Time Tracking For Remote Employees: 6 Pro Tips

When it comes to monitoring remote employees, many business owners face a variety of problems. Since 2005, the number of people who work remotely increased by 140%.  Due to the recent restrictions related to the pandemic, more and more employees are choosing to work from home.

Tracking remote employees can be complicated. While remote work ads flexibility, it also affects productivity. Even though many employers report that implementing remote operations resulted in an increase in efficiency, some can’t control their employees as well as before.

1. Figure Out the Reason for Monitoring

Before you start monitoring your workers closely, ask yourself what you want to achieve with such tracking. Do you want to see how productive employees are? Do you plan to monitor their performance? Are you thinking about adjusting billing?

Once you know the reason for time tracking and implementing the monitoring policy, you can start looking for software to suit your needs. Many programs exist for time tracking employees’ and freelancers’ work.

Depending on your needs and requirements, you can find a suitable app for your team.

2. Create a Time Tracking Policy

Time tracking for remote workers may seem complicated. Employees can feel a certain lack of trust. To make sure everyone is on the same page, you need to introduce a time-tracking policy that works for all remote employees.

According to Allshore, remote staffing experts, such a policy should be introduced as a highly beneficial option that can take care of any billing errors. By implementing a time-tracking policy, you are promising that all employees are paid fairly, according to the hours worked.

3. Ask for Feedback

After you implement the time-tracking policy, wait a month before requesting feedback. You need to make sure all employees are satisfied with the policy, the app, and the way the new structure contributes to fair payments and a trust-based environment.

Once you receive feedback from both employees and managers, you need to show them that their opinion is heard. Take advantage of this information to adjust the time-tracking policy if necessary. You may even reconsider the software.

4. Set Deadlines

Besides implementing time-tracking software, you can take advantage of other methods of tracking remote employee performance. One of them is setting milestones and deadlines. You can look at the work in terms of structure and processes rather than a number of activities.

By structuring your work in units, you can set deadlines, and track employee performance accordingly. However, such an approach requires you to explain the entire scope of activities to your team.

The goal is a good structure and proper awareness. It can lead to top-notch performance remotely and on-site.

5. Add Transparency

To make sure your remote team is maintaining high productivity, you need to have transparency. Transparent workflow and goals are just the beginning of a proper remote work structure. You need to explain all the goals (both small and large) to your team member to help them realize how they fit into the big picture.

Once each member of your team understands where they fit in, they can start tracking their work in a comprehensive manner. Meanwhile, you should be working on improving communication among managers and team members.

Remember, monitoring your remote employees shouldn’t involve micromanaging them. This could lead to a decrease in productivity and hinder the overall team’s morale.

6. Implement End of Day Report

When it comes to flexibility, remote work is highly appealing to many employees. It may mean working at any time of the day they deem feasible for their schedule. So tracking each hour of their work as you would in the office is counterproductive.

Consider asking your remote employees to create a daily summary of things that were accomplished. You can use this information to plan the next projects and evaluate each employee’s productivity. These summaries can also help you set the right goals for the next working periods.

You can choose the best form of these summaries. Anything from written reports to team meetings can work as long as employees understand the importance of sharing detailed information about their achievements.

Final Thoughts

Tracking remote employees comes in many forms. You can track anything from time to accomplishments. Implement a system that works for your employees, and make sure everybody understands how it benefits both the company and the team.