There are two ways to look into a system for remote workers.  Would you like to monitor your staff or manage them?  Do you care that they are working or that the work gets done? 

There is a big difference between those two concepts and which one you prefer will depend on the system you chose to use to manage your remote workers. 

Monitoring that staff are working:

You could monitor your people to see that they are working, checking what time they are sitting in front of their desks and for how long they have the correct windows open on their screens as well as how often they are clicking to refresh those screens.  It is a micromanager’s dream.  And there are many systems available to help you do this. 

ActivTrak, Time Doctor, Teramind, Hubstaff and RescueTime are all examples that can help you to keep track of what your staff have been busy with every moment of every day. 

There should be a warning label attached each of these systems that it will do nothing to increase staff satisfaction and, in some cases, it may even hamper productivity. 

“It takes a lot more time and effort to look busy than it would ever take to actually get the work done.”

Managing the work being done:

The alternative is to use a system to manage the work being done.  This means that you task people with their jobs, expectations and responsibilities and then you trust that they will do that work.  You can then measure their performance based on their outcomes and not on hours and minutes worked. 

There are a few options here if you are looking into a system that can help you do this.  A simple system like Todolist can allow you to keep track of tasks.  If you would like to keep track of projects, tasks, processes and any and all operations your team might have to get done from home INControl is the system for you. 

What you need is oversight.  You need to know what has been done, what is overdue and at which point in the process a bottleneck exists.  INControl is the system that will allow you to measure your people by looking at exact graphs and data of their value and productivity. 

“At the end of the day I get more done when I know what’s going on and what is expected of me.”