Remote work is a very lucrative alternative for most employees. These days, employees are choosing jobs offering remote work systems over traditional ones. However, from a business perspective, remote workforce management is a challenging task. Management and business owners are constantly worrying over productivity and compliance challenges. We have seen numerous TikToks, memes, and reels where employees are faking working from home. It is funny to watch them getting innovative with the pretense, but from the company’s viewpoint, this is a real pain point. It risks the organization losing significant opportunities to sustain and progress.
Why is Remote Work Beneficial for Businesses?
The benefits are substantial despite all the challenges with the remote work arrangement. If the management chooses to work proactively and manage the critical aspects, the arrangement is sustainable and beneficial. After the pandemic, when most businesses were moving to operate in Remote structures, a realization happened. Remote work wasn’t just a temporary arrangement; it had the potential to become a norm that people consciously chose. These are some of the most prominent and measurable benefits of a company operating with a remote workforce.
- Reduced operating expenses
- Less capital cost related to permanent office infrastructure
- Reduced consumables like travel, electricity, and canteen
- Flexibility and freedom extended to employees
- Better work-life balance
- Freedom to hire talent outside of geographical limits
How Employees Fake Online Activity?
Are Your Remote Employees Just Pretending to Work? This is the question to which all are searching for the answer. It is hard to determine it as people tend to find a way out of any situation. So despite having the best mechanism to keep the productivity of remote workers in check, there is a high chance of having slip-ups. As employees are away from the physical presence of their managers and supervisors, they may stay focused during work hours. Also, they are in a place of their comfort where there are other sources of entertainment available, which is a significant factor in employees feeling less focused on their work.
Let’s see what distractions employees have while working remotely affect their productivity.
- Postponing work due to slower work efforts and increased billable hours
- Getting onto a gaming spree during work hours
- Using different forms of entertainment on OTT and Social Media platforms
- Surfing pornographic content
- Just dozing off during work timings
- Working on alternate personal projects to make extra bucks on the side
Everyone has their ways and tricks to avoid working to their full potential. Now to accomplish such behavior, remote employees can get creative. These are some of the most used techniques by employees to fake their work efforts.
- Keep on with mouse movement.
- Use other gadgets to access the content of entertainment
- Showing off in the meeting in status to avoid people reaching out for help and update
- Use virtual machines to dodge the monitoring tools
Tools and Techniques to Minimize Idle Time for the Remote Workforce
Spotting an employee faking working from home is relatively easy, but there are more viable alternatives than sacking every such employee. Any sensible business person will have the highest regard for their employees. Every business can survive with its workforce. However, having a pool of non-productive employees is also as good as creating a liability for the organization. The solution to the problem is complex but definitely possible. As soon as you start laying off people, a massive amount of uncertainty and mistrust erupts among other employees and all the other potential candidates in the job market. Hence, the first step is to take measures to bring the workforce back on track regarding productivity. Let’s see how and what one can do to achieve optimum productivity from their remote workforce.
• Regular Meetings and Updates
Indeed, having the required number of formal virtual meetings can add a sense of answerability and inclusiveness among employees. The duration of the meetings should be concise, yet they should be frequent enough for the employees to be alert. Regular updates can save the managers time and effort to reach out to various people individually. Hence, every team leader should have a calendar in place to connect and communicate with their teams regularly.
• Reinforce Benefits of Productive Work
Employee productivity simultaneously benefits employees and the company. Higher productivity is instrumental in getting higher revenue which ultimately results in a better chance for the company to survive and succeed. This simple equation is what every employer and manager must communicate to the employees. The company’s well-being is directly related to the well-being of its workforce. Companies can also declare performance-linked reward plans to motivate employees to do well in their work.
• State Clear and Reasonable Project Completion Date and Time
The organization must have a clear framework for its employees regarding expectations and task management. Indeed, before starting any new project, every stakeholder should clearly understand what should happen and when. Every stage and timeline of a project should be documented. Hence, employees will have a fair idea of what and when they need to deliver. Any defaults in the completion process can get prompt intervention, and remedial actions happen on time.
• Use Employee Monitoring Software
One technique helping many organizations with remote workforces is employee management or employee computer monitoring software. Therefore, best remote monitoring software, such as RemoteDesk, can help the organization manage productivity, compliance, and engagement challenges concerning remote employees. For example, if we look at RemoteDesk; it helps the management with numerous useful alerts like screenshot monitoring and keystroke movements. Such intelligent monitoring software can help in employee activity monitoring with
- Help in boosting productivity by up to 20%.
- Real-time notifications of unauthorized persons
- Compliance management dashboard.
- An environmental monitoring solution that benefits in securing remote work setups.
- Clean-desk validation through a room scan.
- An advanced and automated employee monitoring solution.
- Transparency, accountability, and risk management.
Conclusion: Deal with Remote Workforce Confidently
To summarize the topic of employees faking their activity in remote arrangements, one thing is clear. Definitely, companies should use technology to their advantage and take bolder steps. Remote work has more advantages than disadvantages. Hence, with the help of employee PC monitoring software like RemoteDesk, companies can not just manage but improvise the productivity of their employees. Such tools are a boon for embracing greater productivity, robust policy compliance, and better project management. So rather than going back to the traditional form of work, now is the time to embrace remote and hybrid work with technological smartness and confidence.
