There’s no doubt that remote work has been a hot topic of discussion lately. Love it or hate it, working from home is a bigger part of our lives right now. Access to technology and a good, solid internet connection are prerequisites for a remote working environment, of course. But what else goes into the ability of remote workers to work successfully offsite?
Digital.com published some findings from a recent survey on remote working, software, and productivity. They asked 1,250 businesses with employees located in the United States to answer some questions about monitoring software.
Companies May Monitor Remote Employees
According to the survey, 60 percent of businesses with staff members working offsite use some type of software that can keep track of how productive they are. That number seems likely to go up based on the survey results because another 17 percent of companies asked are thinking about using this type of software.
How Do Employees Spend Their Workday?
Not surprisingly, companies are using monitoring software because they want to know how their paid employees are spending their workday hours. Some companies admitted that they want to make sure their teams are working the hours they’re supposed to. About half of companies said they wanted to be sure employees aren’t taking care of personal things with company resources.
What Gets Tracked
We do lots of things online these days besides just work. We can pay bills, scroll through Facebook and send instant messages with friends in places near and far. There’s always online shopping as well.
It follows, then, that the monitoring software installed on remote workers’ computers tracks how they’re using their online browsers or apps.
What’s really interesting is that about 60 percent of businesses in the survey say they use software that actually takes sporadic screenshots. Over half of companies use software that can block certain content or apps. About 44 percent actually record what keys get used by employees.
Time Spent on Personal Things
Within this particular survey, 50 percent of the employees being tracked with monitoring software use over three hours a day on things unrelated to work matters. What’s rather astonishing is that more than a quarter actually spend over five hours a day on things other than working.
And just over half are either not at their desks or are using the internet during their work hours. The survey showed that 75 percent of team members were either on some type of website or social media platform for their own use, not for work.
Some employees actually used their work hours to work for a different job altogether.
Do Employees Know?
With the monitoring software available, it’s not always possible for you to know if your employer is tracking your activities. Most employers did tell their team members about the software. However, 14 percent of companies chose not to inform their employees.
Improving Productivity
Regardless of whether a company uses monitoring software for their remote employees, productivity can see an improvement from a few tweaks in process and procedure.
In fact, blockchain technology is one option that could boost the productivity and efficiency of employees who work from home.
Both freelancers and employees for instance could sign up to get paid through BitWage. According to their website, they offer both payroll and invoicing. And getting paid on time is a big motivation for many people, so this might be something that companies could look into if they want to boost productivity.
Messaging apps can help with productivity when employees need to chat about a project. Odin.Chat is a secure messaging option using blockchain to encrypt information, making it convenient and private.
Employers could also send out cryptocurrency as a way to motivate employees. Perhaps there’s a company-wide goal to achieve a certain revenue tier before the end of the year is up. In this case, employers may want to consider checking out Motive Cryptocurrency as a way to incentivize employees to help the company hit their goals for the year.
Remote Work Productivity
The survey results show that not every employee is aware that monitoring software is installed on their work equipment, and that some employees are spending hours on non-work-related activities. Companies looking to improve productivity in their remote workforce would be wise to look into some diverse tools, such as those powered by blockchain. It could be the way of the future remote worker.
