For a remote worker with higher-ups to respond to, time tracking may not be that significant. But if you are a manager and have remote working team members, it would be necessary to apply a work tracking approach in the scenario. This is not just following the trend and staying updated with technological advancement of the business world, but also allowing the concept of accountability to be born among remote workers.
More than ever, now is the high-time to employ effective solutions that promise that your team members stay productively efficient and accountable, even when working from different locations. To achieve this feat, you may come across several means, but one significant focus would better be work tracking. As a manager or an employer, you can precisely track the work activities of your employees which will, in the long run, offer profound impacts.
Trying to manage remote workers with the conventional way of employee monitoring would not suffice in today’s advanced remote work landscape. If you look around and observe, you would certainly notice that almost all businesses authorize the application of sophisticated work-tracking applications and software to operate their remote workforce. That is why, this article will focus on discussing how work tracking influences or what role it plays in promoting employee performance and accountability.
But why? Why work tracking? You can think of work tracking tools as an all-knowing entity that provides an all-inclusive overview of overall productivity levels, tasks completion, and time spent by each employee on each activity. Through meticulous evaluation and analysis of these valuable insights, you can attest your team to a higher standard of accountability.
Accrediting employees via visibility
One of the foremost impacts of work tracking your remote employees is the enhanced visibility that it provides. When your team members get proper permission with a clear view of their real time tasks, work progress, and time allocation, they become confident and the way they navigate through their work activities become more efficient and make effective informed-decisions.
By work tracking, you can gain a better understanding of the employees productivity patterns which allows you to jot down hurdles, employ ways to enhance efficiency, and workflow optimization. For instance, when an employee is spending an excessive amount of time on a specific task, you will know about the reasoning behind this behavior, whether it is due to unwanted distractions, inadequate resources, or lack of proficiency. A thoughtful assessment of the issues will enable to gradually enhance employee performance.
Additionally, work tracking also promotes a sense of ownership. When a worker has a clear vision of their work progress, they feel a sense of greater responsibility in delivering quality work and meeting deadlines. Then, the accountability of the matter exceeds beyond timely clocking in and out of work hours to contributing effectively to the overall objectives and achieving excellence.
Pursuing ways of trust and collaboration
Contrary to the overflowing misconception that constantly monitoring and work tracking employees may breed mistrust among them is not fully right. In reality, it actually lays the foundation to encourage a work dynamic with mutual trust and collaboration channels. It can be achieved by clearly defining the business expectations from them and allowing transparency of work progress so that it aligns with their personal work goals.
Now, consider a situation where multiple teams are collaborating for a project. Only via work tracking tools can each member get an overview of their individual contribution to the project in real-time, resulting in a seamless collaboration, thereby obliterating the possibility of misunderstandings or duplicating efforts. Such scenarios with remote teams fosters a collaborative spirit among members making them feel accountable for their share of work towards a collective success.
Stabilizing flexibility with accountability
Flexibility of work is a complementary advantage with remote work. While extraordinary freedom and autonomy of work is great, they rather strike a challenge in regards to employee accountability and oversight. That is why, it is a necessity to apply the right measures to maintain a stable balance of flexibility with accountability. To achieve that, adequate work tracking enables the remote workers to schedule flexible work arrangements as per their preferences which ensures no compromise with productivity nor deliverables. Because when employees are free to work from anywhere and at any time, they become accountable for accomplishing the allocated tasks on time with efficiency.
Accelerating performance reviews and feedback
Conventional ways of reviewing employees’ performance and contributions often depend on anecdotal evidence and subjective assessments, which results in inaccuracies and presence of biases. However, with work tracking, you can take initiatives for a data-driven approach that offers information and objective metrics to encourage strategic coaching and meaningful feedback. Say, hypothetically, that you are an employee. If so, rather than single-handedly depending on your superior’s criticism regarding your work performance, you can augment that impression with undeniable data through task completion rates, time management, and productivity development. This will allow for fair and broader scope of assessment including strengths, contributions, etc.. Additionally, Managers or employers can also utilize the work tracking data to adapt their coaching procedures and feedback to convey other developmental requirements or specific challenges effectively.
Encouraging accountability beyond individual performances
For a fact, monitoring tools and software has more capabilities and so much to offer to its users on various aspects beyond the primary field of time tracking and boosting employee performance. When utilized thoughtfully and to its best, it surrounds a much broader scope relating to organizational values and goals. You just need to align what the organization visions with the individual efforts of the employees.
While it may take some time to see the benefits, work tracking can also be implemented in a way to monitor and proper environmentally friendly practices which may include minimizing energy consumption, carbon emissions, and reducing paper usage by promoting remote work. When the collective goals and values of the organization ties with the individual actions, this monitoring software or application supports a customs of responsibility and accountability towards related components like the society, the environment, and the stakeholders.
However, in the middle of it all, it is pretty important to glance sideways and focus to recognize the ethical aspects of work tracking as well. In essence, work tracking goes beyond its mere subjective role of time tracking remote employees as a productivity tool. It can also become a force that transforms organizational growth and unleash the employees’ full potential to reach collective objectives.
Anantha Nageswaran is the chief editor and writer at TheBusinessBlaze.com. He specialises in business, finance, insurance, loan investment topics. With a strong background in business-finance and a passion for demystifying complex concepts, Anantha brings a unique perspective to his writing.
