How do you maintain trust in your employees when they work from home as much as they did in a traditional office setup? We discuss why organizations may want to use time tracking and monitoring software to develop trust in employees and three best practices for tracking employee time while respecting employee privacy.
With so many people now working from home, employers no longer have the same visibility over employees as they did in an office environment. The burden of remote work is that employees feel the need to demonstrate their productivity all the time – a burden that was once carried by merely being present in the office.
For employers, the burden is to monitor productivity, to ensure that employees are delivering their value. This is probably why some are turning to specialized software to track employee time utilization, checking their on-screen activity remotely.
Vox recently reported Opens a new window that time tracking and employee monitoring tools such as ActivTrak, Time Doctor, Teramind, and Hubstaff have all seen an uptick in demand following the COVID-19 outbreak. These could be useful tools for establishing employee accountability, but the granularity at which they capture employee productivity information is already based on a certain amount of distrust.
These software may need to be used to prevent insider threats, but Vox’s report finds that it is primarily to ensure that employees aren’t wasting time on the job.
The fear is genuine. Managers are also accountable for their teams’ output. But the use of any time tracking or screen monitoring software must be complemented with some best practices and ethics.
Learn More: 6 Ways HR Needs to Evolve Post the COVID-19 CrisisOpens a new window
Why Employers Implement Time Tracking and Monitoring Software
“Some of the concerns of companies confronted with a remote workforce model is the fear of decreasing productivity and possible damage to operational efficiencies. Therefore, some form of remote employee monitoring, as time trackers, screen monitors, or something else, is inevitable,†said Moe VelaOpens a new window , chief transparency officer at TransparentBusinessOpens a new window , a SaaS platform that helps organizations maximize employee productivity. TransparentBusiness is currently offering companies free webinars on efficient management of people working from home, claiming to make remote computer-based work easy to monitor and coordinate and boost productivity by 15–40%.
It can take a little time before managers start trusting employees fully. Here’s why:
1. Companies are new to the work-from-home (WFH) model and its unique productivity patterns
Working from home has its own productivity patterns. An employee may log in at 6 am, putting in a couple of hours of work before their children wake up. They might log off a little earlier than usual on some days, having finished their work earlier.
2. Employees with different personalities will react to WFH differently
Not every personality type will be able to stay equally productive when working from home due to COVID-19. Some might need a nudge in the right direction, through timely alerts and updates. It is for these reasons that time tracking and monitoring software may be helpful – with restricted use, though. For instance, some of them may highlight idle time/frequent breaks when employee focus might begin to wander.
3. There is a genuine fear about insider threats to cybersecurity
Several employee monitoring software, such as TeramindOpens a new window , offer specialized monitoring solutions to tackle insider threats. And these solutions may be necessary for high-risk industries such as the finance industry or companies that deal with sensitive data. But here, the goal of implementing such software – with employee consent – is to merely keep a watch on employee activity from the perspective of safety and not productivity.
But are these reasons enough to enforce software that captures screenshots every fifteen seconds to “ensure productivity�
Vela believes that the workforce should be aware of and “respect the fact that an organization’s productivity is directly linked to their job security.†According to him, being monitored remotely is “a small price to pay for an employee to respect the use of technology tools for ensuring productivity and efficiency.â€
But one of the key hurdles to using the software is navigating employee privacy. Trust is a two-way street. And Vela argues for the workforce as well, stating that, “Trust from a remote workforce will only come when an employer selects worker-controlled software rather than some type of Big Brother spyware.â€
This means using tools that first empower employees with their productivity data and giving them ownership of how they use their time better.
3 Best Practices for Employee Time Tracking and Monitoring
“With billions of workers around the world having to work from home as a result of this pandemic, this ‘new normal’ must strike a balance between the need to hold remote workers accountable and protection of an employee’s privacy,†said Vela. To achieve this, companies must:
1. Put employees in the driver’s seat
If you must implement such software for accountability purposes, employees should be allowed to configure the software according to their preferences. Does it capture screenshots randomly or every 30 minutes? Does it monitor the entire desktop or specific applications? Letting employees select the configurations will empower your remote workforce, making it more likely for them to cooperate.
And to ensure this flexibility isn’t abused and you can trust employee discretion, you can limit configuration changes to once a week.
2. Explain the value your employees could expect
If employees do not perceive value from an activity, they won’t participate in it. And, implementing software without employee-consented privacy controls is a strict no-no – it could cause non-compliance, leading to severe fines in the post-COVID-19 period. Instead, clearly convey the benefits of time tracking and monitoring software (transparency, easier feedback, or the ability to spot signs of disengagement, for example), and implement a platform that has strong privacy protections.
“With software that has strong privacy protections for the workforce, organizations send a necessary, loud, and clear message that they value and respect their workforce. This will further the mutual trust that is essential for success between a workforce and their employer,†said Vela.
3. Set clear thresholds to avoid micromanagement
“Remote working is a feeding ground for the human tendency to micromanage. Ironically, micromanaging would result in the very decrease in productivity one fears, due to a feeling of distraction and intimidation,†warns Vela.
Instead of implementing monitoring software that tracks employee productivity based on how long they spent on a work-related document, make productivity outcome-oriented. Set goals, the achievement of which is a marker of productivity. Employee trust is a cultural issue, not a productivity issue. When organizations trust their employees from the get-go, they enable employee accountability without the need for such software.
Toward Conscious and Sensitive Time Management
Trusting employees and maintaining productivity during these challenging times can be tricky – particularly for companies that are new to remote working. Time tracking and monitoring software with employee-centric privacy controls may be helpful, but they need to be implemented with an underlying culture of trust – assuring employees of their rights while giving managers the data they need to keep the company running. Tools such as TimelyOpens a new window claim to empower employees and not just managers to manage their time efficiently, enable even workload distribution, and give everyone an accurate view of their time to improve productivity. Apps with such features may be able to unlock the best of both worlds in terms of time tracking and ensuring quality work.
As companies embrace remote working en masse, it is essential to have mechanisms in place that monitor productivity, aiding those who may find it challenging to trust their newly remote employees. Over time, the sensitive collection of time data and conscious actioning on the data (providing feedback versus reprimanding, checking for overwork versus only for tardiness, for example), will translate into a culture of transparency.
How do you keep track of your remote employees in today’s COVID-19-triggered remote work environment? Tell us on FacebookOpens a new window , LinkedInOpens a new window , or TwitterOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!