About ten months ago, nobody could have guessed how remote team management would swoop in to save the day. A survey conducted by Gartner further shows that as much as 74% of Chief Financial Officers expect to have at least 5% of their employees working remotely.
Time tracking apps have played a significant role in managing virtual teams. If you are an HR manager or business owner, you no doubt have come to understand that handling a remote team requires planning, consistency, and effort to achieve effective productivity. Managing a virtual team comes with unique challenges.
Remote Team Management Challenges
- Paying employees accurately for hours worked
- Improving focus among employees
- Effective collaboration
- Establishing accountability
- Affordable and efficient administration
- Human resource allocation
Now that we have identified these challenges, the question is, “How do you manage remote team management effectively?” The answer is amazingly simple, so simple in fact, that quite a number of people have overlooked it. Time tracking apps are effective tools that you can use to solve these challenges. With a well-planned and efficient system, you are better equipped to manage your workforce—whether it’s a remote team or not.
The Advantages of Time Tracking Apps and Why Every Remote Team management Should Use Them
As an HR personnel, you need to understand how to use time tracking software to improve the health and productivity of your workforce.
1. Paying Employees Accurately for Hours Worked
This is a fundamental aspect of the employer-employee relationship. Workers need to be paid fairly and accurately if a business is to grow in the long term. Your workforce will thrive better with more productivity if you pay employee wages correctly.
Time tracking apps help you know when each team member clocks in or clocks out for the day. Having accurate data of this will help you plan your labor budget effectively and enable you to pay workers their due compensation.
Since time tracking apps are cloud based, it is suitable for virtual teams working from different geographical locations. Employees can easily access the app from their Internet-enabled devices. Meanwhile, you get a record of their timesheet at the end of each day, week, or month (depending on your payment routine). These apps also automate the invoicing process, which makes payment fast and easy for HR practitioners.
A field agent marketing a product can easily clock in at the beginning of his shift from his smartphone. Since he uses the phone on a daily basis to make calls and book appointments, it is quick and convenient.
2. Improving Focus Among Employees
For a telecommuter working from a coffee shop or from home, there are many distractions hindering optimum focus. Team members working out of the office need some sort of mental reminder that “it is time to focus and work.” Time trackers do a great job of this.
For a remote worker working from home, clocking in with a time-tracker helps remind them that “I am now at work and I should focus.” The moment the employee turns on the time tracker, they know that their activities are being monitored by the app. This will make them focus on performing their duties diligently.
3.Effective Collaboration
If you are managing a team with members working from different locations in the world, the time difference can make it difficult to keep track of worker-availability. Time management apps eliminate this by letting you know who is available to respond to an email or text.
4.Establishing Accountability
When employees are required to keep records of their timesheets manually, it can be frustrating for everyone involved. Workers already have a lot on their plate as regards fulfilling their job requirements. Automating the time tracking process to know when a worker is due for leave makes life easier for everyone.
An automated process gives hard proof that both the HR team and employees can agree on. No one will feel they’re being treated unfairly when they see their time records stated accurately on screen. Besides, time trackers make it easier to submit reports to the Department of Labor, should you be questioned on how you manage employee shifts and time offs.
5. Affordable and Efficient Administration
To maintain an affordable and efficient administration, you have to use available resources judiciously. This means you should avoid over-employment of administrative staff to save costs on administrative time (either outsourced or in-house). A well-built time tracking app saves you from overspending when it comes to hiring staff to handle virtual team management.
By automating the monitoring process, your HR manager can easily manage a large virtual workforce with little help. The app handles most of the heavy lifting by monitoring employees, keeping records, and handling the payroll. This takes away the need to have a large team of employees to handle this task. It also eliminates avoidable human error.
6.Human Resource Allocation
To take your team management strategies to the next level, you need a human capital optimization strategy. If you do not have a human optimization strategy, it is most likely because you have a sub-optimum time and attendance monitoring system.
Efficient time tracking software will help you record relevant data that you can use to make strategic decisions about team assignments, project workflow, schedules, and project allocation.
The tool provides you with clear data about your workforce presented in a comprehensible way. You can use this to see what to change, improve, or maintain. With this data at your fingertips, the trial-and-error of team management is eliminated and your management strategy will be more result-oriented.
Conclusion
As you can see, HR managers need time trackers to improve their game and create a healthy work atmosphere. This is especially true if they’re managing a remote team working from different locations or parts of the globe.
Data is a relevant aspect of every business. Without data, your efforts will most likely be a walk in the wrong direction. By automating the invoicing process, HR leave allocation process, and employee-monitoring process, you can avoid errors, lawsuits, and thereby increase productivity.
