Working from home has become the “new normal,” but that doesn't mean reduced productivity is the new norm as well. A remote workforce can offer numerous advantages, such as reduced office-related expenses and employee flexibility, but employers continue to worry about keeping their teams on task. With the right technology and data analytics, worry no more!
Employers have been quick to implement employee monitoring technologies, but simply monitoring time or activity tells you very little about productivity. Productivity includes going beyond employee data to view it in the context of business data. This article submits that monitoring remote employee activity is an essential requirement. Still, it is only one aspect necessary to prosper in a work-from-home situation or other virtual and distributed environments.
Why Monitor Your Employees?
Monitoring remote employee productivity is not just about addressing employer concerns - employees can benefit as well. Employees want to stay productive, and with all the distractions at home, they could use a little help.
The top reasons to monitor remote employees include:
Managing Workloads
It’s easy to send an email, but it’s much harder to see how work is stacking up on an individual employee’s plate. Visualizing how much work an employee is assigned helps managers see how to divide the work and encourages colleagues to assist.
Keeping Employees on Task
Monitoring employee activity has been shown to create a psychological impact that increases performance. The fact that you are watching your employees’ actions may drive performance and while providing frequent reminders to stay on task.
Identify Rising/Falling Stars
It’s essential to identify your top and bottom performers. The reason is more about identifying trends and understanding “why” to improve processes and maximize performance. Individual analysis can discover the factors that drive performance and improve the aspects that don’t.
Reward Top Performers
In a work-from home-environment, it’s easy to have hard work go unnoticed. When this occurs, employees will become discouraged and lose motivation. Identifying and quantifying your performance measures can show your employees that they are appreciated and meeting your expectations.
Analyze Business Processes
Analyzing remote employee activity is a tool for analyzing business processes and technology. By monitoring employee activity, strengths and weaknesses in the systems and workflows in your organization become apparent and present opportunities for improvement.
Monitoring Technology
There are two main categories of monitoring technologies: time trackers and activity trackers.
Time Trackers
Some basic metrics are tried and true - like time tracking. There are great software applications in the market, including Toggl, Time Doctor, Hours, and many more. They each offer various options, including the ability to set timers and categorize time spent working on specific tasks. Additionally, most provide reports or analytics, informing users and admins of high-level trends.
Activity Trackers
Activity trackers go beyond tracking time and provide insights into what employees are doing with their time by logging websites visited, applications used, etc. Various applications are available, such as ActivTrak, EmailAnalytics, Hubstaff, and more. Each has multiple monitoring options, such as keyword logging, screenshots, and monitoring desktop application activity.
Employee Productivity - A 360-degree View
Time and Activity trackers give you insights into what your employees are doing, but how does that align with what they should be doing? Are they focused on your priorities? Are you getting the feedback you need from them?
MODM, our comprehensive business intelligence solution, allows you to synthesize employee activity in the context of a transaction or other components of production, such as logging in and out of systems and working within the context of your most important transactions. MODM connects to multiple time and activity tracking platforms and integrates their data with production data, allowing you to gain insights from various data sources. MODM then displays the information together in a cohesive 360-degree view of your operations and overall productivity metrics. Start measuring your success with MODM.
The result: better performance, happier employees, and a data-driven culture.