Should I keep track of remote personnel?
We are accustomed to the fact that we constantly go to work at the office, which, perhaps, is also not close to home. However, the modern work of IT companies and start-ups more often allows you to work from home, not to the detriment of the company's success. In the network, there are more and more articles on improving home productivity, on the successes of foreign companies whose developers are located around the world. What to say about a large number of high-quality and useful books on this topic: David Allen - Getting Things Done; Remote - Office Not Required from 37Signals.
But managers should remember that not all of its employees are ready to grow in their personal and career plans, or they may not do it as quickly and efficiently as they would like. A number of companies use open surveillance of their employees working both in the office and at home. Next I would like to provide a translation of the article by Sue Shellenbarger: 'Working From Home' Without Slacking Off from The Wall Street Journal . If you are interested in the performance issues of remote personnel, welcome to Cat.
Amy Johnson works at home in Dixon, Illinois, communicating with clients and filling out task reports as a printing technician. It would seem that she would have to sit next to her boss in an office in Chicago, but this is not so.
With the help of a computer monitoring program, Timothy Daniels, vice president of Accurate Biometrics, can monitor whether Ms. Johnson and her other employees are working or shirking their responsibilities. Once a week, he watches a summary of “which sites they use and for how long,” he says. "This allows us to closely monitor subordinates without taking tough measures."
Ms. Johnson knows that her computer is being monitored, but “I don't care,” she says. "I do not do anything that I should not."
')
Work at home allows you to relax from the stress in the office. (And let's be honest: it makes your schedule more flexible and allows you to even take a nap between conference calls).
Today, the days when you work at home are becoming more similar to office work, because bosses are trying to create new ways to control their employees. Some track projects and schedules of meetings on shared calendars. Others require you to send "virtual calls" by mail, instant messaging or calls. And some, such as Accurate Biometrics, use control over employee computers, both at home and in the office.
Systems are mainly used to ensure the confidentiality of data, and comply with all government requirements, but they still lead to the fact that the Internet appears a lot of information about employees of a personal nature. To avoid violations, employers have to warn their subordinates in advance that they will be under control and only track their work activities, as advocates say.
The control program that Daniels uses in Los Angeles is called InterGuard and is used to examine information about the financial situation, health, and past experience of employees to monitor their performance, prevent information leaks, and follow safety rules. Like most monitoring programs, this allows Daniels to see all of their subordinates, including 16 office workers and 24 working at home , to know exactly whether those people use their work time for personal purposes. Employees are aware that they are controlled.
“These programs help bosses identify those employees who need help, as well as those who simply waste time,” said Elena Proskumina, sales specialist for NesterSoft in Woodbridge, Ontario, and the creator of the monitoring program called Work Time . “One of the reports among those submitted by this program is“ Top Facebook Users, ”she says.
Employers say that the idea of ​​this kind of program is not to keep people chained to their workplace for eight hours in a row. They understand that people working at home can take breaks or go about their personal business.
"Many of Celeste O'Keefe's 13 employees often work at home, which helps them to take more time to complete tasks," said Ms. O'Keefe, general director of Dancel, a provider of additional procedural services for lawyers. She uses SpectorSoft to know how much time she spends on client projects in the office or at home.
Mrs. O'Keefe says she can't help but use the “surveillance” program. In any case, after she noticed that one of the employees working at home began to lag far behind in the delivery of projects. After she established the monitoring program, it turned out that he spends a lot of time writing text documents, which was not required for his work. Having learned that in fact, he spent most of his time studying for a master’s degree, “I just had to fire him. I couldn’t trust him again, ”Ms. O'Keefe says.
The differences between work at home and in the office are blurred , as many people spend their weeks and even days between home and office.
Those who work at home occupy leading positions only one or two days a month, the number of such employees has increased by an average of 69.5% annually since 2007, last year it amounted to 3.3 million people.
“ The main tasks of managers are becoming more difficult because of this, ” says Mr. Boggs. “Some may work at home every Friday. Others leave for 3 hours to manage to pick up children from school or prefer to work at home after dinner, ”he says.
Focusing on employee achievements, not on their working time, is another effective way to keep track of employees at home. And tools such as video conferencing, general calendars, e-mail and instant messaging will also help.
Most of their 940 employees working at home, at least sometimes, the managers of Mr. Ryan’s tax services firm, set tasks for each employee and penalize them for delay or non-compliance. From the moment these measures were taken, the company's productivity increased and the turnover rate decreased.
Every Monday, Chad Dunkin, team leader Ryan in Houston, meets with his four team members to discuss the agenda, plans for the week, and setting goals. “We have project A, B, C and D and we have to complete them by date X,” he says, and distributes the tasks and deadlines for each employee. After that, it absolutely does not matter where and how they work, because “ we only look at the result, ” says Mr. Dunkin.
Employees post their schedules on shared calendars in Outlook and often hold video conferences, as Heather Harrison, a senior consultant, told us. When she works at home, she constantly exchanges instant messages or letters with Mr. Dunkin. “Working at home is not much different from working in an office,” she says.
The number of those who work at home all the time, or at least occasionally, is growing day by day. This flexibility is forcing more and more companies to use tracking software and other checks to make sure that employees are really busy with their duties.
Chad Dunkin, a manager with Ryan’s tax services, works in an office in Houston, unlike colleagues who often work at home, including Heather Harrison. Supervising projects, Mr. Dunkin makes tasks for a week, outlines the deadlines for their implementation and distributes them among employees.
Personally, I would be opposed to having me follow the management in this way. However, I myself am engaged in “spying” for myself, using RescueTime , allows me to be focused on real-world tasks and to limit myself as much as possible from the temptation to do something useless. If you as well as I care about personal productivity or use some interesting solutions for managing dedicated employees I will be happy to discuss in the comments.
But managers should remember that not all of its employees are ready to grow in their personal and career plans, or they may not do it as quickly and efficiently as they would like. A number of companies use open surveillance of their employees working both in the office and at home. Next I would like to provide a translation of the article by Sue Shellenbarger: 'Working From Home' Without Slacking Off from The Wall Street Journal . If you are interested in the performance issues of remote personnel, welcome to Cat.
Amy Johnson works at home in Dixon, Illinois, communicating with clients and filling out task reports as a printing technician. It would seem that she would have to sit next to her boss in an office in Chicago, but this is not so.
With the help of a computer monitoring program, Timothy Daniels, vice president of Accurate Biometrics, can monitor whether Ms. Johnson and her other employees are working or shirking their responsibilities. Once a week, he watches a summary of “which sites they use and for how long,” he says. "This allows us to closely monitor subordinates without taking tough measures."
Ms. Johnson knows that her computer is being monitored, but “I don't care,” she says. "I do not do anything that I should not."
')
Work at home allows you to relax from the stress in the office. (And let's be honest: it makes your schedule more flexible and allows you to even take a nap between conference calls).
Today, the days when you work at home are becoming more similar to office work, because bosses are trying to create new ways to control their employees. Some track projects and schedules of meetings on shared calendars. Others require you to send "virtual calls" by mail, instant messaging or calls. And some, such as Accurate Biometrics, use control over employee computers, both at home and in the office.
Gartner Inc., Stamford, a technology research company, predicts an increase in employers' use of safe computer control programs from 10% now to 60% in the coming years.
Systems are mainly used to ensure the confidentiality of data, and comply with all government requirements, but they still lead to the fact that the Internet appears a lot of information about employees of a personal nature. To avoid violations, employers have to warn their subordinates in advance that they will be under control and only track their work activities, as advocates say.
The control program that Daniels uses in Los Angeles is called InterGuard and is used to examine information about the financial situation, health, and past experience of employees to monitor their performance, prevent information leaks, and follow safety rules. Like most monitoring programs, this allows Daniels to see all of their subordinates, including 16 office workers and 24 working at home , to know exactly whether those people use their work time for personal purposes. Employees are aware that they are controlled.
“These programs help bosses identify those employees who need help, as well as those who simply waste time,” said Elena Proskumina, sales specialist for NesterSoft in Woodbridge, Ontario, and the creator of the monitoring program called Work Time . “One of the reports among those submitted by this program is“ Top Facebook Users, ”she says.
Employers say that the idea of ​​this kind of program is not to keep people chained to their workplace for eight hours in a row. They understand that people working at home can take breaks or go about their personal business.
"Many of Celeste O'Keefe's 13 employees often work at home, which helps them to take more time to complete tasks," said Ms. O'Keefe, general director of Dancel, a provider of additional procedural services for lawyers. She uses SpectorSoft to know how much time she spends on client projects in the office or at home.
Mrs. O'Keefe says she can't help but use the “surveillance” program. In any case, after she noticed that one of the employees working at home began to lag far behind in the delivery of projects. After she established the monitoring program, it turned out that he spends a lot of time writing text documents, which was not required for his work. Having learned that in fact, he spent most of his time studying for a master’s degree, “I just had to fire him. I couldn’t trust him again, ”Ms. O'Keefe says.
The differences between work at home and in the office are blurred , as many people spend their weeks and even days between home and office.
The number of corporate employees working at home has increased by 23% per year since 2007 and an average of 22,8 million people last year, said Raymond Boggs, vice president of IDC, a company engaged in market research.
Those who work at home occupy leading positions only one or two days a month, the number of such employees has increased by an average of 69.5% annually since 2007, last year it amounted to 3.3 million people.
“ The main tasks of managers are becoming more difficult because of this, ” says Mr. Boggs. “Some may work at home every Friday. Others leave for 3 hours to manage to pick up children from school or prefer to work at home after dinner, ”he says.
Focusing on employee achievements, not on their working time, is another effective way to keep track of employees at home. And tools such as video conferencing, general calendars, e-mail and instant messaging will also help.
Most of their 940 employees working at home, at least sometimes, the managers of Mr. Ryan’s tax services firm, set tasks for each employee and penalize them for delay or non-compliance. From the moment these measures were taken, the company's productivity increased and the turnover rate decreased.
Every Monday, Chad Dunkin, team leader Ryan in Houston, meets with his four team members to discuss the agenda, plans for the week, and setting goals. “We have project A, B, C and D and we have to complete them by date X,” he says, and distributes the tasks and deadlines for each employee. After that, it absolutely does not matter where and how they work, because “ we only look at the result, ” says Mr. Dunkin.
Employees post their schedules on shared calendars in Outlook and often hold video conferences, as Heather Harrison, a senior consultant, told us. When she works at home, she constantly exchanges instant messages or letters with Mr. Dunkin. “Working at home is not much different from working in an office,” she says.
The number of those who work at home all the time, or at least occasionally, is growing day by day. This flexibility is forcing more and more companies to use tracking software and other checks to make sure that employees are really busy with their duties.
Chad Dunkin, a manager with Ryan’s tax services, works in an office in Houston, unlike colleagues who often work at home, including Heather Harrison. Supervising projects, Mr. Dunkin makes tasks for a week, outlines the deadlines for their implementation and distributes them among employees.
Personally, I would be opposed to having me follow the management in this way. However, I myself am engaged in “spying” for myself, using RescueTime , allows me to be focused on real-world tasks and to limit myself as much as possible from the temptation to do something useless. If you as well as I care about personal productivity or use some interesting solutions for managing dedicated employees I will be happy to discuss in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/289968/
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