Tracking remote employees’ work hours boosts productivity, ensures fairness, and simplifies payroll management. With the right tools and policies, businesses can balance monitoring with trust and respect. According to the survey, 85% of non-manual working directors doubt the effectiveness of the changed hybrid teams. When it comes to accosting productivity and performance, the need to monitor has led many to use surveillance software, which brings about the issues. For instance, research conducted on US-based employees showed that 64 percent of them who work from home feel that they are being monitored too closely.
That is where Remote Work employee time tracking comes in handy. Time tracking provides managers and employers with insight into productivity without becoming invasive.
This article examines the best ways to intuitively track hours when working remotely and the best time-tracking tools.
How to Track Employees' Working Hours While They Work from Home
When your employees are located worldwide or work in shifts, you can identify how much time they spend on work.
This concept of virtual time management is practical and can help with efficiency and organizational responsibility. Nonetheless, it must be adequately achieved.
Here are four methods to track the working hours of remote employees:
i. Time-Tracking Software
Electronic monitoring tools record how long an employee spends on a specific activity in a working day. They can often be interfaced with other project management tools.
This type of software enables people with less power to record the time taken while those with more power, such as managers, can set the time it is likely to take to do a particular job.
ii. Integrated HR platforms
Solutions built into the HR department also contain systems where employees can record their working hours, breaks, and jobs.
For instance, employees can open the Remote HR Management tool to check their working hours and develop their timesheets. This system is ideal for organizations with workers who practice staggered working and is excellent for teams with remote employees.
iii. Virtual Time Clocks
Like most traditional time management techniques, virtual time clocks follow the employee ‘clock-in’ and ‘clock-out’ system for every working day. In a virtual system, employees prove their working hours from anywhere through multiple devices.
For instance, Time Clock Wizard is a tool to track employees’ absence, late coming and taking time off to rest.
iv. Self-Reporting
Employees can report on their working hours in whatever way they choose. For example, they could use a stopwatch or time-tracking software to help them track time or even peek at the clock. Then, they “hand in” online timesheets.
However, as with most self-organizing methods, self-reporting can result in a higher discrepancy between the reported time and the actual time worked.
How Can We Choose the Right Time-Tracking Option For Your Remote Team?
The choice of the time-tracking solution will depend on the needs of your team and the company and its professional tone.
For instance, virtual time clocks may be inapplicable for use in the creative industries because they want flexibility in their time tracking. If a company has many shift workers in various regions worldwide, an HR platform with a time-tracking function would be preferred.
Following are a few tips for selecting the best remote employee time-tracking option for your remote team:
i. Consider Your Needs
First, categorize your needs regarding working days to determine where exactly you stand. Ask yourself:
- What things do you want from the time-tracking tool?
- What features does your business require, such as time tracking of the billed hours?
- Are you in need of heavy utilization and productivity rate reports?
For instance, a remote team might need basic scheduling capabilities so that individuals can operate during various shift times. However, a team like this may not require specific project time-tracking features—at least not in the traditional sense of the term.
ii. Check for Easily Navigate Choices
After deciding on your team’s needs, choose the option to ensure time-tracking takes the least time.
You can peruse product demos that would help you shop for the right tool for your company. While testing out different software, ask yourself:
- Does the tool require user simplicity or high complexity to operate and make sense?
- Will it take your team so long to learn how to use the tool before applying it in practice?
- Does the tool have an easy-to-use interface?
That is why, when choosing the time-tracking option, you do not want to offer your remote employees too many options to consider, as this can easily confuse them. The shorter the type and the less it costs, the better.
iii. Check for Integrations
Using a time tracking software compatible with your current network is better since it will be cheaper than hiring a new programmer. When considering your options, ask yourself:
- Is this tool compatible with your current technologies?
- Would you have to input the data into other systems by typing them in?
iv. Consider Costs
Think about how much you are ready to spend on the application for tracking hours worked by remote employees. If you are an organization with staff from different parts of the world, you want to be sure that your software solution is flexible enough to accommodate growth.
Ask yourself:
- How much budget do you have to spend on getting a time-tracking tool?
- What pricing plans should you opt for when employing the tool you’re interested in?
In general, selecting a solution that offers a diverse and clear-costing price model is advisable.
What is the Reason for Tracking Hours With Your Remote Rmployees?
Here is why you should monitor the hours of your remote employees.
i. To Enhance Operational Planning
Tracking time yields valuable information about how priorities are set regarding organizational resources to accomplish project plans and timelines within a given timeframe.
Specifically, it can help with:
- Finding the opportunities to utilize the human resources and clearing the clutter out of workflow.
- It would help establish more realistic timetables for project scheduling and client and stakeholder management.
- Seeing patterns of how and when tasks are performed and estimating whether some employees are doing well or poorly in productivity.
For example, suppose you realize that employees spend two hours more than planned on a project. Based on such details, you may notice that the specific project takes longer to complete and thus, in the subsequent scheduling, reserve more time for such sorts of projects.
ii. For Appropriate Billing and Legal Requirements’ Sake
Moreover, time tracking ensures you charge your customers and clients accurately. It also assists you in avoiding any violation of the laws that exist within the specific area and ensures that every employee receives pay based on the job done within the pay period.
Time tracking also helps with:
- Making sure that specific employees and certain contracts are charged for the time that they work on a project or if there are overtime or holiday pay rates involved
- Deciding whether or not certain hours are billable to you and your business or the client who is paying for your services
- Ensure you employ predictive billing and forecasting to estimate your enterprise’s future costs/ profits.
iii. To Increase Efficiency and Performance Among Employees
Organizational goals need to be planned and delivered effectively. This is to identify productivity trends in time usage and determine whether your team needs help with other aspects.
Remote time tracking can help with the following:
- Determine what undesirable activities can occupy his time and help employees enhance their effective time utilization.
- Offering real-time tracking of employee utilization rates lets you see problems with your product offerings at the early stages.
For example, monitoring how many hours an employee spends on some work chores may show that a particular software takes longer to use. This could indicate that employees may require more training or funding for a software update.
The Possible Drawbacks of Time Tracking
In fact, as an HR manager like yourself, you find it hard to discover how your subordinates spend their time and, consequently, where changes should be made. This makes time tracking attractive, but it is always dangerous to overdo it to increase efficiency.
Overmonitoring remote employees will likely lead to a lack of trust and counterproductive micromanagement. For example, your team members could be among the 43% of employees who feel compelled to pretend to work.
Remote HR Management seems to be a more equal approach. It helps record employees’ working time, primarily when they work remotely, but it doesn’t go as far as surveillance.
Final Thoughts-Track of a Remote Employees Hours Worked
All online businesses should use an accurate time-tracking system. Different time-tracking tools are available, but you should choose one according to your business needs and requirements. Tracking remote employees’ work hours boosts productivity, ensures fairness, and simplifies payroll management. With the right tools and policies, businesses can balance monitoring with trust and respect.
FAQ's
Tools like Hubstaff, Toggl Track, and Clockify are highly recommended.
Use global tracking tools with timezone synchronization features.
Yes, if done transparently and in compliance with labor laws.
Be transparent, respect privacy, and explain the need for tracking.
Yes, it ensures accountability and highlights areas for productivity improvement.
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