remote time tracking Archives -

5 Rules to follow when managing Remote teams

Are you a manager struggling with managing a remote team? We are happy to help!

The future workplace is evolving, and the gig economy seems to be exponentially growing over the years. Work-life balance is of immense interest among employees in organizations, thus influencing retention rates. With preferences shifting towards flexible working hours, remote teams are becoming a significant part of our workforce.

Working remotely is relatively a new trend spreading across industries; It gives companies a chance to work with the best talent across the globe. However, while remote work provides ample benefits to employers and employees, there are also tons of challenges. For example, gaps in communication might frequently occur, more distractions, scheduling and managing time.

Sometimes, remote employees struggle to understand the project approach and often companies are concerned about creating a corporate culture, that too, remotely.

According to Owl Lab survey, employees who work from home at least once a month are 24% more likely to feel happy and productive at work than their desk-bound colleagues and companies that allow remote work see 25% less turnover than those who don’t.

But how can you manage remote teams?

Let’s explore these 5 ways to manage a remote team and lead them to success from afar:

Hire those you trust, trust those you hire!

Yes, sometimes it can be hard to trust someone that you have never seen or met before. But the very idea of working remotely is built on trust, you can’t make it work unless you trust the person on the other end of the line.

Remote employees can bring a lot of benefits to the companies along with quality work. So remote employers should reciprocate with trusting, and a patient attitude towards their employees. On the flip side, they get to trust you.

We know, worrying about getting something done, is only natural but micromanaging and not trusting your employees to work independently is out of the question.

As a supervisor, it is your job to understand how to best manage your remote employees without undermining their autonomy and ownership over their work. Let them be accountable, let them think and work independently.

Empower them.

What we are trying to say is; Trust the people you hire and then get ready for the fireworks!

Woman and Man shaking hands

Have ‘water-cooler’ communication chat-rooms

Again, as a supervisor, you need to be extremely good at communicating and understanding what’s happening within your remote team. Strong, effective communication is the key to success, and it is crucial for managing teams.

Coordinating and communicating the strategy with remote teams can be challenging. If not addressed properly, this communication gap can give rise to many unforeseen problems and in return, the progress may suffer. So it’s important you chat frequently.

Many companies are adopting live chat software solutions like Slack for internal communication.

So it’s better if you create a central communication ‘water-cooler’ channel for your remote employees where you can exchange ideas, greet each other, give feedback, share stories, in short, build relationships and then see how the communication flows!

Get Organized without losing it!

Getting organized is what’s important for the success of any business. Managing a number of projects on your own and working with teams across the globe can easily mess things up.

That’s why you need to have a proper structure. Set rules and organize data using a Project Management System such as Basecamp and make it available to the rest of the team to follow.

This way, you can see what others are working on, what’s in the pipeline and what’s done and delivered.

Arrange a Weekly Lunch n’ Learn session

Arrange regular meetings with your remote employees to see if all of you are still on the right page. These meetings will not only let you share feedback with your employees but also gives you a chance to say hi, to the people you don’t often get to see.

Moreover, the very idea of having a weekly lunch and learn session gives your remote employees a good chance to learn something new, share fun facts, or talk about their successes and failures.

Go time tracking (No Pun Intended)

One of the most common problems, when leading a team of remote employees is tracking time. If time is poorly managed, there is a good chance that the project may delay.

Because it’s not just about the final delivery, it’s about the quality as well and quality takes time. But the proliferation of tech gadgets and Time Tracking Software is making it easier for businesses to support remote teams.

It’s important to set clear yet achievable objects for your team and track their performance regularly. It will not only help you manage their time better but also they’ll be more productive.

Additionally, it gives them an opportunity to re-evaluate themselves, and analyze their abilities. At the same time, team leads can spot the weaker areas in their team members and suggest improvements. Tools such as Staff Timer App helps companies with trouble-free time tracking of their remote workers.
We know that…

… managing remote teams requires patience, time and effort. As tiring as the whole process may sound for both employer and the employee, but once you streamline a working system, running a remote team becomes effortless and beneficial for the business, altogether.

Do you manage a remote team? Or have you ever managed a remote before? What challenges did you face? Share your tips on how to build and manage a remote team in the comments section below!

6 efficient ways to conduct remote team meetings with least wasted time

A meeting is an event where minutes are taken and hours wasted.

-James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise

Remote team meetings took up a lot of time. They were a necessary nuisance for us.

Be it an oxymoron, the truth of these words resonated with us.
So we decided to do something about it!

Reforming Remote Team Meetings

We came up with a rhythm in which remote team meetings were to be held.
After a lot of testing and re-testing, we gathered ways that helped boost productivity, while allowing the teams to stay on the same page as each other.

I compiled them in an infographic to make them easy to understand.

Conclusion

To sum up, it is safe to say that meetings CAN be a huge waste of time, IF conducted without planning.

They can help your business grow, innovate and flourish, OR result in a major downfall. It is all up to you.

In short, meetings are meant to help your team communicate, stay in line with each other and get to know each other better within a co-working space. This doesn’t mean they have to waste hours of your precious time.

Let me summarise the six ways you can conduct productive and purposeful meetings to stay on the same page with your distributed teams.

Schedule all meetings | Plan your activities accordingly.
Fix a meeting day | Avoid impromptu ‘get togethers’ and work disruptions.
Daily Briefings or Meet-ups | 5 minutes daily is better than 2 hours weekly.
Set a ‘fun-meeting’ day | Optional & recreational- helps teams interact.
Set up meeting agendas | Know what to talk about. Don’t jump in blindly.
Track Time for Meetings | Most important! Time is money!

You can go ahead and apply these ways to your business to see the productivity boost for yourself.

To learn more, check out this excellent guide to conducting remote team meetings.

10 Ways Time Tracking Helps You Make The Most Of Your Freelance Employees

Time Tracking for freelancers is quickly gaining popularity in the remote work industry. As more and more companies go virtual with respect to their teams and work practices.

Many companies are functioning with distributed teams that are spread out globally. The issue, most of them face, is regarding fully utilizing the freelancers they hire for different tasks.

Most are not able to do so and are generally overpaying in return for the output they’re receiving. Here are 10 ways in which you can make the most of your freelance employees and save the company’s resources using a time tracking solution.

10. Track Time for Increased Productivity

You can carry our time tracking using time tracking solutions. Many are available in the market and have multiple features and prices.

Integrate time tracking solution with your company’s platform and track your freelance employees’ productivity using that.

When working remotely, the freelancer can start the timer for a certain task they are about to work on, pause it when they take a break and end it when they are done with the task.

9. Remote Monitoring to Ensure Correct Work Track

Monitor your remote employees using a time tracking solution that supports real-time screen sharing and takes screenshots of the freelancers’ computer screen every minute.

Those screenshots can then be combined as separate frames and used to create a complete workday playback video. That way you can know exactly what your employees are working on and how their progress is going.

This will also make sure that you and your freelance team are on the same page when it comes to how tasks are attempted and what direction a project is supposed to take.

8. Implement a Schedule via Time Tracking Solution

Design a schedule for your employees and make sure that it is being followed. Considering they are freelancers and will have other tasks, the schedule must be a personalized one for each employee, fitting to their personal chores and tasks as well.

Furthermore, it must align with the work hours of the company so remote employees are available for coordination, discussions or meetings with in-house employees, whenever needed.

Productivity heat-maps for each individual must be an important consideration while creating the schedule.

7. Task-wise Billing Using A Time Tracking Software

The payment structure for freelancers is best when done task-wise or hour wise. For this, you can integrate an invoicing solution with your time tracking solution. So the billing can be done according to tasks completed and the hours worked.

The time tracking solution will have a complete record (with proofs) of the work completed by the employee. That way you can be sure that you’re not overpaying the freelancers.

6. Intelligent Report to Get Value for Money

Many leading time tracking solutions in the market offer the option of advanced reporting. Some remote employee monitoring software offers intelligent employee reports. Where the day’s screenshots are automatically categorized according to the active windows in those images, clearly telling the employer what the freelancers spent most of their time working on.

This increases transparency and if there are any wasted minutes, the employers can get to know about those within a matter of a few clicks.

5. Task Logging to Estimate Work Done Through Time Tracking

Make sure that your freelance employees log each and every task they perform. Whether it is a task already assigned to them or a task they performed.

When a task is logged, a record is maintained that lets the employers know how much work was actually achieved by the freelancer. Whether they are putting the best of their efforts into the work or not.

4. Clarify and Align Company’s Goals with Freelancers

In order to be sure that the employees work the same way that you expect them to, it is essential to make it clear to them what they are working for, what is the end result supposed to look like and what are you trying to achieve.

Once the goals of the company are aligned with the freelancers’ goals, then the workflows will be regulated on their own. Productivity will increase and the employees will put their best foot forth.

When the employees know how their work is going to impact the common end-goal. They will have a clear idea of the value of their work and their value as an employee to the company.

This is essential for boosting the morale of employees and pushing them to work harder.

3. Rule of Thumb: Work Smart, Not Hard

Taking up this rule will make tasks easier for you and your employees, both. Working smart saves time, energy, resources, gets things done much faster and makes searching for information much easier.

Automate timesheets instead of manually maintaining logs for each hour or each task. It is much easier to start and stop the timer with a single click, rather than manually making each entry to a timesheet.

Furthermore, it makes the job simple when all work done during the activity time is recorded and gets divided into separate categories, creating automated timesheets.

This way, your freelancers spend the majority of their time working on the actual tasks instead of logging entries manually.

2. Improve Communication via Audio Clips

Team communication impacts employee productivity and plays a major role in how your employees perform. Merely assigning them tasks using a project management tool or a time tracking software isn’t enough.

Nothing can beat the power and impact of face-to-face communication. If you cannot communicate with them in-person due to geographical boundaries, then feel free to conduct a Skype Business Call, or use a platform that helps.

You can assign tasks in the form of voice clips and allows the freelancers to respond back using voice clips as well. In case they have any query and wish to clear it prior to attempting a task.

Clear and quick communication is always verbal and enables workflow-streamlining when the teams are on one page.

1. Trust your Employee to Get the Job Done

If you’ve hired a freelancer, trust that they can get the job done as well. There is no point in hiring them otherwise.

If you try to micromanage your employees, directing their every move and telling them how to go about a task, even when they might be suggesting better ways to do it, they will simply be exhausted and irritated.

Build a certain trust level with your employees, and believe in them. Have a solution that monitors their work activity by giving you an idea of their sincerity and dedication to their work.

If they work hard, waste no time and have the required level of productivity, then let them be, sit back and let them deliver the assigned work to you, on schedule.

Do employees work from home? Here are Top 8 Tips for Employee Productivity Tracking!

The world is facing a complete digital shift and the remote working comes with it. Also, virtual companies are getting common by the day, with teams dispersed around the globe.

This revolution brings with itself the concern for employers: Do employees work from home? If yes, are they equally productive as those in an office space? Another major question is to monitoring employees activity and productivity. Here are a few tips on how employers can perform employee productivity tracking:

8. Prioritize Work According to Ease of Completion

The first step to fully utilize the hours in an 8-hour work day. For this, it is highly important to prioritize tasks and organize them in a schedule where they can actually be carried out and completed. For instance, if there are tasks that require a remote employee to travel or communicate with some vendors, or companies, then the optimum time to carry out that task is generally in the afternoon when the workflow is prime.

On the other hand, if there are tasks that require an employee to be creative and imaginative, then the best time for that is in the early morning. Since people are most likely to have fresh minds in the morning. This would save time, and allow easy employee productivity tracking via the number of tasks completed within a day.

7. Ensure Employees Work During Company’s Work Hours

Remote work can lead to increased procrastination. Employees can tend to be more relaxed due to the heightened comfort level around them when in their own spaces. This may result in employees working on their own hours and not when every employee in the company is active.

To avoid miscommunication of tasks, and effective employee productivity tracking, we advise you to set some rules for your employees. One may be that employees working remotely must work during the company’s work hours to improve team communication and timely utilization of work produced.

For example, if a remote content writer completes content for a website at midnight, the front-end developers implement it in the morning and require changes in it, they will have to wait till the next day to get those changes in the content done.

This will delay the task itself, which should not have taken more than a few hours. Therefore, for effective employee productivity tracking, it is essential for remote and in-house employees to be active and work in unison at the same time.

6. Regular Work Intervals Allow Employee Productivity Tracking

Let’s face it, no human can remain productive for 8 or 9 hours straight. Everyone deserves a break and some relaxation time in order to be productive, deliver targets on time and relieve work stress. For efficient employee productivity tracking, it is recommended to work in short intervals.

For instance, if an employee works for 1 hour, rests for 15 minutes and again works for 1 hour, they are likely to be more productive than if they work for 4 hours non-stop and rest for 1 hour and then work for 4 hours non-stop again.

Similarly, the last person with a 1-hour break is likely to be more productive than the person who works for 8 hours straight, without any break.

Hence, regular work intervals are the best way to accurately carry out employee productivity tracking as that’s when the human mind is not over-exhausted or cluttered.

5. Draw Up a Schedule to Include Chores and Meals

The needs of employees working from home would definitely be different than the needs of employees working in-house. The best way for remote employees to stay productive is to draw up a schedule and stick to it.

Furthermore, that schedule must be created by the employer, keeping into account the fixed time for chores and meals as well.

This way, if an employee has an 8-hour work day, out of which, 1 or 2 hours are for chores and meals, then their tasks can be assigned and divided throughout the day accordingly.

4. Opt for a Comfortably Designed Workplace

Being in a comfortable environment and working in one is what makes an employee more productive in the workplace. This is something your employees need to take care of at their end.

A comfortably designed workplace helps employees in working with complete focus and dedication. Once they are focused and successfully completing the tasks assigned to them, that is when their productivity levels are at their highest.

Employee productivity tracking is made easier when the work productivity is calculated of tasks that are completed correctly and on time. A comfortable workplace, be it remote, ensures a stress-free environment and a relaxed mind for high-quality work.

3. Employee Productivity Tracking through Technology

Using technology to your own advantage helps reduce the manual work that consumes the majority of the time. Be it working productively or monitoring employees, smart work always trumps hard work. One cannot only work hard or just work smart. Both must go in unison for effective employee productivity tracking.

Employees working remotely must use automated systems and technology to reduce manual work and improve productivity. Similarly, employee monitoring in-person consumes a lot of time and even hinders the productivity of employers. A remote monitoring solution helps in saving precious minutes and allows employers to assess employee productivity accurately.

With the latest technology available these days, remote monitoring is easily possible through screen sharing, live visual logs, and automated timesheets.

2. Home Work Space is a Sanctified Place

Some rules are implemented by the company and some are self-enforced by the individual. One of the most important rules is to keep the home and office spaces separated. Your home-office or workspace at home must be a sacred place, free of interference from your family members or distractions that hinder your productivity.

Employee’s workspace must be a sanctified place where you have things organized according to your requirements. During work, employee productivity tracking is made more efficient when employees’ time is not wasted in finding relevant resources or documents in the time of need.

Less wasted time equals more time spent in actual work, hence enhanced work output.

1. Organize your Workplace and Save Useful Minutes

An organized workplace is the key to saving the maximum time during work hours. Whether you’re researching for a report or need to look at certain facts or emails, making specific folders and tagging the emails will help you locate them easily.

Similarly, using project management tools can help you save time at the time of need. The most popular tool is Google Sheets for record maintenance and organizing tasks and numbers. Employee Productivity Tracking can be made quick and easy using work organization tools.

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These 8 simple tips can help you maintain a work-life balance with maximum productivity and an optimum ratio of Smart and Hard work.

Top 3 Time Tracking Apps for Remote Workers

Many people around the world have welcomed the trend of Remote Work. It is exciting, it is diverse and it is a great experience. Thanks to the innovative tools that were born out of the recent technological advancements that this new trend persisted.

Tools like Online Project Management Software and Time Tracking Apps have helped people connect, collaborate and work together no matter how far they are located physically.

A quick Google search reveals a plethora of Time Tracking tools. We have used the following 3 applications extensively and analysed them to find out their strengths and weaknesses.

The List | Top 3

The following applications are extensively used by Freelancers and Remote Workers all around the world. They all have many great features and solve many problems for the distributed teams. Here, we have covered these applications and mentioned the Pros and Cons for the users to decide which application sounds best for them.

FreshBooks-All-In-One Small Business Invoicing and Accounting Solution

Freshbooks is a cool tool for remote employers. Its features range from Time Tracking to Online Invoicing.

Pros

It is a simple employee monitoring app that requires the users to log hours manually or with the help of a timer.
It presents a simple and yet elaborate invoicing system. The users can bill directly after tracking the time. Since this software provides integrated time tracking and invoicing, the clients do not need to use multiple applications for tracking their time and Invoicing.
Freshbooks has a major focus on Invoicing. Hence, it provides a lot of payment options for users. This feature comes in handy especially when your remote team belongs to different regions of the world and have different banking preferences.

Cons

The application requires manual clearance of all the invoices paid through various payment gateways.
Freshbooks gives a lot of leverage to the Employers and not so much to the employees. It gives employers the option of declaring an invoice ‘disputed’. In some cases, this resulted in payment fraud.

Staff Timer App – The time tracking solution for remote workers

Staff Timer App is the perfect time tracker app for remote workers. It has a lot of features that have been designed keeping in mind the growing trend of remote work.

Pros

The application is completely automated and it uses Screenshots to calculate the time spent by the user on all the activities done during the work hours. The employer gets an estimate for the time spent on work-related and non-work related activities.
The application is very simple to use. It is a minimum viable product so there are no unnecessary frills. Just the features that are absolutely important!
The remote monitoring features like Instant Screen Capture and Real-Time Screen monitoring are vital for a remote manager.
The low price is a very strong point for StaffTimerApp. At $2.99/user, it provides a lot of useful features and services.

Cons

The application is in the development phase and the design needs some improvements.
The Snapshot that is acquired through instant screen capture is not saved and accessible for later use.

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is one of the most widely used Time Trackers in the market. And it truly deserves the top spot.

Pros

The interface of Hubstaff is very appealing. It is simple to use and the UX is pretty self-explanatory.
The application captures the screenshots of the employees randomly. These screenshots are very important for Remote Employees.
You can view the Time with respect to projects, team members, and tasks. You can see the breakdown very clearly. This feature gives a lot of clarity to employers with extremely detailed reports. They can view the number of hours spent on each task.
Hubstaff offers a flexible payment system. It lets the employer choose individual payment plans for all the team members. The employers can choose from a vast array of payment gateways.

Cons

It is a mix of Time Tracking, Time Management, and Invoicing Software.
The customer service of Hubstaff is not its finest quality. The CSRs take a lot of time to reply and more often than not the replies are useless.
The activity level statistics can be misleading. For optimum activity level, the user needs to log keystrokes all the time. We know that in the real world, it is a very bad indication for calculating productivity.

Conclusion

All these applications have some amazing features and all of them have some loopholes as well. It is really important to pick the right time Tracking Software that is fit for your needs. The right choice can greatly enhance the productivity of your teams and generate better profits!
Do you have any tools in your mind that we can add to our list? Don’t forget to share it!

Like what you read? We have more, for you:

Increase Your Productivity at work | 5 effective ways to make big changes:

There are a number of automated tools available in the market either for communication or collaboration or employee task monitoring. But before we move on, let’s define employee productivity.

Best Employee Time Tracking Apps for Mac and Windows:

Employee time tracking app for Mac and Windows are becoming a necessity throughout the business world. But is time management that important? Everybody gets the same number of hours to work every day i.e. 24 hours. Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mahatma Gandhi, Julius Caesar– all these great men only had 24 hours as well.