At this juncture, HR and business leaders are posed with the biggest question, how to measure the productivity of their remote employees.

7 Tips To Measure Productivity Of Remote Employees

If you’re amidst this tricky situation then here are some useful tips:

1. Leverage Technology

It is great that we are living in times when we have technologies at our perusal. Use them to your benefit. For example, implementing project management tools like Trello or Asana across the organization will help employers to know what each employee is working on at the moment, how much time they are spending on each task, and measure their overall productivity.

2. Define Deliverables

Managers need to define each task clearly with a clear start point, midpoint, and endpoint. When employees know their deliverables well, they feel more engaged and accountable for any task. This will help in measuring the output volume of every employee and determine if anyone is underperforming.

3. Productivity Tracking Software

Many organizations use productivity tracking software to measure the productivity of their remote workers. These software not just help in monitoring the productivity levels but also help in setting reminders for employees to take a break in order to take care of their health. 

4. Have Set KPIs In Place

Having set KPIs in place helps managers to measure the productivity of their team members. Depending on the job roles, each employee can have 5-10 KPIs against which their deliverables and productivity can be measured.

5. Daily Work Reports

Based on the job roles and the nature of your business, you may ask your remote employees to share daily job reports. This will help you to understand how much time each employee is spending on each task, the output volume, etc. If a person is found to take more time on a task than estimated, a manager can investigate the cause and fix it to boost productivity.

6. Communication Is The Key

Setting up expectations and communicating them effectively is the key to boosting productivity among employees. Both team members and managers must be kept in the loop while setting up expectations and evaluating them from time to time is necessary. If an employee is found slacking, setting up one-on-one interactions will help to identify obstacles and solve them. Leveraging collaboration tools like Teams and Slack helps in easy collaboration and communication between employees and managers.

8. Invest In Business Tools

When you work remotely, most of your work might be dependent on technology. The tools you choose highly impact the productivity of your remote employees, hence, make sure you end-up with investing in the right ones. For example, Workplace Analytics is an effective tool that helps leaders insights on various aspects of work dynamics and identify if their existing strategies are feasible even in a remote work culture. Also, HR leaders can gain insight if the organization can meet targets, productivity goals are met, time, and networking trends in the organization. This is an important way to address complex business challenges related to productivity issues.

Boost Productivity Of Remote Employees

If your team has recently gone remote and struggling with productivity issues here are some quick tips:

Talk to your people to find out if they are under stress. With the pandemic striking each one of us hard, embracing remote work, managing work-life balance, many employees are finding it overwhelming. Be empathetic towards them and understand what is hindering their productivity. If a small tweak in your company policy can help boost productivity, go ahead and implement it. For example, if flexible working can boost employee productivity, do not hesitate to implement it at your workplace.

Finally, emphasize on building mutual trust for each other. While your employees should be able to trust you and open up, you need to trust them too. This can be achieved through open discussions and building relationships. When employers and employees have mutual trust for each other, productivity will increase automatically.

Recommended Read: – Current and Future Trends in Remote Work for 2022-2025

In a study in 2016, Gallup found that 43% of employees work remotely at some part of their life. The number grew dramatically when COVID-19 struck us early this year and most businesses took their workforce remote. In such a scenario, measuring productivity becomes critical when your employees are working remotely. However, you need to measure it without getting judgmental or micromanaging them. While you can have different tools and methods in place, communication and trust are the two primary resources that you need to heavily rely upon to see a boost in employee productivity. Learn how to maintain work-from-home productivity.