For companies running remote offices, keeping track of the work done by their members is a vital task. After all, they don’t have the luxury of just dropping by each employee’s cubicle and seeing what they are doing. But deciding how closely you monitor your team can be a challenge. Not everyone is a fan of the manager constantly looking over their shoulders. Here is how you can do employee monitoring the right way and effectively keep track of your team.
Why too much employee monitoring is a bad thing
One of the biggest concerns of many remote workers about heavy employee monitoring is the perceived invasion of their privacy. This is particularly the case with those working from home. Employees might feel that managers are monitoring even their non-working hours. Additionally, remote workers are concerned that even their private conversations are being watched.
A more specific concern here is the tracking of internet usage. Companies assert that they have legal rights to do so. They argue that everything done during work hours, including internet use, should be tracked since they are part of work.
However, remote workers counter that since they use their own internet connections, they are accorded a greater degree of privacy in contrast to office setups. Additionally, they claim that monitoring software also ends up tracking their activities outside of office hours. This raises a lot of concerns about the other effects of too much monitoring on employee’s well-being
Additional stress
The thought of being continuously monitored by the bosses can be a stressful experience for remote workers. They become overly conscious of what they are doing, worrying that even a slight mistake can lead them to get reprimanded or fired. This can ironically lead them to underperform.
That stress can also lead to low morale, as remote employees will feel like they are being undervalued by the company. Because of that feeling, they might consider looking for other jobs. This leads to unnecessary turnovers that hamper the progress of the company’s work.
Decreased workforce efficiency
Constant monitoring also forces remote workers to adopt similar working habits. While this creates some form of uniformity, it disregards the fact that each individual has their own working style. This ends up alienating your employees more.
Trying to put all your team members into the same shifts for the sake of monitoring also has a negative return for the company. As mentioned already, everyone has their own best working times. Because of that, you might end up with a less efficient team at any given moment. By giving a bit more flexibility in terms of work times, you allow your members to perform during their peak hours.
Doing employee monitoring right
With all that is said and done, you still can’t just drop employee monitoring altogether. After all, you need to see that progress is being made by your team. What you want to do instead is create a more efficient and organic means of tracking your team.
This begins with considering how employee monitoring will fit into the schedule you already have. In the ebook SHIFT HAPPENS, outsourcing company Virtua Solutions gives the following strategy.
“To avoid grey areas like personal internet usage, we always consider the work arrangements we have set for remote employees. If the team is observing a definite schedule, such as a regular 9-to-5 workday, then work monitoring should align with that. We take note of break and off times and turn off monitoring during those. This requires diligence on the part of managers to ensure that the monitoring breaks are enforced correctly.
However, we also have arrangements with a more open schedule, wherein remote employees work on their preferred times. Here, we rely on employees to provide updates on their work. In this setup, employees have the burden of correctly reporting their activities, including internet usage. This is mostly applicable to employees who do creative work.”
The strategy allows for greater flexibility in monitoring and is well suited for companies that employ a mix of regular workers and freelancers. It also gives employees more breathing room, letting them to better perform their tasks without worry that someone is looking over their shoulders.
Finding the right tools for tracking
Having the right employee tracking tool is also important for more effective employee monitoring. While there are a wide variety of tools available, you need to carefully consider which one would best suit the team’s set up. Some of the basic functionality to consider are:
- Basic time tracking: A good tool should accurately track working hours in real-time. It should also export time tracking data into an Excel or CSV file for processing.
- Screenshot and video recording: These features are useful for taking random snapshots of employees’ work. The tool should let managers adjust the frequency of the snapshots.
- Location monitoring: This feature is useful for remote teams that have members continuously on the move, such as those working on the field.
- Productivity tracker: This feature lets managers track the output of employees based on a given set of metrics. Freelancers also use it to monitor their progress.
- Time management features: A good tracking software should give users tools to better manage their time, including scheduling and basic task organization.
Aside from these, many employee tracking tools also have advanced features that let companies customize tracking methods. When deciding on the tool to use, you should consider the nature of the work being done. For example, content writing work done on an open schedule might not need hourly tracking. By doing this, you get a tool that already fits with your operations right out of the box.
Additionally, the tool should not be too intrusive. Go through the list of metrics that it tracks and weigh in on whether each would be necessary. Here, it would help to get the consensus of employees themselves on what kinds of tracking would be fine with them.
Creating a More Transparent Workflow
Having a more transparent workflow will help you keep track of everyone’s work efficiently. The idea here is to make it easier for everyone in the team to follow the progress of their work. This also makes them feel more included in the decision making for the project, earning you their trust.
The first step in introducing more transparency into your remote team is by simplifying communication. Review your different channels and determine what role each would play in your team’s internal communications. You would also want to eliminate channels that do not work well for improving team communications.
Using project management software also helps you cut down on the need to constantly ask for updates on the work being done. With kanban-style PM software, for instance, you can quickly tell where an employee is in a given task. Since the schedule is visible to everyone in the team, the particular employee will know that you can tell whether they are lagging behind the schedule and will be obliged to do the work faster.
Gaining trust
It is also important that team members are familiar with each other. This way, you have a better idea of how they work and factor it into your monitoring strategies. You also learn to trust them more once you are familiar with their practices. On the other hand, your employees become more willing to abide with monitoring rules if they know that you trust their capabilities.
You also need to be transparent with your employee monitoring policies. Write the rules in a simple language that everyone understands. You would also want to be clear as to what kind of data will be collected from workers. Lastly, be ready to accept criticisms and suggestions to further refine your monitoring process.
Use the right employee monitoring strategies and keep your team’s trust
Employee monitoring is an essential part of a remote team’s operations and should not be a burden to both you and your workers. By following the strategies above, you create a monitoring system that everyone trusts. And if you want to learn more about how you can better manage your team’s time, download the SHIFT HAPPENS! The Definitive Guide to Shifting to a Remote Work System ebook. You will find it helpful for optimizing your team’s performance.