Organisations everywhere, small or large, are welcoming the rise of remote work services . And why not? This is the ultimate solution for any business looking to cut down costs in the most flexible way.
However, alongside the emergence of outsourcing VAs, the need to effectively manage productivity and maintain a healthy work environment becomes pivotal.
When you track your virtual assistants effectively, you win big in enhancing performance and driving growth.
This guide outlines the best practises and essential considerations for remote worker monitoring.
What is Remote Worker Monitoring?
Remote worker monitoring is all about streamlining software tools to strategically track and appraise your remote assistant’s work and interactions.
This approach allows your company to manage and control performance and productivity scores using outlined policy guidelines.
Here are the things that you can accomplish by establishing concrete remote worker monitoring.
Get a clear picture of your assistant’s performance and progress.
Determine trends, potential issues and areas for improvement.
Safeguards your firm’s sensitive data from any potential security breaches
Spot areas where you can help and support your virtual assistant.
Why Should You Monitor Your Remote Workers?
Let’s explore the reasons why remote worker monitoring is crucial to the success of your virtual collaboration.
Virtual assistants are indeed more productive than traditional employees, but still, they are vulnerable to distractions. Therefore, without monitoring, your VA’s output can be compromised.
Monitoring gives your remote workers an extra push. When your virtual assistants realise they’re being monitored, they tend to be more focused, sending performance and productivity upward.
Don’t get us wrong; work flexibility is great. However, it can also be a productivity killer. Working from home, aka the most comfortable working space, your workers may lack discipline in handling their working hours.
If you want to increase security, remote worker monitoring can be a great way to avoid data theft and breaches.
How Are Remote Workers Monitored?
For anyone who seeks successful remote worker monitoring, don’t take the quick road. Use a systematic approach to avoid any oversight.
So, how does employee monitoring work in a remote setting?
Set Your Goals
The first thing that you should do is set clear expectations. Why do you want to monitor your assistant? What’s the purpose?
In a sentence, write down your specific goal. You can do this effectively by pointing out the central aspects of monitoring, such as projects, tasks, and communication.
Then, set your focused parameters for each element, such as the maximum working hours in a day and the minimum output expected from a specific VA.
Outlining all of these will guarantee a more robust remote worker monitoring system.
Leverage the Right Tools
Your choice of monitoring tool can be a deciding factor in the overall success of your remote partnership. That’s why we want you to be thorough.
In the latter part of this article, we’ve listed key features of the best tracking tool, so you might want to check that out.
- How Can I Monitor My Remote Workers for Free?
There are plenty of free time-tracking tools online that you can choose from. From Toggl to Clockify—these applications offer generous tracking features such as automated screenshots and timesheet reporting.
You can keep an eye on your online support from anywhere, at any time. Whether they're working diligently or sitting unproductively, you are kept informed of your workers' progress and performance.
Create a Guideline
Establish rules for monitoring your remote assistants, as this will make management a lot easier for both parties.
For your guidelines, here are things that you should mention:
- Productivity rate
- Clock in and clock out time
- Minimum and maximum working hours
- Reporting
- Project goals
Depending on the task or project, you can modify the set rules, but the fundamental guidelines remain.
Make sure that you’ve properly documented these rules clearly and concisely. Also, you must be transparent about the methods for monitoring as well as the data that you want to track, who has access, and how you ought to use it.
Conduct Regular Check-ins
Yes, your virtual assistants don’t do physical attendance, but still, you have to ensure they’re checking in when they’re at work.
Establish a uniform process for clocking in and clocking out. Many time trackers have this as a built-in feature, so you can ensure your workers are diligently working as they claim.
Track Output and Progress
Well, it’s not enough to just keep tabs on your remote worker’s time; you also have to check their work and output. Why? Because often, your VA can go off track and work on things that don’t align with the project goals.
That said, it becomes pointless, no matter how productive they are. You need to track individual output and leverage project management tools to rate and review tasks to ensure optimal results.
Impose Data Safety and Security
In the digital world, data security has become central to remote work monitoring. When you track your virtual assistants, you must implement measures to safeguard your sensitive data, such as strong passwords and data backups.
Furthermore, teach your remote workforce about data security and safe internet practises to achieve maximum data protection.
Provide Support
For remote professionals operating in different time zones, it can be challenging to resolve issues promptly.
Therefore, to make their working life easier, consolidate necessary resources in one centralised and accessible hub. You can also create instructional videos or SOPs to enhance support.
Encourage Transparency
Be open to your remote workers. If you want to monitor them, then they must be aware of what data you’re tracking, where it’s stored, how they’re evaluated and why you’re doing it.
Be totally honest and provide access to view, edit and delete data when necessary.
And speaking of maintaining a watchful eye, it’s best to stick to work-related information and respect privacy.
Be Available
Always be reachable by keeping your lines of communication open for team members.
As much as possible, you want to promote inclusivity; you can do that by reducing isolation and encouraging constant, casual interactions.
There is a plethora of communication tools you can utilise to ensure continuous connectivity and improve team dynamics, such as Slack and Zoom.
How Remote Work Monitoring Inspires Business Growth
Below are the benefits of time-tracking remote workers that lead to overall business growth.
Boosted Productivity
By keeping a close eye on how your virtual assistants spend their time, they remain more focused and manage time more efficiently.
Foster Accountability
As mentioned, when your VAs know they’re being observed, they are more driven to meet expectations and deliver high-quality work.
Better Allocation of Resources
Monitoring paves the way for data insights. This information helps you delegate tasks and projects more effectively, fully understanding which areas need support.
Promote Trust and Effective Communication
The transparent practise of tracking your remote workers drives motivation and active interaction, as it helps your assistants grasp the core purpose of the work they do.
Elevate Work Quality
Regular tracking of your online assistant’s performance provides you with information on areas for improvement. As such, you can make adjustments and ensure that standards are consistently met, resulting in superior outputs across your remote team.
Features to Look for in Your Time Tracking Tool
Choosing the best remote worker monitoring tool is critical to the successful management of your virtual team.
To help you make this choice, make sure these features are present in your time-tracking tool.
- Comprehensive Reporting and Real-Time Notifications: Spot trends and address issues right away.
- Advanced Analytics: Anticipate risks and improve the performance of your remote workforce.
- Live Screen Recording and Storing: Send automatic screenshots of your assistant’s work progress.
- Strong Analytic Tools: Accurately differentiate legitimate activities from possible security breaches.
- File Tracking: Clear visibility of your data movement in and outside of your organisation.
- Multi-Channel Tracking: Track projects and communications across different platforms
- Productive and Unproductive Time Tracking: Distinguish between the time actually spent on work and detecting gaps
- Supports Your Team’s Operating System: Use the time-tracking tool that is compatible with your virtual assistant’s operating system.
Wrapping Up!
It is highly important to gauge the efficiency level of your virtual team. That is how you gain knowledge of what work is being done and identify resource-draining aspects and potential issues.
Remote worker monitoring is your pathway to all that. You can keep tabs on tasks and projects, securing a healthy working environment that inspires productivity and works towards the same business goals.
So, if you ever need expert advice on outsourcing remote workers, connect with a virtual assistant company . The VAV team will be happy to guide you through your remote working journey.