How to Track Employees Working from Home?

Employees in all sorts of businesses have been forced to work from home over the duration of the pandemic. And in this time workers have become adapted to all the perks offered by remote work, which can be difficult to replicate when working from the office. The better work-life balance, lack of commute, location independence, monetary savings, etc… afforded to employees by working from home have made employees reluctant to return to regular office work.

Companies all over the world have complied with the wishes of their employees and inducted working from home as a part of their company policy. But employers are still worried about how to track employees working from home. The tools that facilitate employees to efficiently work from the comforts of their homes can also help track them. Let’s have a look at the best methods to track employees working from home.

Assign tasks with proper deadlines and milestones

Employees usually tend to slack off at work when they feel special attention is not paid to them, or when they are not explicitly told what to do. The best way to track employees working from home is to assign them tasks with proper deadlines and milestones. Managers or supervisors can check with employees regularly about the progress of the task and make sure that they are on track. This provides much-needed clarity and it can be known if the task is lagging behind schedule. And by setting a target time to finish tasks, you set a baseline for productivity. If multiple employees are assigned the same task, the time taken for completion by each can be compared to evaluate their productivity. Supervisors can assign tasks with set deadlines to their team using Desklog employee time and productivity tracking software.

Implement self-reporting

Most employees have to work on multiple tasks simultaneously, this could make them lose track of what they have done during their workday. A daily summary report can eradicate this problem. This can also help you recognize the possibilities for improvement, pick up any potential concerns, and much more. Keeping a journal on what they have done during the day will help in maintaining employee motivation. Reports can be daily, weekly, or even monthly depending on the nature of work. The content of the reports could be a list of tasks completed during the day, timesheets, tasks accomplished, projects, any concerns, progress towards goals, etc… depending on the nature of the report.

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Review employee activities

Transparency among team members is crucial when working from home. A transparent workflow and setting proper goals are important. Employers have to ensure that each member of the team understands how they fit in, what’s expected of them, and what their output should be. In terms of inclusivity, each member of the team should understand how their works belong to the team result, which will make each task into a team endeavor. Expressing your expectations to the company and asking for the feedback of employees is mandatory. Including everyone’s activities in the review process will elevate your team’s workflow to new levels. If you want to effectively track your employees working from home, review the team and individual activities of your employees regularly.

Set proper KPI’s

Using KPIs for employees working from home is an effective way of measuring their productivity. Key Performance Indicators act as a baseline to assess processes and quantify developments. They are key metrics deployed by the company to analyze the performance of an employee. Employers should be careful while setting KPIs for remote workers. The proposed KPIs should refer to specific tasks, measurable, achievable under remote working conditions, relevant to the workflow of your company, and be limited to a period and subject to regular reviews. Employees working from home should be evaluated based on their ability to work independently, their capability to communicate effectively with their coworkers and clients, and their expertise to follow instructions and learn new things quickly.

Get to know more about How to Maximise Remote Employee Productivity (2021)

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Implement proper documentation

Proper documentation relieves remote employees from many potential complications and can be used to effectively track them. The performance of individual employees on projects can be found out and analyzed properly. Employees could work whenever they feel at their productive best, with a proper document keeping track of all your activities. Remote employees will find work more manageable with proper documentation. Keep your documentation where it can easily be shared and referenced by your remote workers. Google Drive or Dropbox can be used to implement proper documentation.

Employee time and productivity tracking software

The most effective way to monitor your employees working from home is by deploying employee time and productivity tracking software. Desklog is a work from home employee time and productivity software with advanced features to monitor all your employees working from home and give a welcome boost to their productivity. The software comes with features such as an intuitive and user-friendly dashboard, employee productivity tracking, attendance management, task management, graphs of productivity, app usage & URL tracking, automated screenshots, and much more. Desklog ensures that employees working from home are well tracked and their productivity is not compromised.

Conclusion

Here we have looked at the best ways to track employees working from home. As more and more companies are introducing work from home into their policies, and employees looking for remote working options in jobs, your organization must implement proper tools to track employees working from home. Try Desklog employee time and productivity tracking for your team and see the results for yourself.

Meet The Author

Saleem

Senior Content Writer at Desklog

Saleem is a futuristic researcher on time tracking softwares. He started his career as a technical content writer. His curious mind made him much interested with the automated time tracking systems. Thus, he started learning in depth on time tracking softwares, which made him explore its impacts on employees and management in detail.