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With the growing popularity of remote work, employers need to ensure that their employees are performing their jobs well from home or wherever they happen to be working from at the time. Fortunately, employee monitoring software provides an easy way to do this without having to sit at your employee’s desk and watch them type (though sometimes it may feel like you have no choice). Here are the top five benefits of employee monitoring for remote work.
The Top 5 Benefits of Employee Monitoring for Remote Work
1) Avoid the Costly Mistakes
Employee retention is essential to business success. The average cost to replace an employee is about 32% of that employee’s annual salary, according to a report by Towers Watson. This means that when you don’t have formal communication and monitoring systems in place — especially with employees working remotely — you run a high risk of making costly mistakes. Examples include hiring someone who isn’t qualified or miscommunicating expectations and performance. As much as $1 million may be lost if a manager hires an unqualified candidate. With Formal Communication and Monitoring Systems, you can make better decisions about hiring and can help your employees become more successful because they know you have their back.
2) Monitor Hours, Not Just Actions
If your staff works remotely, you can’t monitor their activity like you could in an office. That doesn’t mean you have to hire a team of private investigators, though. There are plenty of time-monitoring services that make it easy to see when your employees log on and off, what websites they visit, how much time they spend working versus procrastinating (I guess we all do that), and so on. It’s also a good idea to establish clear policies on remote work that spell out how much leeway employees have with their schedule. Don’t give them too much flexibility or they may abuse it; but if you clamp down too hard, you might find yourself with disengaged employees who hate having boundaries set for them.
3) Get Ahead with Digital Planning
Your job is probably different from someone else’s. That means your planning needs to reflect that difference—not just in how you strategize projects but also in how you set and stick to deadlines. Whether you want to create a digital assistant who will take care of all your scheduling or simply want an application that tracks what time you’re spending on each project, there are several tools available. The first step is creating a digital schedule that outlines everything you need to do and when it needs to be done by.
4) Keep Them Motivated
Some remote employees are new to telecommuting, while others have been at it a while. Regardless, employees who work remotely can often lose their drive and motivation after being on autopilot for too long. Regular check-ins with co-workers and managers through video conferencing or screen sharing (like Microsoft’s Join tool) is a great way to get folks in one place back on track. It also allows everyone—from top executives to entry-level employees—to understand what everyone else is working on, keeping them focused on team goals instead of personal distractions. At times, you may even need to step in and provide feedback on performance if an employee isn’t up to snuff. This can be done by pointing out specific tasks that need more attention or letting them know that they seem less motivated than usual. Keeping all eyes on both tasks and morale will keep your entire workforce running smoothly without feeling micromanaged from afar.
6) Why Technology is Important
Technology is one of those things that can be good or bad depending on how it’s used. While there are certain must-haves, like a smartphone and access to email (so you can be reached at all times), there are also many technologies that could cause serious harm in more hands than those who should have them. In an office environment, employee monitoring can offer protection to both employees and employers by ensuring that individuals use their devices appropriately while they’re working remotely. While it might seem obvious when you consider how much work gets done outside of an office these days, many individuals don’t even realise what privacy settings they need to change or which apps could lead to issues later on.