With more employees working from home than ever before, productivity is a hot topic among executives and managers. Without being able to see your employees on a daily basis, it can be difficult to tell if they are being productive. Conversely for employees, it can also be difficult to stay on task when there are the distractions of the home environment.
There are a few ways managers can help ensure the productivity of their employees, and a few ways that employees can improve their own productivity.
How employees can improve their productivity
Dedicated Office Space
Instead of setting up shop in the kitchen or other high traffic areas, make sure you have a dedicated place where you will be able to work. Preferably you would use a place that has a door that can close that won’t need to be accessed by other members of the family. Using space that has a door can help you set up boundaries for the other family members. You can even put something on the door for when you don’t want to be interrupted.
Set Working Hours
If you don’t have a set schedule, work life and home life can bleed into one another. When this happens, it is easy to get distracted more and more often and soon you may not be putting in the hours you should be as you keep taking care of home life. With set hours, make sure you also schedule in breaks and stick to your schedule.
How employers can improve staff productivity
Give Them Dedicated Hardware
When people use their own hardware to do their work, it is easier for them to get distracted by personal items. They may get a notification from their browser, or a new personal email. Since they are using their personal device, they don’t have any reservations about handling these personal tasks. When they have a dedicated machine, they can concentrate on work related tasks without being distracted by personal itms.
Have Regular Check-ins
Doing a daily video check-in with your employees is extremely beneficial when everyone is working from home. It’s a good idea to start off the day with this check-in, or maybe schedule it for right before or after lunch. This will help the employees get into the “work” mindset, since the transition from home life to work life is so quick.
Install Productivity Tracking Software
If you send your employees dedicated hardware, you also have the option to install different programs on these devices to track activity or improve the security of the device. You want to be able to ensure that any devices that are accessing company data are safe and secure. With dedicated hardware you can install productivity software like Active Track to send you reports on the activity of your employees. This will give you great insight into the software they are using and the websites they are visiting to determine if they are wasting the day away or not.
Many people will find that working from home actually helps them be more productive than they were at the office, others might find the opposite to be true. While there are so many work from home employees now, these are really easy ways to determine which is which. If you want to set up Active Track for your employees, definitely give us a call to get started.