“You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic.”
As we finish the first quarter of 2022, we’ve come to grips with the fact that working from home comes with its own challenges. After spending two years of either hybrid or remote working, businesses are beginning to address the productivity patterns of their employees more thoughtfully.
The above quote by Bill Watterson perfectly sums up the plight of employees working from a work-from-home setup.
Now here’s the real question: Do remote workplaces promote a sense of procrastination among employees? Or has working in isolation made them more attentive and responsive to their daily To-Dos?
Of course, weighing the pros and cons of remote working has made it evident that even after two years, flexible workspaces offer opportunities to improve productivity among teams – or do they? Let’s find out.
Survey Indicates
According to the Gartner 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey, 43% of respondents said flexible working hours helped them achieve more productivity, and 30% said that less or no time commuting allowed them to be more productive.
Is a hybrid work model helping businesses achieve high-value productivity?
A hybrid model is a work structure that allows 1-2 people to work from anywhere while the rest of the team works from an office. In March 2020, when all employees switched to remote working, specific tools and solutions helped employers collaborate with their staff remotely. However, hybrid environments pose their own set of challenges.
As managers, it is difficult to measure the productivity of your in-house and resident employees. For this very reason, businesses continue to incorporate workplace productivity tools into their hybrid work models.
Benefits of employee productivity tools:
Easy goal-setting
Managers often walk a tight rope between maintaining workloads and ensuring productivity. An employee productivity tracking tool is one such innovation that replaces and automates the strenuous process of keeping tabs on employee activity. Moreover, with the help of such comprehensive technology, managers can now maintain quarterly or half-yearly reports of each employee. This in turn helps them set effective KPIs for them.
Fast track a project (and employee productivity)
Declining productivity and project delays directly reflect on a company’s success. Supervisors must identify the productivity patterns of each employee, whether on office premises or at home. An effective productivity tracking app can track idle vs. active work efforts. It also offers a detailed report of a worker’s time spent on a project. This will be conducive to preventing project delays and will lead to employee accountability in the long run.
Resetting mind – A pivotal shift for businesses during the ‘great resignation’ period
Remote work, however, has led to online burnout and isolation among remote workers. Today, businesses advocate the importance of employee “well-being” and focus on restructuring their pre-pandemic work policies to combat the ever-growing ‘great resignation.’ Prioritizing employee wellness is now a matter of grave concern. This not only boosts their morale but also improves employee sustainability.
As per Workplace Intelligence’s insightful report, companies like Amazon, Costco, and Walmart have increased their salaries to hire more workers. Others build out their benefits packages and offer perks like stock options or financial wellness incentives to overcome labor shortages. Rest are also focusing on upskilling or retraining their existing workforce.
How are you improving employee efficacy and productivity in a dynamic work environment during such pressing times?
RemoteDesk | Perform offers HR, operation managers and supervisors Identity Verification, Remote Workforce Management and Employee Engagement to leverage high-value productivity from their work-from-home (WFH) teams.
Monitor and understand remote employee behaviour
RemoteDesk | Perform helps employers identify WFH patterns of their employees. It records the actual time spent during a monitoring session to determine their active vs. idle work efforts. As a result, a manager gets detailed activity reports of applications and URLs employees engage with during their working hours.
Improve employee coaching and engagement
A company wins half the battle if its employees gain self-awareness about their work efforts. An easy-to-navigate and convenient productivity tracking application like RemoteDesk | Perform helps employees achieve self-discipline even when their coaches aren’t around. Having known that their work efforts are accurately calculated, it gives them a sense of assurance that their working hours are not underbilled, motivating them to improve their performance along the way.
Final thoughts
Sustainable company culture is one milestone that every employer aims for. Besides a motivated and productive workforce, a business leader must keep their team’s wellness and undoubtedly their ability to decipher stress management in mind. After all, a positive-minded employee will inherently show efficacy compared to those who’re forced to constantly prove themselves in this competitive world, leading to a disgruntled workforce.
