As many experienced managers know, it is essential to find the right balance between monitoring and trust. This is true whether you are checking on your office workers or keeping track of a remote team. How do you know if your remote team is working efficiently? The new environment has led to new challenges, and the answer lies on finding the right combination of metrics and remote worker monitoring software.

The Importance of Remote Worker Monitoring

What is the best way to determine whether someone is working efficiently? The methods have evolved time, but for centuries, productivity was monitored in an in-person context. Managers could feel confident that employees were being productive because they could see them hard at work.

Remote work changed all this. Simply by removing the employees from the workplace, many managers began to feel adrift. Unable to physically see employees focusing, it has become necessary to devise new ways to measure productivity. It is vital to track the productivity of your remote workers, but doing so requires a new approach to monitoring and metrics.

Remote employee monitoring software is often the answer, but how much monitoring is appropriate? With the help of useful tools like remote employee time tracking software, it becomes possible to track what matters without the downsides of micro-managing.

Key Features of Effective Remote Worker Monitoring Software

The right software can help you track the most important aspects of productivity with your remote teams. You can keep tabs on how long your team spends on each task, the hours they work, and project completion while otherwise respecting the personal privacy of each employee’s home office and workflow style. A good manager knows what to track and how to keep close tabs on the things that matter while showing employees the trust they need to do their best work.

The key features of great remote worker monitoring software include time tracking, activity tracking, project management (tasks and timelines), and well-constructed business reports using the collected data.

Time Tracking

Time tracking allows you to keep track of how long employees focus on each individual task, task list, or project. Time tracking reflects individual task time and the total hours each remote employee is working per week. This data can help you streamline workflows, address bottlenecks, and even take good care of your remote team by spotting overwork in real-time.

Activity Monitoring

Activity monitoring tells you what your remote employees are focusing on. It identifies which programs and websites are open to help you get a clearer view of the tools and time allocation going into each task or project. This also helps you identify lost time, bottlenecks, opportunities for improvement, or workflows that are particularly efficient.

Project Management – Task Completion and Timelines

Projects are made up of many cumulative tasks arranged in a timeline. Your remote worker monitoring software should allow you to build projects, assign tasks, and keep track of how quickly those tasks are building up toward final project completion on a planned schedule or timeline.

Transparent Dashboard Reporting

Any time you are collecting productivity data, you will get the best insights from well-designed business reports. Look for reports and dashboards that automatically generate graphs, alerts, and leaderboards to get a clear view of your team’s individual and overall productivity.

Addressing Privacy Concerns

It is normal for employees to be concerned about the depth of productivity monitoring, and whether it is invading their privacy. Sharing data and reports with your team can show them that your remote worker monitoring software is only collecting project-relevant data and that their privacy is safe.

Best Practices for Remote Worker Monitoring

To lead your remote team effectively, it’s important to implement monitoring using positive best practices. Monitoring should help your team meet shared goals, achieve realistic performance metrics, and build trust by respecting personal privacy.

Setting Metrics

Setting the right metrics is an ideal way to determine the productivity of your remote workers. Here are some of the best metrics to track depending on the purpose and tasks of your remote team.

• Tasks Completed
  • One of the best ways to identify a productive remote person or team is by the tasks they complete. Using Kanban boards and remote project management tools, it becomes possible to watch as employees claim a task and turn in complete tasks as part of the team workflow. Task completion shows that employees are achieving productive goals without needing to track their every keystroke.
  • This method works best if daily productivity can be measured in the completion of multiple tasks each day. You can assess how much time each task would typically take and determine if an employee is moving at the expected pace as they complete one task after another.
• Time Spent on Each Task
  • If you want to judge how fast an employee is working, you can measure one task at a time. Consider each task’s internal steps and the amount of time that is reasonable to complete the task based on previous metrics. Then, measure whether employees are completing tasks faster or slower than the same tasks or similar have been completed in the past.
  • The time spent on each task can be used to determine the total productivity rate, especially if employees take their daily breaks in a timely manner. Time tracker software can make it easy for employees to clock not only their shift times but also specific tasks from start to finish.
• Achieving Deadlines
  • Some workflows do not lend to individual task tracking as easily, but instead rely on longer work sessions and deadlines. Give your team deadlines and track their time to see how progress relates to completion. If your remote workers are achieving their deadlines with good quality work, then you can devise that they are being productive in the time between setting and completing those deadline-framed tasks.
• Collaboration Progress
  • For productivity that is measured in teamwork, remote working makes it easier to track productivity as a team. Time tracking and task completion can both tell you how effectively a remote team is working together.
  • Managers often have the ability to track the conversations and collaborative steps taken by remote team members, monitoring who is the most engaged, who turns in the most work sections, and how quickly the team is producing or generating ideas together.
• Sales Commissions
  • If your remote team is in sales, you can measure their productivity based on the number of daily contacts or their total commission earned through facilitated sales. You can measure productivity by the total number of sales that a remote worker achieves or by the total value of their sales which gives greater weight to high-value or large-quantity sales.

Respecting Privacy and Avoiding Micro-management

The one thing that was quickly learned after the remote work migration is that micro-management doesn’t work. Managers used to keep their thumb on the pulse of the office created spectacularly negative examples for how to judge remote work productivity by insisting that at-home employees always be visible and/or demonstrably active.

Mouse trackers, key loggers, and endless video meetings were all tried, and all failed with prejudice. Micro-management methods remove the benefits of remote work, like improved focus, self-managed work environments, and better time usage. Fortunately, there are a lot of productivity tracking methods that do work to monitor remote employee productivity, including time tracking, activity monitoring, and dashboard reporting.

Balancing Monitoring and Trust-Building

The key to building a strong team and keeping close tabs on productivity is trust-building. Clarify exactly what data is being tracked and help your team understand that only task-related details are included. Activity monitoring, time tracking, and other techniques are used to ensure effective teamwork, help team members meet their professional goals, and set realistic deadlines. 

Maintaining transparency and respecting employee privacy is paramount. Tools that support both monitoring and trust-building allow the team to see their own stats and even strive to beat their “high scores” while also seeing that personal data is not being collected.

How to Track Remote Employee Time Effectively

Accurate time tracking is very important when leading remote workers. Remote worker can lead to incredible productivity or lost focus depending on everyone’s home environment and personal workflow. Remote workers are more likely to work outside of traditional hours but may also be called away in the middle of the workday. By tracking time instead of time-clock hours, you can get a realistic view of both your workers’ total hours and productivity compared to the time they spend on each project.

Using these strategies, you can effectively track remote employee time to gain valuable insights and lead your team to greater success.

Assign Tasks and Deadlines

Time tracking is not just raw data. You will get the best data when you pair tasks, projects, and deadlines with your time tracking data. Start by building a structure of assigned tasks and deadlines. Break projects up into individual tasks and break long deadlines into shorter checkpoints and milestones. This will give you a detailed view of how time spent on a project translates to progress and how much time each individual aspect or phase of a project can be completed by your team.

Track Time on Individual Tasks

Use remote worker monitoring software to allow your team to clock time on specific tasks. For example, there is a big difference between graphic design and data entry, even if employees complete both tasks at some point during their day. Tracking time for individual tasks allows you to see which tasks your employees do the most efficiently and how they build their daily workflows. You can identify those who are extremely efficient at one task or slow at another task, learning the productivity strengths and weaknesses of your team. 

By building individual task data into a timeline, you may also identify what times of day tasks are completed more efficiently, differences between remote employee workflows, and identify optimization opportunities.

Measure Individual and Team Productivity

Measure productivity for each individual remote employee and their productivity as a team. Remote employees are self-directed, and their personal productivity can be influenced by their unique personal talents, focus levels, and home office environments. At the same time, remote teamwork has never been easier with the collaboration software available, and you may notice an increase or decrease in productivity when your team works together.

Don’t Focus on Breaks and Decompress Time

One of the tricks you learn when managing a remote team is to focus less on breaks and decompress time (idle time) and focus more on the total tracked time. By not focusing on breaks, you can respect remote employees’ privacy if they are hitting deadlines and completing tasks in a reasonable amount of time.

Consider Off-Hours Time

Lastly, remote worker monitoring software and time tracking allows you to properly track remote work that happens outside office hours. Remote workers are more likely to be night owls, early risers, or split their workday, and all their working time should be tracked in terms of both compensation and productivity.

Why Time Tracker by eBillity is the Perfect Solution

When you are looking for the ideal remote worker monitoring software to help lead your team, explore Time Tracker by eBillity. We have designed Time Tracker with the needs of modern remote team management in mind. The feature set and navigation flow make it easy for remote teams to track productivity, credit every working hour, and gain valuable insights without invading the privacy of your talented remote employees.

Time Tracker by eBillity offers:

• Comprehensive Monitoring
  • Track projects, timelines, and activities, and time spent on individual tasks for a full scope view of your remote team’s productivity.
• Ease of Use
  • Time Tracker is simple and easy to use for both your remote employees and team leaders.
• Cost-Effective
  • With an efficient seat/month billing structure, you can easily scale Time Tracker’s affordable pricing to meet your business needs.
• Advanced Reporting
  • Transform the data collected into insightful dashboards and useful business reports including expense reports, cashflow management, and more.
• Transparent Monitoring
  • Provide your employees with the transparency they need to feel confident and safe using your remote worker monitoring software.
• Integrations
  • Time Tracker is designed to integrate with dozens of popular industry software builds to smoothly become part of your solutions stack.

Conclusion

Remote team productivity and leadership rely on the right software that brings everyone together. It is essential to find the right tools to maintain a balanced approach between keeping track of your team, empowering their productivity, and respecting their personal privacy. Consider your unique business and team needs when selecting remote worker monitoring software. To try a free trial of Time Tracker by eBillity today.

The post Remote Worker Monitoring: How To Effectively Track Productivity appeared first on eBillity.

Most of us experience time a little differently over the holiday season. The time for chores and preparation just fly by while those cozy evenings with your loved ones seem to stretch on forever. If you want to get everything done before the winter break deadlines and holiday events, you’ll need to plan ahead. Fortunately, we have some tips and tools to help you stay on time this holiday season.

Create Your Holiday Task List

Start with a list of everything you need to do this season. This will become your master checklist and you’ll feel good crossing items off the list as you go along.

Sort your list first by category. For example, some tasks will be work tasks to finish before the holiday break. Others will be party planning, holiday shopping, or preparing for family visits. Then be sure to mark the deadline for each task, as the holidays are a cascading schedule of last-minute to-do’s.

Build a Schedule

From your task list, you can build a schedule to help you ensure everything gets done on time. Work tasks often come first, but you can usually slip in some timely holiday shopping and event prep at home even before your holiday break begins. You can use your schedule to make sure you’re ready for every holiday party, that all the gifts are bought and wrapped on time, and your home is ready for visitors before they arrive – or you’re all packed and ready for travel if you are doing the visiting.

Set Your Top Priorities

Priorities can help you make sure the most important things are done first or are given the most time for completion. The right priorities will guide your task list completion, so you don’t accidentally finish all the little unimportant tasks while leaving the big important items undone. This is a common outcome of chaotic holiday activities because it’s so tough to focus when you’re busy whistling carols and looking forward to your family celebrations.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Of course, you don’t have to do all this planning and tracking with a pen and paper. Use technology! There are some useful time tracking, scheduling, and reminder apps that can help you stick to your schedule once you put it together. Time Tracker by eBillity can even help you track how long each task takes you and send reminders so that you don’t forget things like after-work shopping trips or that all-important downtime to unwind between parties.

Delegate Responsibilities at Work and at Home

Many hands make light work. Why stretch yourself thin trying to get everything done when others can help you? Both at work and at home, you can delegate some of your tasks to people who have the time and ability to help.

Ask your team members to help you tie up loose ends with end-of-year tasks at work. Get your kids and relatives involved in decorating the home and getting ready for family holiday time. When done with good cheer, everyone will enjoy the teamwork experience and being part of holiday activities.

Plan Buffer Time

Give yourself some margins, as well. Buffer time allows you to fall behind or deal with unexpected delays here and there without throwing off your entire schedule. It is always important to plan for buffer time, especially around the holidays when you should be finding time to relax and enjoy yourself.

Be sure to create extra space in your schedule to relax, enjoy good company, and to rest between hustling to get everything done. This will also give you time in case of delays and setbacks, so you don’t have to stress.

Avoid Overcommitting

Speaking of stress, take care not to over commit yourself to your holiday planning. Keeping a schedule and task list is not just useful for staying organized and on time. It can also tell you when your resources are tapped, and you can’t commit to any more responsibilities. It’s okay, even during the holiday season, to say “no”.

Let some people know that you can’t attend every party or plan every event on your own. Being open and honest about the fact that you’re overbooked is one of the best ways to explain. People who care about you and don’t want you to get overstressed will understand. Those just looking to spend time with you may even change their plans to share a quiet dinner instead of planning something big.

Shop Strategically

Instead of going all-out with your shopping, shop strategically. Use a combination of in-person and online shopping. Plan your shopping days to avoid the crowds and catch the best deals. You can also keep a checklist of presents and people you are shopping for so that you can also know when your shopping is complete.

Make Time for Self-Care

Last but never least, be sure to take time for self-care. Set aside time just to unwind at the end of each day or after the completion of each big project. Eat healthy between holiday treats and get plenty of rest so that you can wake up energized to face the day each morning. If you start to feel over-stressed, take an afternoon off just to sip cocoa and enjoy pleasant company.

Stay Organized and On Time This Holiday Season with Time Tracker

One of the best ways to keep yourself on track for the holidays and still remember time for yourself is to track your time. The many features you’ll find in Time Tracker can help you build your holiday schedule and keep your priorities in line. Try it today for free for 14-days and enjoy a stress-free holiday season.

The post 9 Tips for Staying on Time this Holiday Season appeared first on eBillity.