Time Tracking: 3 Best Practices to Manage Remote Teams More Effectively

If you’re managing remote teams, time-tracking can be a game-changer. Its ability to keep tabs on employee activities will let you take attendance, track productivity, and make sure employees are staying on task.

However it does also raise privacy concerns, and if not implemented carefully can erode trust. That is not what you want to happen, which is why there are a few best practices you need to follow to leverage time tracking effectively:

• Promote a Positive Culture

The last thing you want is for employees to feel that time-tracking is being used to ‘spy’ on them and penalize them for things they do wrong. Instead, focus on using it to empower employees and support them in their work.

For example, if you use an employee time tracking app such as Controlio you can track employee work hours and activities to find out how long remote employees spend on tasks. If it is longer than expected – instead of blaming them for it, try to use the insights from time-tracking to identify whether it is due to workflow bottlenecks or if additional training is required.

• Set Ground Rules

Time-tracking works best when employees know what data will be monitored, how it will be used, and why it is necessary. Be fully transparent, and explain the role that it will play such as to improve project estimates and deadlines, balance workload distribution, or allocate resources more effectively.

Additionally, be sure to outline exactly what is required of employees – such as when they should be using time-tracking, and what they should or should not do. Make your expectations completely clear, so there is no ambiguity or confusion.

• Be Flexible – to a Degree

Flexibility is a big part of the appeal of remote work. By using mobile time clock apps such as Controlio you can automatically take attendance and monitor how long employees are working for – so you don’t need to be too rigid in your approach. If necessary you can even use it to capture screenshots or screen recordings and ‘see’ what your employees are doing.

That being said, total flexibility is often not a viable option. Most remote teams require a certain degree of synchronization in their working hours to hold meetings and collaboration sessions. The data from employee monitoring can help to find hours that overlap – especially when remote workers are in different time zones.

Conclusion

These best practices should help to make time-tracking more acceptable to remote teams, and allow you to implement it more smoothly. At the end of the day your goal should be to use it to create a system that is fair, supports your team, promotes accountability, and keeps all your employees aligned towards their shared goals.

To put it simply, time-tracking isn’t about managing hours or trying to ‘catch out’ your employees. Instead, it is about establishing a culture of transparency and building trust with your remote teams so that you can work together more effectively.