Solving Employee Performance Tracking Questions Once and For All

Remote working environments involve employees operating virtually or online instead of at a physical campus. They connect to the company workspace and co-workers via certain software. While working flexibly, employee performance tracking is one of the factors that organizations always want to monitor.

According to Owl Labs, around 16% of enterprises globally have rolled out 100% remote working environments. In fact, from 2009 to 2021, the number of people involved in remote working has grown by 159%.

So, How Did These Numbers Affect Novel Ways of Working?

This increased interest in remote work has not only been due to new emerging technologies like 5G, which promises higher data speed and VR and IR communications that ensure realistic virtual interactions. 

Also, the advent of COVID-19 has pushed the limits of remote working. Now, to generate great results, physical premises are no longer essential. However, even if the work quality has upscaled gradually, companies cannot claim the same regarding their employee productivity tracking systems.

Employee Performance Tracking in Remote Environment

While companies realize the potential of remote work to upgrade their standard of work, it cannot serve as an appropriate alternative to offline work. As per Statista, about 30% of US employees stated that the quality of new hires post-covid remotely is worse than pre-covid. Remote work collaboration and innovation of new products and services have also degraded by 17-20%.

It suggests that employee performance cannot be easily monitored off-premises. As a result, enterprises often face challenges in maintaining project quality. Hence, solutions like remote workforce monitoring software are required to keep track of employee productivity.

Why is Employee Performance Tracking Needed?

An employee performance tracker evaluates an employee’s performance. It deploys metrics to determine how well the employee has been working. It generally evaluates performance annually and helps managers determine employees’ competency levels. The evaluation process also involves comparing the goals set and the goals met in the stipulated time by the employee.

Furthermore, based on the evaluation, employees’ productivity has been decided accordingly. About 98% of businesses believe that employee performance management plays a vital role in a company’s growth and development. Also, according to Gartner, 81% of HRs are revamping their employee performance tracking metrics for better evaluation, leading to efficiency and increased usability of user activity monitoring software.

How to Improve Employee Productivity?

Improving employee productivity is the key to improving the organization’s overall productivity. Workers are the backbone of a company; they operate efficiently due to their contributions.

Thus, it is natural that the shifts in employee performance will also affect the company’s performance. Improving employee productivity in a hybrid/remote environment is required.

3 Ways to Improve Employee Performance

1. Set the Right Performance Metrics

Properly setting attainable goals and realistic expectations will help evaluate employee performance. Work progress will be calculated according to these criteria.

2. Work-Life Balance

Strive for a healthy work-life balance to discourage unnecessary workloads. This way, employees will no longer be evasive and attain job satisfaction. It also ultimately adds to employee engagement and the subsequent benefits. 

3. Annual Reviews vs. On-Spot Reviews

80% of employees prefer on-spot reviews and recognition instead of annual reviews. Several employees even complain that the yearly reviews are inaccurate.

Therefore, it would be better to adopt an on-spot (or monthly) performance analysis rather than the painful annual reviews that take a long time to evaluate. This eliminates the chances of inaccurate reviews and provides room for quick evaluations.

How Do You Keep Track of Employee Productivity?

Tracking employee productivity is important, even if the employee works remotely. To keep track of employee performance:-

• Monitor employees’ work progress, even if they are online. Ask customers and vendors for their viewpoints regarding the employees’ work quality.

• Try introducing remote workforce management platforms like user activity monitoring software and encourage employees to adopt them. 

• Provide feedback and transparent performance reviews. If an employee is unsatisfied with the review, allow comments.

• Ask for updates regularly. If required, channelize the regular assessment documents via a manager. The employees shall report to the reporting manager with their everyday work progress updates, and the manager will report to the higher authorities. 

While the pointers mentioned above are helpful, a centralized system to monitor the tasks is advisable. Therefore, it is best to deploy employee monitoring software. An EMS, or a user activity monitoring software, will read the performance metrics provided and automate the evaluation process for faster report generation.

It is centralized software that allows the company administrator to supervise the work progress of all employees remotely or on-premise. Managers can supervise over a private business network and encapsulate all the activities employees carry out on the company or even on their personal desktops.

What are the Businesses Looking for in User Activity Monitoring Software?

Companies have realized that cloud-based remote environments are sufficient for producing excellent outcomes, provided they have robust employee performance management software. 

Therefore, before onboarding an employee performance tracking software, they can check the following criteria that resolve all their challenges to remote work:

• Productivity Management
• Data Safety
• Collaboration and communication
• Compliance assurance
• Quality Management

What Can Effective Employee Monitoring Software Do?

As employee performance and behavioral assessment decide an organization’s overall productivity, introducing monitoring software is crucial. As of 2021, companies’ demand for efficient employee monitoring software has increased by 54%.

An Employee Monitoring Software (EMS) evaluates the performance of workers based on their screenshot histories, file login, usage, and changes. It also monitors the website logs and keeps a tab over the company workspace via:

• Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and subsequent access details to those workspaces. 
• Remote Workforce Management Software has remote controllers to grant administrators viewing access. 

An efficient employee performance monitoring software should, thus, be involved in an evaluation process based on the efficiency criteria set to close the gap between productive and non-productive behavior. Plus, it will satisfy all the criteria that contribute to better employee performance in the following way.

Better Productivity Management

This feature tracks the website and app usage. It ensures workspace transparency by showing the login hours, activity, and performance status. 

Enhancing Data Safety

Employee monitoring software should protect business-sensitive data effectively via block-key combinations for passcodes, restrictive permission control, content protection, and system lockdown. It also prevents data theft by tracking mouse clicks and strokes.

Encouraging Communication and Collaboration

It offers an instant messaging tool for better interaction with co-workers. Along with team chat and encrypted video conferencing, quick, intelligent alerts allow for on-the-spot action.

Cementing Compliance

A user activity monitoring software will divide the task of viewing real-time login activities of employees, remote co-browsing, and offering better communication tools. It will also check the screenshot histories of AI-SOP compliance and generate an insightful report.

Effective Quality Management

This trait of an EMS supervises all the training sessions, alerts past performance trends, and compares them to recent performance graphs. Its built feedback mechanism also comes with ratings and scores for the employees’ work quality.

Conclusion

The global EMS market is estimated to grow at a massive CAGR of 12.1% during 2021-26 and is even forecasted to reach USD 4.5 billion by 2026. As of 2021, virtual networking and private software networks hold the largest share of the employee monitoring software market.

Cloud technology and remote employee monitoring software improve efficiency and work accuracy, simplify regular workflows, and foster transparency, even in remote work. Fuelled by COVID-19 and the possibility of such situations rising again, various businesses are adopting employee monitoring software for remote employees to offer better virtual employee productivity monitoring facilities.