Employee monitoring for operational efficiency in regular, remote, & hybrid workplaces

What is operational efficiency?

Operational efficiency means using resources such as time, money, human resources, and materials for production optimally. In general, companies with good operational efficiency, show themselves to be more flexible and successful than the competitors in the same industry, who do not use their resources efficiently.

We are WorkTime, employee monitoring software. For 20+ years, we’ve been helping companies optimize workplace efficiency, particularly resources like time, employees, productivity, computers and software.

Why is operational efficiency important & what’s the goal?

Operational efficiency is important for any company, in any field and with any number of employees. Inefficient companies risk operating at a loss, or with much less income than efficient companies.

Increasing efficiency is something every company strives to achieve; high production quality and speed, and low production costs.

Workplace efficiency goals may vary for every company, but almost all have one common goal, which is to increase employee productivity. According to Zapier, the majority of employees spend about 3 hours on the really important activities during work hours, and the rest of the time they are either engaged in low-value work or unproductive activities.

Good employee attendance and productivity are very important operational efficiency goals to achieve.

To measure employee attendance, productivity, and active time employers effectively engage technology. For example, employee monitoring software is a widely used technology for this purpose. WorkTime has supplied employee monitoring technology for 20+ years, which has been helping employers improve operational efficiency and productivity.

WorkTime is helping employers improve operational efficiency and productivity.

With the help of WorkTime employers can study and compare employee efficiency when working in a regular office setting, in a hybrid one, or remote.

Operational efficiency in hybrid, remote and in-office settings

When hiring an employee, it is important to choose the right workplace (remote, in-office, hybrid). Each employee has his own preferences in the workplace, but controlling the company where many employees work at different workplaces is quite problematic, so it is also important to choose the right way to control them, one option is the use of employee monitoring. With reference to Forbes' data, we'll delve into all types of jobs in detail, and talk about the problems of each.

Hybrid settings

A hybrid workplace is a mixed setting, where employees can work in-office or from home (for example, 3 days in the office and 2 days from home). The hybrid work format certainly offers many advantages, such as reduced travel time, and more, but there are also disadvantages. For example, when working from home, employees may be distracted by household chores or too relaxed because of the home environment, lack of supervision from managers, difficulties with self-organization, and difficulties with communication between colleagues. Hybrid employees may spend less time on important work tasks.

According to WorkTime customers, employee efficiency drops in a hybrid setting long term.

In-office settings

Working in an office setting allows employees to fully focus on their job duties, communication quality, response time, and knowledge sharing are at an all-time high when employees are in the office. In addition, the presence of managers ensures that employees are well supervised. At the same time, there are drawbacks that can negatively affect work efficiency. For example, if the workplace is too noisy, it can reduce employees' level of concentration. Or individual problems, such as long commute times, poor or no kitchen facilities where employees can eat, obligations to respect the dress code, less time for household chores and socializing. Many people may not like working in an office because of these disadvantages. According to Forbes, most of these factors make employees think about other jobs (remote, hybrid).

Remote settings

In 2020, a large number of workers around the world were forced to switch to remote work. But is it as efficient as office work?

The main problem with remote work is the lack of employee supervision.

There are also other significant problems, such as the lack of importance of the employee compared to those in the office (lack of respect is not the most obvious disadvantage of remote work, but it often occurs in companies where personal communication is valued), communication problems, distraction, separation of working and non-working hours. According to WorkTime customers, employee productivity (and in turn the overall operational efficiency) drops in the long run when working from home. Basically, remote settings demonstrate the same operational efficiency problems as the hybrid ones in terms of decreased employee supervision, longer response time, slower knowledge exchange, poor attendance, decreased active time, and higher distraction level.

WorkTime improves employee attendance, active time, focus, response time, and productivity at remote workplaces.

Although remote work remains very popular, many companies do not like this model of working. For example, according to Bloomberg, Elon Musk completely abandoned the remote working model for Twitter employees, but few liked it, and a huge number of employees wanted to quit. So Elon Musk had to make concessions, and soften his statement on the rejection of remote work.

Operational efficiency & technology

Various technologies are being used to increase operational efficiency. These include information management systems like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and employee monitoring systems. All of them are used to simplify routine processes, and to increase and measure efficiency.

Employee monitoring is one of the technologies successfully applied to improve operational efficiency.

As explained above, employee monitoring improves operational efficiency. It is an effective automatic tool suitable for any computerized office. It helps monitor employee attendance, active time, productivity, overtime, online meeting time, and more. Employers effortlessly receive numbers on any of the above. For example, they know the online marketing department was 67% productive last week, 35% of the employees were late at work, and so on.

WorkTime is an example of employee monitoring technology equipping employers with clear data on employee efficiency.

WorkTime is designed to measure and improve employee efficiency, whether they work remotely, in a hybrid, or office setting.

4 operational efficiency indicators in employee monitoring software

1. Understaffing According to Forbes when understaffed operational effectiveness drops. Employee monitoring software helps you effectively determine if you are understaffed. E.g., WorkTime shows if there is overtime (working before/after hours, during lunch, weekends etc.), if employees come to work early, or leave late. Those are the indicators of overloaded employees, which in turn, might mean that you are understaffed. But if your employees are late for work, often are idle, take too long for lunches, leave work early, often in online meetings, or are involved in non-work related activities, then the problem is not understaffing. WorkTime detects all the above indicators. According to Forbes, when employees are overloaded, the efficiency level of work drops. 2. Long meetings Long meetings, either online or in person, might negatively affect operational efficiency. WorkTime monitors time in online meetings, online chats, and idle time. If you see those numbers raising too much, this is a signal to work on operational efficiency. Elon Musk, for example, recommends his Twitter employees to keep meetings as short as possible and not to participate in the meetings where you cannot add any value. This CEO definitely knows how to keep his businesses operating effectively. 3. High distraction level According to a Bloomberg study, too many apps needed for work can be too distracting for employees. Many companies use multiple apps when one can perform multiple functions. WorkTime monitors various behavioral patterns to calculate employee distraction level. For example, switching between productive and unproductive activities adds points to the distraction level. 4. Absence & frequent breaks For good operation efficiency it is important employees are present at work. In computerized offices employee monitoring software is great for detecting when employees are absent from their computers. Monitoring systems equip employers with a clear understanding whether the employees are productive enough and do not waste their paid time on unproductive activities, whether they are overloaded and hiring more staff is required, and much more.

Operational efficiency indicators for regular, remote, & hybrid workplaces

Monitoring technology is a great tool helping employers to measure employee productivity, active time, attendance, and distraction score when working remote, from home, or in the office: This is a great way to compare the operational efficiency of different settings. And the best thing is there is no guesswork. You simply get clear and straightforward numbers! Based on those numbers employers can make better decisions on how to organize the workplace, what is more effective productivity wise.

Do not guess, measure with WorkTime! What is more efficient: work from home or in the office?

How to measure operational efficiency with employee monitoring software

To measure operational efficiency, WorkTime reports build easy-to-view charts of attendance, activity, inactive time, productive and non-productive work, goal completion, and more. With WorkTime reports, you can easily measure the operational effectiveness of an employee, department, or office, and compare them to other company facilities. You can measure an employee's efficiency using WorkTime reports, comparing a few employees, viewing statistics on attendance, absenteeism, effective time, overtime, and efficiency in applications.

WorkTime uses non-invasive methods to monitor employee efficiency.

Employee privacy & efficiency

A safe workplace is an important ground for operational efficiency. If you pick the right one, employee monitoring software will increase the safety of the workplace. This in turn will ensure monitoring data safety, employee privacy protection, and a good reputation. This will increase trust between employees and managers, minimize staff turnover, and reduce stress.

The right employee monitoring software protects employee privacy and increases the safety of the workplace.

WorkTime is a non-invasive monitoring software focused on productivity monitoring and workplace safety. WorkTime offers safe replacements to the regular invasive functions like screenshots and content recording, listening to an employee's microphone, using a keylogger, etc. If you choose invasive monitoring software, this in turn takes away from workplace safety. If you are an employer, and you are looking for, or already work with remote employees, you should first of all ensure the safety of the employee, and not invade his or her personal space. It is also necessary to correctly calculate the necessary time to perform the task, and not to overload the employees. The best solution is to use WorkTime employee monitoring, so you can monitor and evaluate the performance of your employees. WorkTime offers the only non-invasive employee monitoring system on the market. Workplace efficiency tips: using employee monitoring, proper time allocation for tasks, providing tools or work inventory to get the job done, a clear plan for completing the task.

Quotes by famous CEOs

Elon Musk

“When something is important enough, you do it, even if the odds are not in your favor.” This quote can also be applied to the workflow of the general employee. The employer needs to explain to the employee the importance of the product, otherwise without understanding what the product is for and why it is important, the employee will work unwillingly and without enthusiasm.

Jack Ma

“If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.” Focus on one task, don't try to do everything at once, it's much better to do all the tasks one by one.

Jeff Bezos

"If you don't want to hear criticism, please don't do anything new." Criticism is an important aspect of any activity. If your employer points out your mistakes and explains what points you could have done better, listen carefully.

Ways to improve efficiency in the workplace

According to Zenefits, many companies want their employees to work in the office, which is understandable, because otherwise it would be harder to control the employees. But based on WorkTime's experience, remote or hybrid employees can work even better than full-time employees, depending on personal preference, so it's important to allocate employees according to their wishes.

WorkTime employee monitoring allows you to measure productivity and efficiency, without intruding on employees' personal space.

9 ways to increase efficiency from Forbes

- Plan tasks - Focus on just one thing at a time - When completing a task, build on your strengths - Balance work and personal goals - Make meetings more efficient - Implement KPI (key performance indicators) - Develop a motivational system - Use your time right - Use employee monitoring

WorkTime is a tool to improve operational efficiency

Drawing on our experience, employee monitoring can not only measure but also improve employee efficiency in any mode of operation. With our tool, you can set up convenient monitoring of remote, office or hybrid employees. In practice, when using WorkTime employee monitoring, most employees increase productivity and try to reduce inefficient time, absenteeism, and downtime, since the data on employees' work is seen by the person in charge of the department. Without WorkTime monitoring, an employee can do his or her business during working hours, and no one will even know about it. WorkTime, in turn, does not cross the border of employees personal space, so they can work with monitoring without worrying that suddenly a screenshot from a computer, a text being sent, or a recording from a microphone can be transmitted directly to the head of the department.

WorkTime offers a 14-day free trial period, which allows you to test the only non-invasive monitoring system on the market in practice.