How to Manage Remote Employees

Remote employees are those who generally work from home, and at times, also referred to in the workplace as telecommuting. These type of employees generally communicate with their employer via email, phone calls, video chat, and digital messaging. Although these employees are working remotely, employers still need an efficient method to properly manage remote employees' hours worked. Employee time tracking tools such as OnTheClock is a great step in the right direction when managing a remote team. 

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Having trust in your employees

If you are a small business owner then you understand the importance of trusting your employees. This is taken to a whole new level when you decide to have a remote worker. Unlike a traditional worker, you are not able to keep an eye on him or her to see if they are actually working or not.

This is where the trust element between you and your employees comes into play. Although you should have trust in your whole staff, it is normal to wonder and have questions about telecommuting workers. However, as a successful business owner, it is your duty to make the appropriate decision to hire and choose who works from home.

What to expect in a remote worker

Let your remote workers know in advance what your expectations are and how the company depends on their efforts when working from home. It is important to be on the same page while understanding and acknowledging the agreements that are laid out beforehand. This can help give you and the workers a piece of mind without you having to worry about micromanaging.

Be confident in who you hire that they are the right person for the position. Pick their brain and see if working from home is meant for them. Maybe the individual prefers being around people inside the office and likes to be social. This could be what improves their personal working skills and increases productivity.

Lastly, you have to expect some mistakes to happen, at least during the beginning. All of us are human and none of us are perfect. Working errors are common and they usually happen at the beginning of employment. Depending on the job position, it can take time to learn what the best approach is for that particular company and industry. When a mistake is made, talk to that person and let them know the correct way instead of scolding or yelling at them - this can increase their confidence and help them to improve.

Are remote workers more productive?

Although this topic is debatable, an article that conducted research showed there was a 13.5 percent increase in productivity per day. This would amount to nearly a full day's worth of work per week per employee. In addition to increased productivity, a 2016 survey taken from American remote employees stated that 91 percent feel they get more accomplished than when they are working in an office. Again, this can depend on the worker and the type of work they are completing.  

We are not encouraging you to start hiring remote employees or not. We do; however, encourage you to do what you think is the best for your company and your employees. Trust can help a company succeed greatly.

How to track remote workers’ time and attendance

One of the largest concerns that many employers have when they make the decision to hire remote workers is how to properly track their time. This could be due to a variety of reasons; the employee forgets to log them, your company does not have an employee time tracking system or you simply do not ask for their hours. All of this could be okay, but do you know that proper hour tracking is important and could protect your business?

What if your remote employee is on salary? It is still recommended to have documentation of all your employee’s hours in the event you are ever requested to provide them. The Department of Labor, a court-ordered lawsuit, and other legal actions could ask you to provide documents. The last thing you would want is not providing accurate timesheets.

Many small business owners need a reliable time clock calculator that will do all the work for them when it comes to adding up accurate logged hours. An online time clock system presents many options, features and benefits to remote employees. They will be able to punch in or punch out by the use of a phone, tablet, computer and/or a downloadable mobile app.

Once the remote worker clocks in, that exact time is saved in the cloud-based system which allows the business owner to have access to it at any given time. All of your employees’ time worked is added up at the end of your workweek and is generated on individual time cards for the employee. This allows for accurate payroll, a better understanding for hours worked to the amount of work completed ratio, and less time that you, the business owner, has to do when it comes to adding up hours. Also, it can save money since the time is down to the exact minute. You can now say bye-bye to punch rounding, and say hello to accurate time tracking down to the minute!

Useful tools to track remote employees’ time worked

You and your remote employees will experience many benefits when implementing a time management system to accurately track employee hours worked. This will provide you with a resource to manage time, bill accordingly, understand how much time is being spent on specific projects and much more. Time tracking tools also provide accountability to remote employees. 

Some popular features included with OnTheClock’s time tracking system:

• Time data automatically tracked, calculated and stored. 
• IP address recognition that can be assigned to the remote worker’s wifi to only allow him or her to punch in and out while connected to that specific IP address. 
• Project and job costing feature for accurate billing.
• Paid time off tracking so employers can see, approve or deny PTO requests. 
• Employee scheduling and attendance management.
• GPS tracking to ensure remote employees are where they need to be while working.

For additional features and benefits, please visit our time clock features page.

Remote workers being dishonest with their time cards

Say that you have started your 30 day free trial for your new time clock system and you suspect that some individuals are being dishonest with their timecards. You see that they are putting in 40 hours per week, but their work production is not where it should be for that amount of time. Well, you are in luck because OnTheClock offers the latest in geo-fencing technology that allows you to set up a perimeter for a specific address which will not allow an employee to punch in or out if they are outside of that geo fenced area.

For example, let's say you have a worker that works from home and he or she lives at 123 Buckeye Lane in Columbus, Ohio. You can go into your time tracking account and set up geo fencing for that address. If that employee is not home or within your specified perimeter, then they will not be able to clock in or out even if they are using the free mobile time clock app. The GPS coordinates will be recognized to be outside that boundary, and therefore, not allowing any employees to commit time theft. You will also have the option to have the employee use the system from a specific I.P Address from their home wifi/internet which means they can only be connected to that I.P. Address to clock in and out as well.

In conclusion, we encourage you to make the proper decisions that will be the best fit for your company’s needs. Weigh out the pros and cons and speak with your staff to see what is best for your business. Remote employees can be a great asset to a company and we are here to help when it comes to tracking their time.