Work-from-home monitoring & productivity in 2020

Work-from-home in 2020

Since the ongoing COVID-19 situation, the percentage of businesses working from home has skyrocketed. Gartner conducted a survey that found that 88% of business organizations worldwide had authorized all their employees to work from home. Another Buffer survey shows that at least 98% of remote workers would like to continue working remotely.

Work-from-home affects employee productivity - fresh stats

Distractions ranging from family needs, household chores, or even poor internet connections make it challenging to pay undivided attention to work and maintain a high productivity level while working from home. Research from SHRM shows that 71% of businesses struggle with adjusting to remote work, especially when it comes to productivity.

According to Google, their engineers had difficulties balancing the workload when working from home.

Other recent findings from Google's internal data also showed that their newly hired engineers found it difficult to manage their workload while working from home. Factors such as communication, problems with bringing everyone up to speed, among other things, played a key role in decreasing productivity. The bottom line is, it takes serious concentration to work in a less structured environment. Now businesses are searching for ways to boost the productivity of employees in this work-from-home era.

The best practices to keep productivity up

WorkTime experts have recommended useful tips for any business, regardless of size (small/large) or work setting/environment (in-house or remote/work-from-home.)

Plan ahead

Planning ahead can have a significant impact on business growth and productivity. Planning helps the team to stay organized and focused. Preparing ahead also allows you to overcome issues that could potentially arise.

A well-organized plan helps to keep the workforce focused during working hours.

Set clear goals

Set clear and attainable goals (short &long term) and get your team on board. They need to understand these goals and what is expected of them to work correctly. It'll be an excellent time to add incentives to boost morale and encourage your team to work hard to achieve collective goals.

Set clear and attainable goals (short &long term) and get your team on board.

Distribute tasks fairly

To keep your team productive, burnout should be avoided at all costs. When the workload overwhelms employees, they tend to procrastinate and lose efficiency and productivity. Try to be rational about the workload and time allotted to complete tasks (due dates). It's also essential to prioritize and categorize each task to organize the work process and stay focused and productive.

It is essential to prioritize the tasks to help organize the work process so that everyone stays focused and productive.

Establish realistic expectations

The success of your business depends on how achievable your expectations are. Unattainable expectations will not only kill productivity and progress but leave room for stress, anxiety, and low motivation.

Set realistic expectations that will encourage employees to work towards achieving them.

Communicate frequently

Effective communication is another great way of maintaining productivity. Productivity flourishes in structure and the best way to strengthen this structure is through team interaction — regular (face-to-face) communication, if possible. Let's look at a couple of ways to strengthen team communication:

• Daily Check-ins: It could be a 15-30 minute stand-up meeting (daily) to review what the team did during the day, what challenges they faced, the next course of action, and what they are looking forward to doing the next day.
• One-on-ones: (a few times a week) to look at employees' work and progress and help with current employee issues in carrying out tasks or projects.
• Occasional long meetings: (at least once a month) to review the projects that have been completed, the results achieved during the month, and to plan for the coming month. This ensures the entire team is on the same page and information is shared accurately and in time.

Effective communication is a great way of maintaining productivity.

Implement the best technology

Invest in technology that can consistently monitor employee performance and at the same time automate time-consuming manual processes.

WorkTime employee monitoring software offers features that monitor employee productivity and automate work processes.

Account for everyone’s time

Implementing a good time tracking software that allows everyone to be accountable for their time is necessary. Employees can record time spent on tasks, log hours worked, and login/logout to ensure productivity. And these reports can be viewed in real-time, regardless of location.

Introduce a bit of healthy competition

Never underestimate the power of friendly competition. It is a great way for employees to remain motivated and productive in a target-driven environment. You can use the employee monitoring reports to identify the best-performing employees and acknowledge them. Awarding prizes to the best performers will be an added plus to challenge them. In no time, everyone will be competing for the prize and, at the same time, enhancing their learning and productivity - win on both sides!

Friendly competition is a great way for employees to remain motivated and productive in a target-driven environment.

Recognize good work

Commending good work can keep motivation and productivity high. You'll be amazed at how productive and motivated employees can become once they receive positive feedback for their work.

Be transparent and build trust

Building a transparent and trust-filled environment where everyone can feel free to be their best at work without feeling micromanaged is very important for their productivity and the business's overall health.

Make time for fun activities

All work and no play make employees demotivated. Occasionally set aside some time for social interactions as a team. If you're working remotely, while you may not interact physically, taking time to participate in virtual games or quizzes or just having a zoom hangout after work is a good way to boost morale.

Work-from-home monitoring software

Productivity monitoring software is the best way to maintain a high productivity level when working from home or remotely. It helps to replicate an in-office environment when working from home. As productivity monitoring software providers and experts with 20+ years of experience, we advise that this process be carried out properly. We recommend non-invasive goal/business-oriented software. WorkTime productivity monitoring software meets the criteria; it has all the all the features and tools needed for a productive remote/work-from-home working culture regardless of the company size. According to our customers, monitoring has completely saved their business, money, stopped false overtimes, reduced distractions, and helped keep their remote/work-from-home team engaged. WorkTime helps remote and work-from-home employees:

• To properly utilize their working hours by monitoring attendance and login/logout.
• It monitors the websites and online applications accessed during working hours to show a real picture of Internet use, software, and computer use.
• It monitors the time spent actively doing work-related activities and the time spent away from computers.
• WorkTime reports enable employers to measure employees' productivity and make improvements where necessary.

WorkTime has helped thousands of companies achieve the same productivity levels that they do in the physical workplace as they work from home.

Start improving work-from-home now

Using the right monitoring software to manage work-from-home makes the work process more manageable and productive. Our experts have created a straightforward yet effective work-from-home monitoring eBook to make this process successful.