How to Monitor Employees Working From Home: Step-by-Step Guide

The ongoing shift to remote and hybrid work makes it difficult for employers to effectively monitor the productivity of their employees who do not report physically to the office every day.

Nevertheless, with proper tools and strategies, supervisors can have oversight on how remote staff are progressing while keeping them motivated as well as making them responsible. This is a great guide that looks at some helpful ways of monitoring employees who operate from their homes. So, let’s take a look at how to monitor your employees working from home.

What is Remote Employee Monitoring?

Remote employee monitoring involves a variety of approaches used by managers to oversee and monitor the performance of employees working remotely or away from the central office. It generally entails surveillance of worker productivity, work hours, assignments progress, and computer use. Its objective is to ensure that remote workers remain focused and accomplish their tasks correctly and on time even if they are working alone outside the main office.

Why Need to Track Remote Employees?

There are several compelling reasons managers need visibility into remote employees' work productivity and hours:

• Validate work completion - Confirm assigned work is being completed fully, accurately and on schedule. Remote workers have more freedom to procrastinate or get distracted. Monitoring helps ensure deadlines are met.
• Verify hours worked - Ensure employees are working their contracted hours and not logging off early or taking excessive breaks when unsupervised. Clock-in apps and activity monitoring provide insight.
• Maintain productivity - Employees working from home have more distractions competing for their time. Monitoring helps identify productivity issues as they arise so managers can coach workers and get them back on track.
• Spot engagement issues - Performance and progress monitoring helps managers identify motivational issues before they escalate into major problems. Engaged workers are more productive.
• Keep employees accountable - When working remotely, it can be easy for employees to slack off or drift into personal activities during work hours. Monitoring keeps them focused and diligent.
• Protect company assets - Remote workers have increased opportunity to mishandle company trade secrets, intellectual property and other assets. Monitoring software helps mitigate this risk.

Proper monitoring provides managers with essential visibility they lack when employees work remotely. It often brings the question to the manager’s mind like how to keep track of employees working from home. Implementing a combination of tracking methods helps minimize productivity loss, motivates workers, and protects the business.

How to Monitor Work-From-Home Employees: 9 Effective Ways

Managers have a variety of software tools, techniques, and best practices at their disposal for monitoring employees working from home. Here is how to monitor productivity of remote workers:

1. Install Employee Monitoring Software

Using employee monitoring software is one of the most effective ways for managers to get visibility into what remote workers are doing all day. This specialized software enables managers to monitor the programs, applications, and websites that employees access via their work computers. Also, it helps them monitor how much time is being spent on particular websites and tasks as well as keyboard and mouse usage.

In addition, popular options such as Hubstaff, ActivTrak, Teramind, and Time Doctor offer comprehensive analytics to managers about the computer usage and productivity of remote employees. The program validates if workers actually stay on task during scheduled working hours. It notifies managers about any high-risk activities that might pose security threats or show disinterest.

2. Track Employees' Working Hours

Just ensuring that remote workers log in/out of work systems at specified times every day can give some valuable insight into attendance and work duration. Requiring staff members to clock in/out using timestamped timesheets or time-tracking apps like Toggl can help verify accurate hours worked when managing remote teams.

3. Create Timesheet for Employee's Work

Timesheets enable supervisors to collect data about how remote staff use their time, segregating hours worked by project or task. Obliging distant laborers to provide timesheets makes them periodically assess their own productivity levels. Reviewing these forms also allows supervisors to detect areas where improvement is necessary across the group.

4. Use Project Management Tools

Sophisticated project management systems such as Asana, Trello, Basecamp, and Monday.com offer more control over progress by remote employees than simple email correspondence does. Both line managers and remote workers have increased visibility because of features like task lists, time estimates, status updates as well as file-sharing capability. Managers can follow the continuous development of projects.

5. Keep in Touch with Remote Employees

Effective communication is crucial while managing people working away from office premises. Managers should schedule regular 30-minute check-in calls with remote employees over video chat or phone (daily or weekly) to discuss workload, address roadblocks, and give feedback. This face-time makes employees feel connected and accountable.

6. Conduct Regular Attendance Check

Online calendars shared by managers and remote employees make it easy to keep track of who is on leave or working each day. Managers can verify that workers are clocking hours as planned, attending virtual meetings, and not missing any time unexpectedly. Unforeseen absences may indicate problems needing attention.

7. Set Quantifiable Goals on Regular Basis

Setting SMART goals for remote employees tied to specific metrics keeps workers focused when unsupervised. A weekly sales target for example is given to the sales reps, a case resolution quotas for support agents, etc. Goals should be time-bound and measurable. Frequent check-ins help workers stay on task.

8. Monitor Teams or Slack Channels

Managers should join remote teams' communication apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams to monitor project channels and conversations. Reviewing message frequency and content provides insight into employee collaboration, engagement, and progress. Lack of participation may reflect problems.

9. Request Daily Productivity Reports

Asking remote employees to send brief status reports or summaries at the end of each day listing completed tasks, roadblocks, and goals for the next day helps managers identify potential issues early. Reading recaps also provides opportunities to recognize strong performers.

Things to Remember for Effective Monitoring of Remote Workers

When implementing systems to monitor remote employees, managers should keep these guidelines in mind:

• Disclose monitoring - Notify employees what software and systems are in use to track their work and productivity. Transparency builds trust.
• Protect privacy - Only collect essential data needed to validate work completion and avoid overly invasive tracking like recording audio or video without permission.
• Focus on work - Monitoring should focus strictly on work-related actions during contracted working hours and on company-owned devices. Refrain from tracking personal online activity.
• Allow autonomy - Provide remote workers sufficient independence to manage their own workload. Avoid micromanaging by constantly looking over their shoulder.
• Set expectations - Share guidelines for working hours, communication, productivity metrics, etc. Establish clear expectations and consequences.
• Be supportive - If productivity issues arise, have constructive conversations focused on finding solutions, rather than punishments. Offer help and resources to improve.

In addition, installing surveillance cameras for on-site worker monitoring and safety can be a great choice. For example, Reolink Argus 4 and Argus 4 Pro can be your great options. By integrating remote video monitoring with real-time alerts, businesses can effectively ensure employees' safety.

FAQs

How do companies monitor employees working from home?

Normally, businesses make use of a blend of monitoring software, timesheets, project management systems, video check-ins, instant messaging monitoring, and daily productivity reports to keep track of the time worked by their remote employees, their progress levels in their work activities, as well as the extent of computer use and engagement.

Is it legal to monitor remote employees?

In general terms yes; it is legally allowed for organizations to monitor remote employees using company-owned property like devices, accounts, and networks provided that there’s prior notice given to the employee about this. Nevertheless, laws on recording vary while those involving location tracking differ. Thus before introducing any other new monitoring practices consult an attorney.

Conclusion

Monitoring the productivity, work hours, and progress of remote workers is very important for managing hybrid or fully remote teams. Utilization of timesheets, activity monitoring software, frequent check-ins, and quantifiable goals help to ensure that remote employees stay focused on the task at hand, avoid any distractions, and meet deadlines. When carried out ethically and rationally, monitoring remote employees can boost productivity levels, foster a sense of responsibility, and enhance business performance.