Monitoring WFH productivity

For many employees who would normally work in an office – it has been over a year since we all gathered around a coffee machine, talking about our favourite shows.

Working From Home (WFH) has certainly had its ups and downs for us all, but for managers, a battle for productivity has raged throughout.

Although there is always an argument for the human factor (this could be childcare, illness, mental health etc.) without this push from management, many employees could have found themselves feeling even more lost, and businesses could lose all productivity.

One of the big issues while striving for that balance between productiveness vs the human factor, has been privacy, with many bigger employers admitting to using observation techniques, including methods such as:

Monitoring work laptops

Keystroke monitoring allows managers to track and analyse keyboard activity. A host of other technology can also give insight into employee’s online activities and time.

Attention while screen sharing

If a worker has not had the Zoom app in focus or if they are away from the screen/off of the app for 30 seconds, Zoom’s monitoring features will flag this.

Reading work messages

The software, Slack, allows business owners to read private messages between colleagues.

Although all of the above is legal – it remains to be debated how ethical it is. One thing for sure is that is can cause resentment between employees and employers.

An alternative route for productivity while WFH is transparency and self-service. Using a time tracking software, such a Citadel by Chronologic, you could easily track your employees time on projects (or in departments) and give employees the chance to clock their breaks and more.

Not only will this allow you to clearly see your cost of labour vs product output, but it will show your employees that yes, you are tracking their time but not their every moment. That you believe in them and understand, as adults, as long as the job is done, not looking directly at your Zoom screen doesn’t matter.

For employees, Citadel will give them the chance to clock their hours easily via an app and know that their payroll will be 100% accurate – because it’s literally in their own hands.

Employers can add work rules to automatically add functionality such as overtime, roundings and grace and much more.

For more information on Citadel’s key benefits for businesses, click here.

Find out more about our clocking systems here.

Any questions, or if you’d like to request a free online demo to see how clocking in with Citadel could work for you, call 01761 410015, email us or click the chat icon.