Improve Remote Team Productivity with Data: Strategies That Work

Distant group productiveness has been underneath scrutiny because the begin of the 2020s. However how usually do groups reply to criticism and look to enhance group productiveness with information? 

Corporations that pivoted to distant work fashions through the pandemic have largely stayed the course — and with good purpose. In accordance with Forbes, 98% of U.S. team members want the option to work remotely at the very least a part of the time.

However is eager to work remotely sufficient of a purpose to permit workers to take action? 

Productiveness in distant groups can simply slip by way of the cracks. That’s why the shift to distant work has made one factor clear: productiveness monitoring in distant groups isn’t non-obligatory — it’s important. 

Nonetheless, the true problem lies in figuring out methods to measure the productiveness of distant workers and use information to gauge effectivity strategically. 

Hubstaff’s Workstyle Revolution Report anonymized information throughout 22,000 organizations and 185,000 group members. The report outlines key insights on focus time, process breakdowns, and efficiency developments in distant environments.

From this report, we uncovered worker productiveness metrics and key efficiency indicators (KPIs) that may assist, together with: 

• Activity completion charge
• Staff utilization
• Targeted work classes
• Outcomes-driven work

On this publish, we’ll break down extra key productiveness metrics distant groups ought to observe, what every metric reveals, and methods to use them to optimize group efficiency and effectivity.

Let’s get began. 

1. Focus time: Your group’s deep work indicator

Ever really feel such as you’re probably not locked into the move state at work? At Hubstaff, we’ve felt this sense earlier than. Enter a time period we prefer to name focus time. 

Focus time refers to uninterrupted consideration to a particular undertaking or process for at the very least half-hour. This may be a wonderful time administration technique for monitoring deep work (or work that requires extra cognitive consideration than most) like writing or research-based initiatives. 

Focus time analytics can guarantee group members perceive the typical variety of centered classes your groups full in a given time-frame. If conferences are slicing into an excessive amount of of a person’s focus time, you may make changes to stop overwork and burnout.

Insights make distant group productiveness monitoring simple by capturing the main target time proportion for every process your group spends greater than half-hour on. You’ll see a whole breakdown of your group’s workday when it comes to common focus time per session and variety of centered work classes, and benchmark it based mostly on totally different roles. 

You can even view actions like (Web sites and apps visited) throughout a centered session, which helps you get a 360-degree view of your group’s effectiveness and productiveness developments. You may then use this information to cut back burnout and promote a wholesome work-life steadiness. 

2. Unproductive time: Recognizing bottlenecks and burnout

Unproductive time refers to non-focused time wasted on non-work-related actions. Worker productiveness software program can spot potential bottlenecks by taking a look at information like:

• Low exercise charges
• Frequent switching between duties
• Important parts of idle time
• Elevated time spent on unproductive apps and URLs

Unproductive actions may stem from unclear expectations, lack of processes and priorities in place, or simply out of pure distractions. It may also be a results of time wasters like extreme conferences, multitasking that doesn’t add worth, and different points.

Hubstaff’s time monitoring information exhibits work time classifications based mostly on productive and unproductive work. By analyzing information like this, you’ll be able to see how a lot time workers spend on web sites and apps categorized as productive or unproductive. 

For instance, suppose you see an uncommon period of time spent on social media websites throughout work hours. Except the person is somebody out of your advertising group, equivalent to a social media supervisor, it’s information price keying in on. 

In that case, this can be a signal of wasted time. Such particular information may also help pinpoint hidden inefficiencies and bottlenecks and save companies from undesirable extra time prices and workers from potential burnout. 

3. Core work time: Measuring what strikes the needle for steady enchancment

Core work time is a time period we got here up with to establish the time spent on job-specific, high-priority duties. Core work differs based mostly on the duties laid out by one’s supervisor and job description.

For instance, a developer’s core work includes coding, whereas a content material creator’s includes writing. There could also be some overlapping duties between these roles (e.g., a author who additionally publishes pages and makes coding tweaks), however every has its personal main job duties. 

Core work is totally different for each place, however monitoring it’s essential. It helps managers optimize utilization charges by delegating work to the group members who’re most certainly to finish it effectively. 

With worktime classifications in Insights, you’ll be able to see the share of core work vs. non-core work and time wasted on unproductive duties. This can be a nice option to get a high-level overview of how your group makes use of their work hours to higher benchmark productiveness and efficiency.

4. Non-Core work time: Figuring out admin and low-impact duties

Non-core work is any exercise that extends past an worker’s main job duties however continues to be a part of their workload. To refer again to the instance above, a content material author’s core work is to put in writing, however non-core work would possibly contain time spent publishing that content material. There are additionally non-core work gadgets that might lengthen to nearly any job function, together with back-and-forth emails, conferences, or Slack catch-ups. 

Whether or not it’s job-specific or basic, you’ll find the proper steadiness between core and non-core work by monitoring productiveness with Hubstaff. Like with core work, non-core time may also be categorized into particular URLs and apps to handle potential inefficiencies.  

It’s essential to notice that these non-core work gadgets are nonetheless important parts of an worker’s every day work hours. Nonetheless, we’ve discovered that if groups spend over 40% of their time on non-core duties, it will probably damage worker engagement and result in inefficiencies.

5. Utilization: Actionable insights on who’s overloaded or underused

Utilization charge is a key efficiency metric that helps group leads perceive how successfully their workers’ time is getting used, particularly for workload distribution and stopping overworked group members from burnout. 

It measures the ratio of hours labored (sometimes out of an 8-hour day) and will be tracked as both billable vs. non-billable time or deliberate vs. precise hours. 

A 100% utilization charge means an worker is totally booked — however that doesn’t at all times equate to sustained productiveness. In truth, it will probably result in burnout or be an indication of surprising exercise to see exercise and utilization charges which are so excessive. 

By analyzing information on worker utilization metrics, managers can redistribute duties, stop overload, and guarantee sources are aligned with high-impact priorities.

Hubstaff’s productiveness dashboard completely captures utilization charges, exhibiting in case your group members are over or underneath goal for the day. 

6. Engagement information insights: Past hours labored

Engagement goes deeper than simply time logged or duties tracked. The true query is how invested your group members are of their work. 

Whereas somebody could seem “busy,” true engagement is mirrored in behavioral indicators like:

• Constant time-on-task
• Voluntary extra time
• Communication patterns
• Noticeable drop-offs in exercise or responsiveness. 

These indicators assist leaders differentiate between real productiveness and surface-level busyness. 

Whereas worker pulse surveys also can seize sentiment, job satisfaction, and motivation developments, they empower leaders to foster psychological security, increase significant engagement, and create a optimistic group tradition when monitored collectively.

The exercise ranges function lets you recognize precisely how productive you or your group are when monitoring time. It’s possible you’ll use this information to handle group effectivity on the spot shortly. When your group tracks time with Hubstaff, the exercise charge metric is calculated based mostly on the share of keyboard and mouse strokes in a particular time interval.

Monitoring all this beneficial information manually can be a nightmare (and would doubtless end in inaccurate information high quality).

Time monitoring for distant groups is like maintaining a shared recipe e book in a busy kitchen. Every chef is contributing to a posh meal, and with out a recipe e book the place every chef notes their contribution and the way lengthy it takes, the meal wouldn’t style good and be prepared on time. 

Equally, with out a highly effective time monitoring instrument that helps group members observe time for duties and offers actionable insights, you wouldn’t know methods to enhance group productiveness with information, optimize workflows, hit group objectives, or reward good efficiency. 

The perfect productiveness instruments for distant groups embrace options that make it easier to observe productiveness to essentially the most granular degree. Analyzing this information enables you to establish the delicate distinction between productiveness and effectivity and make data-driven choices. 

So, when selecting a productiveness monitoring instrument, be sure to search for an all-in-one time and productiveness monitoring answer that captures group dynamics like:

• Focus time
• Unproductive hours
• Core work duties
• Staff utilization

The perfect a part of Hubstaff’s Insights add-on is that it touches on all of the metrics above to provide you a 360-degree view of your group’s productiveness patterns and helps you enhance group productiveness with information. 

Additional, Hubstaff presents different options that will help you gauge group productiveness like: 

• GPS monitoring for higher route planning, correct ETAs, and extra
• Geofenced Job websites that assist you to automate clock-ins and clock-outs in a customized radius
• Constructed-in funds to pay distant group members all over the world of their native foreign money by way of standard fee suppliers like PayPal, Gusto, and Clever.
• Integrations that make it easier to construct extra productive workflows utilizing standard CRM, communication, and undertaking administration software program. 

You need to use a ton of worker productiveness report templates accessible within the Hubstaff library to guage group efficiency and make data-driven choices.

• Monitor and observe worker productiveness information insights over a set time.
• Monitor the standing and productiveness of a group to find out efficiency and effectivity.
• Use information insights to orchestrate worker efficiency evaluations, give promotions, and construction group dynamics.
• Analyze worker efficiency information in opposition to historic information to see enhancements or setbacks based mostly on efficiency monitoring information developments
• Enhance group productiveness with information and predict future outcomes and outcomes.

Enhance group productiveness with information analytics 

Knowledge-driven productiveness goes a good distance when accomplished proper. That’s why we’ve arrived at productiveness metrics like: 

• Focus time
• Core work
• Non-core work
• Utilization
• Worker engagement charge

These metrics aren’t designed to help micromanagement however to provide employers and workers readability, assist decision-making, and increase group effectivity. 

The precise collaborative instruments and productiveness metrics assist leaders observe progress, enhance group dynamics, make smarter choices, rebalance workloads, and establish bottlenecks and development alternatives.

Using instruments and monitoring work is the place to begin of constructing a tradition of steady enchancment, efficient group collaboration, and purposeful efficiency. For workers, this implies autonomy, improved group morale, and help the place it issues most.