Monitoring Remote Work to Boost Productivity

More organisations are implementing remote work environments to get around the COVID-19 restrictions. With staff working from home, it is important that organisations are able to monitor performance. With the right tools and practices, it is possible to boost productivity while monitoring remote work without being invasive.

Benefits of Monitoring Remote Work

Measuring performance in a remote environment is critical to the success of an organisation. Just the knowledge that your work is being monitored could have a positive impact on remote workers. For workers, knowing that your work is being monitored and tracked means you are assured of being compensated adequately for work done. In addition, monitoring work can build trust between management and its remote staff.

Implement a Remote Work policy

The best way to get the best out of your remote workers is to have a working remote work policy. The work from home policy should state whether or not staff are allowed to use private equipment for work. Workers should also be advised on what security updates they need. More importantly, it should be clear what communication apps will be tolerated for official business. If all members are supposed to check a project management channel to collect their assignments for the period, management should communicate it from the onset. Nothing hampers productivity more than not knowing where your next set of instructions are coming from.

State and Measure Clear Objectives

You can’t monitor what you don’t know. To boost productivity among remote workers, it is important to let them know exactly what milestones count. Stating objectives beforehand starts with assigning projects in the project management software. Persons on the sales team should be aware if metrics like sales volume and number of leads generated are being measured. If it is customer engagement, customer response times, or revenue generated targets should be clarified. These metrics should be communicated to help the respective staff put in the right effort.

Be Transparent

If the organisation is going to use a monitoring software, it is important that remote workers are made aware of it before hand. The directive should be stated explicitly in the remote work policy. This becomes especially important if staff are using company computers and might not be aware of what is installed in the background. Being transparent about what you are measuring and how you are measuring it makes workers conscious of the effort they put into the work, leading to a boost in productivity. The last thing you want is for your workers to think you are spying on them.

Track Workflows

The best way to monitor time spent on work-related activities is to set up and monitor individual workflows. Different project management tools make it possible to assign jobs to different workers. With each remote worker responsible for a piece of a bigger assignment, it is easy to tell where progress is lagging in order to address the problem. And when a time-monitoring tool is integrated into the workflow, it is easy to generate a time receipt of how much time is spent on each project.

Regular Video Meetings

Having regular video calls provides an opportunity to check up on staff working from home. Rather than relying on random calls, a routine Monday morning conference call allows an organisation to monitor progress on various projects. When staff know their work will be evaluated or called upon during such meetings, they will be more likely to put in the effort to ensure it’s done.

In addition, these regular video meetings help create an in-person feel in what is a virtual environment. This breeds cordiality aS the sight of a person on the other side can make for an exciting and more open conversation in ways that a telephone call could not recreate.

Communicate Regularly

Outside of regular video conference calls, it is important to have a direct line of communication with remote staff throughout the workday. This would depend on the ‘working hours’ agreed upon, of course. A company chatting app is a good example. Large organisations can build their own channels for internal communication. For small-to-medium enterprises, though, there are many freemium apps that offer basic features for frequent communication. Different applications offer different extra features. Most importantly, though, organisations can check in on remote staff individually outside of group meetings to make sure deadlines are being met.

Accept Feedback

It is important to treat remote staff like the important parts of the team they are. That means incorporating their ideas into company policies that revolve around their work. Being the ones affected the most by these policies, remote staff are in a better position to offer better alternatives to procedures and practices.

Accepting feedback will also help the organisation know which part of the workflow is efficient in boosting productivity. If more staff are unhappy about reporting procedures, chances are rules will be flouted and client projects might end up stalling.

Conclusion

Monitoring remote workers should not be a tricky business. Don’t sneak up on workers or hide apps on their laptops without them knowing. It will erode confidence. Rather, create a transparent work-from-home policy that tracks workflow and offers an uninterrupted communication channel with remote workers.