Working remotely is now the norm. In today’s world where everything is technology-driven, companies are prioritizing outsourcing employees over hiring location-based workers and it’s becoming a trend. Companies are accepting this framework and embracing flexible work styles. They respect the advanced thinking of the employees, especially millennials who want a more carefree lifestyle, who want to own their hours and want more flexibility. It’s been estimated that by the year 2027, flexible workers will make the majority of employees in the U.S. Hence, industries are evolving and the face of the corporate world is changing.

Does Remote Work Mean Some Extra Time For Personal Errands?

If you have a remote employee workforce or you are planning to expand your horizons and welcome remote employees, then the productivity of the remote workers is the first question. “What if they are just lying on their couch in their pajamas and not working but claiming to work?” “What if they make excuses for not meeting their deadlines?” Remote Employee monitoring is the answer to all these questions. Does it stand up for outsourced workers?

Why Remote Employee Surveillance?

Remote employees can fall into the “out of sight, out of mind” category. Some of them may also feel disconnected and disengaged when no work peer is around on a regular basis. But this also lets them focus solely on their time and work and hit the bull’s eye within the deadline.

Being a remote manager, you should know when your offsite workers are working. You need to make sure that the employees actually work for the hours they are paid for because you’d probably want to get the best value of the money spent on them.

There are several reasons why monitoring their every move can enhance their throughput. Here are some of them.

1. Remote Employee Monitoring Unveils Weak Areas

While monitoring your remote employees, you’ll also evaluate their performance and see their mistakes which is important for their growth and improvement. Also, you will get more understanding of worker’s process of working and activities. You can tell them where they should focus on to perform better. However, monitoring eases giving detailed feedback and outlining employees’ qualities.

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2. More Transparency

It is no denying a fact that transparency is a two-way street. Both the workers and the managers should share information freely to increase transparency in a remote environment. Transparency leads to recognition and accountability with clear objectives. It cultivates the health and success of a business. More transparency means more trust and trust is the building block of a manager-teammates relationship.

3. Help Them Meet Deadlines: Sometimes it becomes challenging to work in compliance with the time limits while working away from traditional office spaces. Sometimes the neighbors, guests, random thoughts don’t allow to work freely and their constant visits create hauls. Bringing back the concentration and focus is time-consuming. But the thought of ‘work being clocked in’ would push them to find ways to avoid distractions and complete the work on time.

How To Take A Step Forward To Monitor Remote Workers

All thanks to the technology that companies can now monitor and track the performance of remotely working employees. No, you are not spying on them, you are monitoring their performance to help them understand their weak areas and improve.

It is a myth that offsite workers are ‘always-on.’ One chooses to work remotely to set their own schedule and work when they find themselves the most productive and creative. You can’t keep a track of their performance manually when you are on the go without technology. There are several ways to monitor employee performance. One of the best ways to check what they do in their working hours is with the help of tools. Time tracking apps help to effectively examine the remote work for 24*7.

“ProofHub is the next wave of employee monitoring. Try now for FREE!”

Is remote employee monitoring possible for the employees sitting on the other corner of the globe?

Take Ultimate Control of Remote Work With ProofHub

1. Inbuilt Timer: The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about employee monitoring is time tracking. ProofHub timer helps to keep track of the time spent on multiple tasks separately. You can either track time manually or using a timer. You can switch between different tasks by starting multiple timers without saving or discarding the old one.
2. Get Notified of Their Every Activity: No more missing any notifications. ProofHub keeps you updated with all the activities through real-time in-app, desktop, email and mobile notifications. Time zone difference is not a barrier. Notifications section keeps you updated on every activity/task performed by the workers, either local or remote. In ProofHub’s mobile app, you are notified of every activity on the go.
3. Calendar Makes It Easy: Another way to ease offsite work monitoring is to put every task and milestone on the calendar. You can then verify if the tasks are completed promptly. In ProofHub, you get data from all the projects in your account. ProofHub calendar helps to see daily tasks, events for a day, week, next 2 weeks or plans for the whole month. You can also sync the ProofHub calendar with Google Calendar, iCal, and Outlook and download it in PDF, CSV and iCal formats.
4. Know Who Is Doing What: Task management is a cakewalk with ProofHub’s Kanban boards. The respective workflow stages signify who is working on which task. This also empowers you to get a glimpse of their activities without actually being present there. You can discover the problem areas and figure out what they’re having the most issues with. Provide them with some guidance, suggestions, and training in those areas. Perhaps you might find that they’re fit for another role.
5. Custom Reports: You get a clear view of the project reports with an online reporting tool of ProofHub in a breeze. Burn-up charts ease data interpretation. So, nothing to worry when you can analyze project progress quickly and adjust your plans accordingly.
6. Track Team’s Progress: You can easily analyze employees’ performance and keep a check on their pending tasks. ProofHub filters enable you to check what’s due and tasks assigned to a particular person.
7. Individual’s Profile View: ProofHub helps to see an individual’s assignments, activities, projects, etc. in one place. You can get a clear picture of an individual’s profile, analyze tasks in the “In Progress” stage and assign them new tasks accordingly.
8. Roadmap Of Milestones: ProofHub’s individual project report unveils the complete and incomplete milestones of a person. You can visualize a roadmap timeline of all the tasks and plan ahead. Pie charts make visualization easy. You get a clear and flexible UI in ProofHub which helps you to get transparency of all the project operations.
9. Quick and Clear Feedback: No more wasting time searching for feedback in long email threads. Proofing is way simpler and easier with ProofHub. You can save a lot of time reviewing the documents and designs. Markup tools and proofing tools minimize any confusion and allow you to give easy feedback.

An employee monitoring tool helps to track if one is spending too much time on certain tasks. Also, employee surveillance observes if one wastes a huge chunk of time on low-value deliverables such as emails, reporting, etc.

According to a 2018 survey of remote employees, 53.4% of employees think that remote working has increased their productivity levels. 34.4% of employees say they have less stress now. Also, 64% said they sometimes take care of their personal tasks during the workday. Employees take care of personal errands while working remotely. So, it becomes mandatory to watch them. ProofHub helps to take care of the tasks performed by outsourced workers while they are on the clock.

Further Reading-
*How to Empower Remote Employees to be More Productive
*Staying Prepared And Productive As A Remote Employee
*7 Effective Tools For Managing A Virtual Team
*Work Remotely or Not — What Experts Have to Say?
*5 Science-Backed Tips to Manage Your Remote Team Effectively
*10 Best Design Collaboration Tools For Remote Teams

How Monitoring Influence Employees

In my professional experience of more than 12 years, I have hardly seen any employee who has not improved his/her output on being tracked. Employees, remote and in-house, respond equally to monitoring. Employees become more accountable for their output when they know that their work and time are tracked.

Not only the company, but the individuals also enjoy the benefits of employee monitoring. It brings motivation to them and they are more likely to produce greater results regularly. It avoids any issues related to billing justification and payment. Work hours are tracked and documented accurately by you, so nothing to worry on their part too.

Employee Monitoring Plays A Big Role — Hawthorne Effect

According to a psychological study known as the Hawthorne effect or the observer effect, an individual modifies their behavior or an aspect of it on being observed.

A psychological stimulus is triggered when delegates or managers keep an eye on the work done. Whether it is a public place, a school, home or at the office, the effect is applicable to all places. According to the effect, the production of the workers increases because they were pleased to get attention from managers. Companies are into monitoring their remote employees to prevent undesirable behavior. It is a significant finding to guide companies on employee monitoring.

Future of Employee Monitoring — What To Expect

The future of work is remote. Gone are the days when remote work was rarely practiced by some organizations. By the year 2025, remote work will be equal to the work done on fixed office locations.

‘Employers are expecting more flexible work arrangements, customers are demanding more responsiveness from companies, and the challenge is now for CEOs to embrace the change required within their organizations to address these needs’ — Brian Martin, senior vice-president of Blueface.

Again, thanks to technology advancements! As per Indeed’s data, the number of Irish job-seekers with the keyword ‘remote’ has surged by 171%. Companies are recognizing the advantages of extending their talent reach and hiring employees beyond their local geographies. Time & location flexibility, work-life balance, increased productivity are some of the benefits of outsourcing talent. Therefore, remote work will continue to gain momentum in the upcoming years.

If you enjoyed this…

Read the other articles:

1. 12 Steps to Establish a Connection Between Remote Workers & Your Company
2. Staying Prepared And Productive As A Remote Employee
3. How to Succeed Leading a Team of Remote Teams

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