Tracking employee productivity: Remote working culture has finally become an accepted norm. Almost all major desk jobs have shifted their operations to home. But it remains to be seen whether a work from home culture can be effective or not. Are you looking to track the productivity of your remote employee without being too intrusive? If yes, then sift through this article to explore seven brilliant methods that can do this task for you.
The following are seven proven methods implemented by top companies to track their employees’ productivity.
Table of Contents
Make your remote working policies crisp and clear
As the foremost step, you must lay down clear policies stating what is expected of remote employees and how you will measure their productivity. Productivity is the measure of output produced in a unit of time. These policies give you the right to use tools and processes without any qualms.
In addition to predetermined rules and policies, these policies specify performance metrics that are used to gauge employee’s productivity. The performance benchmarks also include business-oriented metrics such as sales growth or decline, customer satisfaction levels, and website traffic growth. Once the employees know what metrics make up their productivity, they will consciously improve their performance.
KPIs for each job role
Each job has a unique set of productivity metrics. Productivity is measured by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that differ for various job roles. For instance, KPIs for a sales team will not be the same as that of a software developer. Defining KPIs is essential for each job role, as they are measured against a specific set of goals.
For example, the productivity of a content writer is often measured by its quality and the number of words written per hour. At the same time, a productivity software developer will have KPIs like the number of kickbacks from QA and the number of story points completed.
Breaking up the tasks into milestones
Breaking up a long task into milestones can help both employers and employees to track their progress. Employers can determine if a task can be completed within the time frame by monitoring milestones. Employees can also report progress every day instead of waiting until the project ends. Furthermore, this data can help employers to develop future project plans.
Implementing Employee monitoring tools to measure productivity
HR can implement work productivity monitoring software tools to track an employee’s productivity. Different job roles have different tracking milestones, and hence, they must be implemented accordingly. Also, make sure that these cloud-based project management tools or HR management tools are available to everyone.
Most of these employee monitoring tools are used to assign tasks, monitor the progress, and get the reports once the assignments are completed. You can measure the employee reports with defined goals and rank the employees based on their productivity outputs. These metrics can nurture greater transparency and accountability within the team.
Monitoring overtime or under productivity issues
Employee work monitoring software tools also enable managers to monitor productivity issues like overtime and under productivity. Remote workers are more likely to become distracted and ultimately end up working longer or producing less than they could.
Here, work productivity monitoring software makes perfect sense. It measures productivity by calculating output within a given period. Occasionally, employee output can vary, which may suggest something is amiss. These metrics can help managers to guide their employees to the right path and prevent unnecessary burnouts on the job. Management can also warn employees who are slacking.
Defining productivity goals
Setting up a benchmark for productivity is essential to evaluating an employee’s performance. Establish goals for the tasks your employee will be completing and estimate how long they will take. This benchmark can be used to evaluate an employee’s productivity. When a task takes more time, the employee is either slow or working overtime. Benchmarks can also be used to compare employees within the same team.
It will help if you reward employees for achieving goals. This would motivate the rest of the team to perform better.
Developing a reporting format
Timely reports help employees to perform their best. Such evaluated reports will help employees to identify their issues and take actions to rectify them. The reporting formats usually depend on the manager’s preferences and the frequency of the report on the job requirements. Most of the report formats include timesheets, task status, risks, and weekly plans.
Key takeaway
Monitoring employee activity is essential to improve the overall productivity of your project. Implement the best tracking tools to gauge your remote employee’s performance. And also, ensure that the team is engaged using a collaborative tool that keeps everyone connected and updated. Connected employees are likely to be more productive as they work together, share progress and help the team when required.
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