The rise of remote work has fundamentally changed how we evaluate employee and team performance. Distributed teams have more commonplace. So, organizations can no longer rely on traditional office-based metrics like hours logged to measure productivity accurately. Instead, business leaders today must learn the best practices for remote team monitoring.
Today, there is a growing need to embrace a results-oriented approach that focuses on evaluating concrete outputs and outcomes. Whether you’re a startup founder, franchisee, or SME aiming to cultivate a thriving remote workforce, it’s crucial to learn the best ways to monitor and support teammates in different locations and time zones.
This article will explore key strategies for assessing individual contributions and overall team progress in a distributed work environment. It will talk about building the right approach to remote team monitoring. It will also delve into how to adapt key performance indicators (KPIs) for the remote workplace.
Time-based vs. Output-based Participation
In a typical office environment, time tracking involves monitoring the number of hours employees spend at their desks. Employers commonly use methods like clocking in and out, timesheets, or electronic systems to record work hours. This practice aims to gauge employee attendance, punctuality, and overall time spent on job responsibilities.
Time tracking has traditionally been a key metric for assessing productivity and managing payroll. But with remote teams, emphasizing tangible work output is far more meaningful than monitoring hours logged.
Why Time Tracking Falls Short in Remote Team Monitoring
Today, tracking time spent on tasks presents an incomplete picture of a worker’s capacity. This practice was a fair indicator of productivity during the industrial revolution, when employees had repetitive, physically demanding tasks. In the information age, though, time spent on a task does not dictate the quality of the output.
What’s more, monitoring hours worked made more sense in traditional office environments. Here, managers could visually confirm employees were actively working during set hours. But location flexibility means time spent at the computer doesn’t necessarily equate to productivity.
Different Workers’ Productivity Peak at Different Hours
For example, a designer who does their best creative work early in the mornings shouldn’t be judged negatively for having shorter computer-logged hours. Conversely, someone who works well late at night isn’t necessarily more hardworking. As long as projects are progressing responsibly towards set deadlines, hourly quotas should have no bearing on assessing a teammate’s output.
Another reason for reconsidering traditional time tracking is that people do so many other things at work beyond just, well, working. According to a UK-based poll, workers are only on task for 2 hours and 23 minutes per day. Respondents admitted to doing other things while on the clock, from scrolling social media, to reading news websites, to buying or preparing snacks. Interestingly, 65% of those respondents believe that they cannot get through the workday without these extraneous activities.
Hours spent in front of the computer should not be the only basis for assessing an employee’s performance. As these examples show, today’s work environment is much more complex. So, the methods we use for evaluating a worker reflect this complexity.
Focus on Tangible Output in Remote Team Monitoring
Rather than focusing narrowly on attendance or face time, managers must evaluate measurable milestones and deliverables aligned to strategic goals. For example, completing a new website design demonstrates productive output, regardless of the exact hours worked.
Additionally, emphasizing tangible output allows for a more comprehensive evaluation of an employee’s contribution to the organization. By shifting the focus from mere presence to concrete achievements, managers can better acknowledge and reward impactful work. This approach promotes a results-oriented culture that encourages creativity and innovation, as employees are motivated to excel in terms of the actual value they bring to the company.
Audience-based metrics like organic traffic can also be part of a manager’s evaluation criteria. For example, a content marketer who writes 2 well-researched blog posts that generate substantial organic site traffic has provided more valuable output than someone who writes 4 articles with mediocre traction. Quality and impact matter more than purely quantitative measures.
Incorporating audience-based metrics, like organic traffic, into the evaluation criteria adds a layer of relevance to the assessment process. This means considering not just the completion of tasks but also the impact of those tasks on the broader goals of the company. It fosters a more nuanced understanding of success, recognizing that the quality and resonance of work often outweigh sheer quantity, ultimately leading to a more efficient and value-driven workforce.
Enabling Flexibility and Efficiency
Transitioning to an output-focused mindset is essential for remote team monitoring. Employees have greater flexibility in how and when they work, enabling a more efficient use of time and resources tailored to individual working styles.
Different roles tend to cultivate different approaches to work. Developers may prefer working in intense bursts of deeply focused nights and weekends coding rather than standard business hour schedules. Their personalized schedule should be accommodated as long as they meet outlined expectations around complex programming tasks.
The emphasis shifts from presenteeism to the successful completion of assignments that move the needle for the business. As long as agreed deadlines are met and quality standards are maintained, remote workers should have autonomy in managing their schedules.
Remote Team Monitoring and a Results-Oriented Approach
Given the unique context of remote work, a results-oriented management approach is indispensable for accurately evaluating teams.
Directly Evaluate End Products
Rather than monitoring activity indirectly through proximity and observational methods better suited for on-site teams, assessing remote workers demands evaluating end products. Instead of vaguely appraising effort levels, managers should request finished presentations, sample sales call recordings, fully optimized web pages, or other tangible work artifacts that demonstrate completion.
Directly evaluating end products provides a clear and objective measure of an employee’s performance. This method shifts the focus from subjective observations to concrete outcomes, allowing managers to assess the quality and effectiveness of the work produced.
This approach not only streamlines remote team monitoring but also ensures that the assessment is aligned with the specific success criteria set for each task or project. It promotes a transparent and results-driven work culture, where the emphasis is on the demonstrable value brought to the table rather than mere activities or efforts.
Use Stand Ups and Collaboration Tools
With a remote setup, managers don’t have access to the same visual signals that allow them to quickly scan an office environment. Instead, they must rely on checking concrete progress and milestones documented through project reports, collaboration tools, and direct conversations.
Not witnessing visual indicators like employee fatigue or engagement means managers cannot make quick assumptions about workflow effectiveness. But shared dashboards, instant messaging, and video calls close information gaps.
Technology and Tools for Remote Team Monitoring
Leveraging technology is key when implementing systems for monitoring remote team members. Digital tools should provide visibility into work completed, facilitate collaboration, and enable seamless communication.
Project Management Platforms
Collaboration platforms, project management software, and task trackers all generate valuable metrics showcasing productivity.
- Asana, Trello and Jira give enhanced visibility by documenting task completion rates, allowing managers to monitor real-time progress.
- Gantt chart-based tools like TeamGantt overlay deliverables across calendars, demonstrating alignment to milestones
Communication Tools
Instant messaging, video conferencing, and persistent team chat apps demonstrate active participation and rapid response times.
- Slack enables transparency around employee responsiveness and availability while working remotely.
- Zoom or Meet recordings document meeting contributions over time for performance insights.
File Sharing & Documentation
Cloud-based file-sharing programs showcase pieces of completed work, documenting ongoing progress via version histories and change logs.
- Google Docs shows incremental improvements during report writing assignments via suggestion histories
- GitHub commits quantify code contributions over time for developers.
Enables Seamless Oversight
Using the right tools, managers can accurately gauge individual contributions even from afar. Technology enables remote teams to assign responsibilities, establish accountability, surface progress blockers, and receive manager approvals as seamlessly as if working side-by-side in a shared physical setting.
- Ticket-based systems like Jira allow managers to review and sign off on each step of complex assignments digitally despite physical distance.
Challenges in Remote Team Monitoring
Despite the proliferation of helpful workplace technologies, monitoring remote teams presents inevitable challenges that are uncommon in office-based environments. Physical absence impedes the natural cadence of communication, while lack of visibility permits potential issues around trust, productivity assessments, and work-life balance to arise more easily. Managers must implement robust strategies to overcome obstacles.
Communication Barriers
Misaligned communication and response lag times can negatively impact performance. With no shared physical office facilitating organic interactions, informing all team members promptly requires concerted effort. But, persistent connection issues or failures to copy team members on important decisions risk productivity lapses.
For example, suppose a manager emails their team an important update about an ongoing project. Everyone reads the message, except for one team member who had notifications muted. As a result, the teammate misses the news entirely. They risk continuing to work based on outdated information, resulting in productivity issues.
How to Prevent Communication Breakdown
To prevent similar issues in the future, it is vital to establish clear communication expectations within the team. Managers must also send important updates during common work hours. Furthermore, team members must check and adjust notification settings regularly to guarantee they receive important updates in a timely manner.
It’s also important to address potential technological barriers that can hinder effective communication during remote team monitoring. Offering training on the use of communication tools, troubleshooting common connectivity issues, and establishing backup communication channels can help preemptively tackle these challenges. Proactive measures like these contribute to a smoother workflow, reducing the risk of productivity lapses and ensuring that all team members stay engaged and aligned with organizational goals.
Trust and Accountability
Without the benefit of direct observation, managers may struggle to evaluate if remote team members fulfill responsibilities in a trusted, accountable fashion. Lacking visual confirmation that employees are actively working during set hours, suspicions around dedication levels may arise, straining relationships. Clear protocols must be established.
Clear protocols must be established to bridge this gap and foster a culture of trust. Regular check-ins, progress updates, and transparent communication channels become essential tools in building mutual confidence. Furthermore, defining measurable goals and outcomes helps create a results-oriented approach, allowing managers to assess performance based on tangible achievements rather than mere presence. Establishing trust is a two-way street, necessitating open communication about expectations, challenges, and accomplishments to ensure a harmonious and accountable remote work environment.
Work-Life Balance
Ensuring a healthy work-life balance in remote settings presents a unique challenge, as the boundary between professional and personal life becomes less defined. Upholding these boundaries is crucial in remote team monitoring, though challenging to enforce externally. A proactive approach involves monitoring off-hour correspondence to assess whether employees are maintaining a reasonable equilibrium between personal and professional realms. Signs of burnout should be carefully detected through nuanced methods.
For instance, consider a scenario where the company tracks tool usage and observes an associate accountant consistently working from 8 am to midnight. While this may initially seem commendable, a closer analysis reveals a heavy reliance on overtime hours, suggesting an unsustainable workload and an imminent risk of burnout. It’s essential for managers to recognize such indirect signals and interpret them accurately. In remote work scenarios, gaining a full context is critical before drawing performance conclusions.
How To Ensure Work-Life Balance
To navigate these challenges, constructive conversations play a pivotal role. Managers should engage in open dialogues with remote staff to understand their unique circumstances, challenges, and working preferences. Emphasizing results over perceptions becomes paramount in this context. By focusing on measurable outcomes and fostering a collaborative approach, managers can encourage a healthier work environment and address potential burnout risks more effectively. This multifaceted approach acknowledges the complexities of remote work, ensuring a more nuanced and supportive management strategy.
Common Challenges in Remote Team Monitoring and Solutions
While managers will inevitably face familiar pain points like communication lulls, eroded trust, and unclear productivity signals when overseeing remote teams, targeted solutions exist to mitigate concerns. Strategically redefining remote team monitoring through technological and procedural enhancements helps evaluate performance better.
Customize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Tailoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to the specific demands of remote work is essential for effective performance evaluation. Instead of relying on generic metrics designed for on-site environments, managers should craft customized KPIs that align with the unique dynamics of remote contexts, project requirements, and desired outcomes. Adopting metrics that capture comprehensive success measures offers deeper insights beyond superficial productivity scores.
To enhance the relevance of KPIs, managers should align these indicators with strategic goals and clearly define desired results. This strategic alignment ensures that tracking mechanisms accurately reflect progress toward milestones that truly matter to the success of the team and the organization as a whole.
How to Customize KPIs
For example, consider a scenario where a manager oversees a remote sales representative. Instead of solely relying on sales volume as a performance metric, the manager could introduce a KPI focused on new customer retention rates six months after the initial sign-up. This tailored KPI provides a nuanced perspective, offering insights into the sales representative’s service quality and the long-term impact of their efforts, beyond the immediate transactional metrics. Customized KPIs like these contribute to a more comprehensive and meaningful evaluation of remote team performance.
Conclusion – Remote Team Monitoring Shouldn’t Be Difficult
By focusing on enhancing output-centered management strategies, providing technologies facilitating documentation, and proactively addressing common pain points through systemic solutions, productive remote team monitoring is entirely achievable without undue difficulties.
Distributed teams allow for businesses to access talent globally – an invaluable competitive advantage if organized deliberately. With the right strategies centered around balanced key performance indicators and compassionate yet actionable feedback systems, remote teams can shine.
Consider leveraging solutions from leading remote work experts to optimize management. The future of work is flexible, and with conscientious implementation, assessing progress need not be complicated.
Aya is Wing Assistant’s blog manager. When she’s not wrangling content briefs, editing article drafts and handling on-page SEO, she is crafting messages for Wing’s other communication materials. Aya writes about SaaS startups, marketing for startups, search engine optimization, and pop culture.
