-home employee monitoring software. This software not only offers a variety of features for specific needs but also enables the inclusion of much-needed strategies. However, managers should avoid micromanaging.
Micromanaging can lead to an unprecedented deterioration of productivity among remote employees. To promote a better work-life balance for remote workers, managers can consider implementing the following strategies.
Therefore, stop worrying any further about how to monitor employees working from home and follow up with reasonable and systematic approaches right here.
Evaluate the affordability of remote employee monitoring software
The best way to monitor and manage employees working from home is by using a suitable remote tracking tool. You can find a ton of them in the market with customizable features for some. Despite the abundance of remote tracking software, we suggest you go for the one that meets all your business needs and purposes. But, do keep in mind not to compromise higher quality with cost.
While higher-priced software may offer more features, you may not be able to maintain or need them, so do not waste money and resources. Determine your tradeoff point for the same, and afford what serves your purpose best. Doing so is essential because you have to follow up with its implementation process as well. It should not happen that the cash outflow exceeds the estimated amount after using remote monitoring tools in the business. Therefore, research, compare, and contrast your options and choose the perfect tool.
Monitor employee’s working hours via time-tracking tools
Tracking and managing employees working from home becomes streamlined when you can track their work hours. The time-tracking tools integrated with the remote tracking software are helpful with supervision as they provide set metrics or standards to track the employees’ logged time and activities throughout working hours. Moreover, they also encourage the workers to follow up with a built-in timer when working on tasks with set deadlines. This implies how using time-tracking tools enables improved productivity for employees and ease of management for managers.
Along with time-tracking tools, creating automated timesheets also helps with the effective management of remote working employees. While time tracking aids in knowing whether employees are productive during work hours or not, the timesheet system helps managers evaluate personnel’s working hours, attendance, and payroll transparency. This way, employee satisfaction can be maintained as they will know and see the justification for the pay structure based on their performance.
Implement task/project management app
Monitoring telecommuting employees becomes much easier when you know what they are up to or what projects or tasks they are working on at any given timeframe. Rather than asking for constant updates on work, it would be better to simplify the process by implementing a smart project management app within the remote tracking tool. Doing so will minimize the stress and time consumption for both the manager and the team members.
What the project management app does is that it allows you to allocate tasks to specific personnel and other contributors on a single platform. You can see the progress of the work done. But that’s only part of what this strategy has to offer. Managers can also manage and organize various projects and their related tasks. When a task has been assigned to employees, managers can log in and monitor whether the allocated tasks are attended to or not, or if additional tasks need to be added.
However, as much as these apps help improve project efficiency and achieve effective results, they do pose a challenge when it comes to remote tracking of projects that are not allocated any tasks in the app for employees. In short, managers can generate task lists for employees to work on any individual project within a stipulated duration.
Automate tasks notifications
Manual work can be tiring in many ways, and monitoring employees who are working remotely can be even more challenging. So, here is a straightforward tip on how to monitor employees working from home while also promoting technological advancement in your business workflow: incorporate automated solutions. By doing so, you can eliminate several complex steps, save time, and reduce costs.
For example, you can enable automated notifications or alerts when managers assign new tasks or when deadlines for tasks are approaching. This will help improve the responsibility and accountability of both managers and team members regarding task completion and achieving desired outcomes.
Encourage employees to self-report
Whether it is in-office work or work from home, employees are always encouraged to provide reports efficiently about their assigned tasks. However, employee and task management becomes smoother when self-reporting options are promoted to remote employees. They can easily clock in and clock out via a tracking app that can be accessed from their devices.
Managers or supervisors don’t always have the time to personally check if employees are performing their tasks correctly if there is any progress, or if they need assistance in certain areas. Superiors already have a lot of responsibilities to take care of. Therefore, remote employees should be encouraged to self-report their work at the end of the day and be accountable for the results. If they need additional support, they can confidently request it. Voicing opinions and having autonomy not only makes employees more confident but also more productive, with a balanced workload and evidence-based results.
Track and enhance productivity through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Today, tracking productivity, in general, is essential to ensure optimal performance and success. By implementing relevant metrics, you can measure and monitor the progress of your employees towards achieving the set goals.
Do you know that remotely working employees tend to spend most of their time responding to emails? While that is indeed an official task that needs to be attended promptly, it does not help with boosting productivity. Emailing denotes that they are busy but not efficient at the work. To handle this effectively, you can go with email analysis.
As a valuable KPI, you can consider the average response time of your team’s emails. This provides insight into how busy they are and how quickly they respond to inquiries. You can use this information to identify team members who are efficient and energetic in their work and those who may be struggling with their workload. This will help re-balance the workload for the employee and gradually optimize productivity for the team.
Another way to track productivity is by measuring calls made and received. This helps assess your team’s level of activity and determine their productivity. By identifying those who are not performing as well, you can arrange a solution to find the root cause. It could be that they are slacking off, or they may be overworked and need help.
By combining productivity tracking with task completion, you can ensure that employees are performing well in all areas of their work.
Evaluate employee performance fairly and maintain balanced workloads
Last but not least the effective strategies on how to monitor employees working from home are performance evaluation based on evidence, tracking reports, and supervision. Manual supervision of every employee in itself is quite difficult. Using employee monitoring tools makes the complex process more simplified.
One way to ensure that employees’ workloads are balanced and that their performance is evaluated fairly is to implement a systematic monitoring and evaluation process. Instead of relying solely on employees to self-report their workloads, managers can also do their part and supervise their team’s progress. This can help identify areas where employees may be overworked or underutilized, allowing managers to adjust workloads and improve overall productivity and team morale.
Additionally, using an employee monitoring tool offers valuable information about the tasks employees have successfully executed and the areas where they may need additional support or training, helping to promote continuous improvement and growth.
Conclusion
Monitoring telecommuting employees is essential to maintain productivity and efficiency in remote teams. That is why implementing suitable strategies and tools such as remote tracking software, time-tracking tools, project management apps, and automated task notifications can help managers effectively monitor their remote employees. However, it is important not to micromanage employees and to find a balance between monitoring and allowing employees to work independently to maintain a healthy work-life balance. By following these strategies, managers can effectively monitor their remote employees and contribute to a successful business.
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