Ever since the pandemic, the number of employees working from home has increased spectacularly. In fact studies even suggest that by 2025 around 70% of employees will likely be working remotely a minimum of 5 days per month.

It should come as no surprise that employees enjoy the flexibility of working from home, and respond well to it. However the same can’t be said of employers, mainly because many have concerns regarding how it will affect productivity.

If you feel that way too, here’s how to keep the productivity of remote workers on track while still allowing them a ton of flexibility.

  • Establish firm ground rules

When it comes to remote work, you shouldn’t jump in feet first. Instead, it would be best to take your time and establish a set of ground rules that outlines what you expect from your employees. Typically that should include their work hours, goals, communication methods, tools, and progress reports.

If you’re going to be using remote employee monitoring like Controlio, you should create a clear policy regarding it. Be sure to list out what features of the software will be used, such as tracking app usage, web browsing history, work hours, productivity, and so on – while explaining why it is necessary.

  • Set measurable goals and milestones

All the goals that you set for your employees should be measurable so that you can track their progress. With Controlio you can monitor how long employees take to perform tasks and fulfill any goals and milestones, and use that data to ensure that your employees are on track.

  • Calculate and compare productivity

There are many different ways to calculate productivity – and you should find one that fits. One easy option is to use the productivity score feature built into Controlio that is calculated automatically and will let you quickly compare the productivity of individual employees.

Calculating productivity will give you the means to check if it ever drops – which is a sign that something could be wrong and you need to take action.

  • Keep an eye out for time wastage

One of the biggest problems with remote work is time wastage. However, because Controlio monitors any and all app and web activity you can easily see how much time employees are wasting browsing the internet, checking social media, or watching videos.

If necessary you can even use Controlio’s features to block specific websites that are too much of a time sink. This should be done sparingly however, as it can be a bit intrusive.

  • Give employees access to their own data

Monitoring data can be just as useful to employees as it is to you. It can help them to see for themselves what their work hours and productivity metrics look like – and allow them to make improvements accordingly.

In Controlio it is easy enough to give employees access to the dashboard with their own data. Alternatively you can set it up to send them periodic reports containing the analytics that are relevant.

Make no mistake, keeping remote workers productive and on track can be a bit challenging – especially if you’ve never done anything like it in the past. That is why it is essential that you follow these steps, plan everything out, and be sure to get feedback from your employees too.

At the end of the day, employee monitoring can play a crucial role in tracking employee productivity and giving you the raw data you need to take concrete action. However all that data is only as good as the steps that you take to use it.