Month: September 2020

The world was always digital. We are just living in it NOW! Virtual is the new normal for a large no. of organizations, and managing the workforce summons challenges. Employees are situated in various locations, and while there are time zone barriers, network issues, and inaccuracy in communication, the business goes on. Performance cannot be compromised, and so, it calls for a Management system to assure the well-functioning of teams.

So, how to sustain the performance of the employees, albeit present miles apart?

Communicate, communicate, communicate
Getting everyone on board is crucial in these times, and therefore, arranging video conferences is vital for being operative.
According to one study, remote employees work 1.4 more days per month than their office-based counterparts.
So, leverage the best communication technologies to conduct timely reviews to ensure how the team is coping with this style of working.

Set up clear objectives
Establish daily, weekly, or monthly performance goals and maintain a review system to track them. Look out for the obstacles, if any, and ensure that progress is made. Try to rectify the mistakes almost immediately; do not let it slide.
It is important to schedule meetings regularly to discuss the developments of the project.

Maintain ‘out of work’ relationships
Studies show that 70 % of the employees said maintaining relationships with their co-workers was just as important as their jobs. Only 19% said they prioritized work over relationships, while the remaining 11% said co-worker relationships were a higher priority’.
Hence, it is vital to arrange employees’ engagement/ team building activities even though virtually, to keep them connected and motivated.
Track the basic measures of productivity
Since the whole organization has shifted online, companies are promoting flexible work hours. Therefore, it becomes critical to maintain a record of the various tasks that the employees are working on. This tracking system is especially necessary for those who are billable on a working hour basis.

One such application is the xTimesheet. It enables one to have track of the billing hours and makes sure that the company does not lose any worked hours to the client for billing. A well-built timesheet approval system, along with an invoice module handles this very well.

To enhance the work output, the employees must be stress-free. Filling the timesheet is one tedious task. Keeping this in mind, our team created the xTimesheet tool. It is simple and very flexible to use.
This application is an easy-to-use, simple fluid UI that will help to monitor, track & plan out all the work according to the required time-bound deadlines.

Performance ratings are incredibly subjective, but quantifying an employee’s performance is very crucial for any company. Else it would be difficult for a manager to keep track of the productivity of their employee. Appraisals are dispensed based on these ratings, which in turn depends on multiple metrics. The rating is generally done on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 and assess the frequency of a job deliverable or other behavioral elements of an employee.

360- degree Feedback System
As the name suggests, points are given based on the feedback of co-workers, supervisors, and other peers the employee is working with. It proffers an overall image of the employee in his/her workspace. It determines the attitude of the team member and uncovers the areas of improvement with regards to his/her interpersonal skills.

Management by Results
This is generally a one-on-one discussion between an employee and their manager, where they jointly determine the individual’s objectives. Rating is done based on how effectively the employee has managed to accomplish the task within the stipulated time. It helps employees to have a clear understanding of what’s is expected from them and allows them to participate in the process, which helps in better communication and increases motivation.

Consistent Improvement
“Perfection is a goal that will forever remain impossible for any human being to achieve. Therefore, the only achievable goal is to only strive to become the best that you can be.”
― Edmond Mbiaka

Taking this thought into account, employees are and should be rated on their consistent improvements. It can be achieved by keeping a check on their productivity and conferring with the employees on a monthly or quarterly basis. Softwares like xTimesheet are very convenient in such situations. xTimesheet provides employees with more control over how they put their time in and instills trust toward the organization, increasing productivity. It monitors their rate of completion and evaluates the quality of their work to ensure they are working on things that are in line with the completion of their task and at the same time with the growth of the company.

The desire and effort to become better should be the most rewarding quality for any company.

Self-evaluation
Talking about productivity, asking an employee to evaluate themselves in terms of performance can be very effective. It empowers them to be critical of their performance. It gives them a better understanding by comparing their self-evaluation to that of their managers and helps them to identify the similarities and discrepancies if any.

Although appraisals and promotions do depend on these metrics, it is the comprehensive evaluation done over time that determines the productivity and performance of an employee.

‘Outsourcing’ can be considered as the word of the decade (the worldwide outsourcing market had already surpassed $524.4 billion back in 2015), and some companies (especially the IT sector) tend to thrive on this. Although an InHouse team promotes better liability and consistent communication with the organization, Remote employees manifest their own merits.
However, a recent survey by the training company VitalSmarts claims that 20% of leaders are unprepared to lead their teleworking team.
With a different set of rules, perks, and management style, let’s delve deep into this arena of In-house vs. Remote Employees.

There are three essential differences between the two modus operandi:

Conflicting time zones.
Work Culture
Physical presence

Conflicting Time Zone
Organizations with remote teams and In-house teams face the biggest challenge of a diverse time zone. 9 am in India is 11.30 pm in the USA. Managers have to adhere to “time fairness” and schedule calls in such a way that is feasible for all the team members. And it is no easy task to achieve.

On the flip side, a manager will have a propensity for the InHouse employees since she/he will be spending some hours of the day with them and hence render the feasibility of communication.

Apart from meetings, managers will also have to decide on the deadlines accordingly to avoid any hassle due to separate time belts.

Work Culture
Remote employees tend to exhibit more independent behavior. Since they demand less supervision, companies may require fewer managers to control their co-workers and, therefore, more money on the plate.

Work culture also incorporates the cultural and language differences that may turn out to be a hindrance to the project deliverables. It is essential to understand the messages of the employees with clear objectives and find common ground among the variations for seamless management of the team. A manager needs to make the remote team feel comfortable and connected.

Physical presence
The space difference appends to the challenges of managing a remote team for the manager. Since they are not sitting next to you, leveraging the best communication tools to stay in touch is the only viable option.

Frequent video calls and scrum calls are the only efficient way to keep the whole team on board. Although scheduling too many meetings can induce various problems and lessen productivity. According to the recent Harvard Business School report, starting April this year, there’s a 13% increase of meetings per person, compared to the first quarter of this year (before there were worldwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Luckily, there’s a decline in the average length of these meetings – by 20%. This survey gathered 3.1 million workers from North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Another challenge of having distributed teams is that performance and productivity tracking becomes a bit tricky. A few of the most effective solutions to the problem are filling out timesheets. But a manual timesheet again tends to give way to ‘timesheet stress’! xTimesheet is the answer. It is automated and sends a notification via email and push notification on your device.
In addition to this, xTimesheet gives out reports and charts to give a glimpse of your working hours in a better way and easy to understand at any particular time of the month.

Wrapping up with food for thought:

“Remote working is the future, but you need a physical presence at least a couple of times a year to truly create an amazing team.” – Ricardo Fernandez