How To Measure Work & Productivity Of Remote Teams
Before the pandemic, remote workforces were a ‘cool idea’ implemented mainly by startups and tech companies.
Fast forward to today and almost two thirds of organizations have at least 60% of their workforce working remotely. According to a Conference Board of Canada survey, 55% of employers will continue to keep at least half of their workforce remote until there is a vaccine, effective treatment, or significantly lowered risk.
Remote work is no longer a “cool idea” leveraged by a few innovators - it’s one of the new working norms of the future. The scramble to get employees the basic technology and support they need to carry out day-to-day tasks is over for most companies. Managers are now navigating the new challenge of assessing their team’s performance in a work-from-home world.
We’ve spent years designing remote teams and identifying top performing talent based on innovation and productivity. We know our clients and other companies are facing these new challenges, and so we’ve curated 3 tips for effectively measuring remote teams.
Focus on outcomes
If you’re a manager, you’re probably stressed - but you’re not alone. 40% of managers reported low self-confidence in their ability to manage remote workers in a recent Harvard Business Review survey.
Watching your team work has been a key part of your in-office routine. It’s a way in which you have consciously or subconsciously perceived whether or not work was getting done.
We have good news. Although the ability to closely observe employees work at their desks is gone, 92% of Canadian companies are experiencing equal (71%) or higher (21%) productivity since their employees started working remotely according to Mercer Consulting. Similarly, 97% of remote workers report being equally or more productive working from home. And although there are increased challenges for teams traditionally reliant on significant in-person collaboration (such as creative and design teams), technology is catching up to make collaborative tasks more effective while remote.
For managers, the reality is that seeing someone sitting at a desk isn’t the strongest indicator of productivity. As we know, productivity is about working on the right things more than it is about simply working. The key is to focus on impact over visibility. Google researchers spent a decade researching what makes a great manager, and one of the top identifiers was a focus on results. Effective managers concentrated on empowering their team to reach their full potential instead of micromanaging their time.
Don’t fixate on building a window into your team’s every minute. Focus on building expectations, defining measurable KPIs and supporting your people so that they can achieve their goals.
Set micro-goals
Once you set measurable goals for your team, you’ll need to think about tracking progress. Some goals represent the outcomes of long-term work. To ensure you and your team are on track towards larger objectives, you should consider setting micro-goals.
Micro-goals represent mile stones - such as project completion or levels of performance improvement - that indicate whether you are progressing towards your ultimate objective or need to take corrective action.
Furthermore, studies show that setting relevant micro-goals increases employee motivation by showing them how their work is contributing and fueling the feeling of progress. These small wins create a heightened and more constant understanding that your work is meaningful.
Leverage project management solutions
One of the hurdles to adopting remote work is the shift in methods of communication. You can no longer tap your desk neighbour on the shoulder to ask where they’re at on a task. And while we now have endless technology options, you don’t want to have progress updates and feedback lost across an unorganized mess of slack, email, and zoom chats.
Project management software can be a life saver for remote teams. Although each software brand has their own unique feature stack, at their core they all help to provide transparency into task progress and a centralized place for information and collaboration.
Developing a simple and effective system for communicating the status on deliverables makes baton passes more seamless and decreases the time spent running around for documents and updates. It also makes it easier for you, as a manager, to delegate tasks and provide clarity to other team members around who owns what. For recommendations on project management tools and more collaboration software, check out this list.
Managing remote teams requires adjustment, but doesn’t need to be hard. If you’re looking for expertise on how to hire, design and optimize your remote teams, we can help. Connect with us for a free consultation.
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