Regular offices are no longer the only workspace where employees work. As more and more organisations shift to hybrid and remote work models, the way employees are managed has also changed a lot. To deal with all the changes in work dynamics, businesses now use various technologies to track and manage everything.
A critical and significant part of all this is real-time analytics. This not only enables businesses to perceive how productive their employees are but also make informed choices to make everyone work at their best. Hence, this article talks about the significance of real-time analytics in remote work and some valuable tips to take advantage of it.
Role of real-time analytics in remote work
Real-time analytics means evaluation of data as soon as it is generated, providing instant insights to make fast and informed decisions. But if you ask how to monitor remote work through it, it is simply keeping constant tabs on employees’ activities, their productivity, and checking communication behaviour. Having said that, here are a few helpful ways to indicate the importance of real-time analytics:
Productivity tracking
One of the primary concerns for managers who have remote teams on their hands is how to keep everyone productive. In the beginning, things can be tough as you cannot determine if they are actually working or not. But with proper monitoring solutions having real-time analytics, you can easily track and manage better by measuring performance standards, including time spent on projects, task completion, and overall output.
For example, a remote monitoring software known as Insightful enables managers to visualise what remote workers are doing in real time. It shows how actively productive they are during work hours and on other things. While this real-time data may seem excessive at times, it is helpful to find areas where employees seem to need any assistance or adjust work formats to be more efficient. Here, productivity patterns over time generated through real-time data are pretty useful.
Employee engagement
Even if remote employees seem to be working during work hours, it cannot be assured that they are actively engaged and contributing to achieving business goals. Research shows that employees who are engaged at work tend to be 21% more productive than usual.
However, real-time analytics from monitoring tools allow managers to notice if employees are really engaged or not. This is possible by looking at various data, such as participation in virtual meetings, their way of interacting with other members, the frequency of response to messages, etc. Any behaviour that is not usual can be an issue that needs to be addressed and resolved to prevent employee burnout and keep everyone with high morale.
Teamwork and communication
For a remote team to work collectively and in form, good communication must be made. And how to achieve that? Real-time analytics has all the necessary insights for how to make remote teams collaborate better with proper quality interaction. This analytics shows how members communicate, in what form and on what topic, and how they share information.
For a remote team to work collectively and in form, good communication must be made. And how to achieve that? Real-time analytics has all the necessary insights for how to make remote teams collaborate better with proper quality interaction. This analytics shows how members communicate, in what form and on what topic, and how they share information.
Take the example of Google Workspace. It can provide real-time data on the number of people attending meetings, document sharing, and how quickly members reply to messages or emails. By evaluating this data, managers can get clear visibility on where the communication may be breaking down and how it can be improved so that team members stay motivated and united to get things done efficiently.
Employee well-being
Working from home often makes employees feel more stressed, overworked, and burned-out. The leading cause here is not being able to separate personal time from work hours. And this is not a problem of a few; it is a common occurrence among almost every remote employee worldwide.
To help with such cases, companies use real-time analytics to track how remote employees work, if they take breaks from time to time, or whether they are often working overtime. Plus, these real-time data also allow managers to figure out the mental health of employees through changes in communication behavior and decline in productivity. Addressing these signs early on provides a leeway to offer support to prevent burnout and promote a healthy work-life balance.
How to monitor remote work with real-time analytics
As briefly stated above, real-time analytics is one of the most prominent remote work monitoring tools, but only if executed effectively. Here are a few common yet best practices on how to monitor remote work using real-time analytics to track their performance:
Set clear standards and track progress
You can take full advantage of real-time analytics only when clear standards and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are already in motion. Doing so creates a standard to measure how well team members are performing. When you match real-time data with set objectives, you can easily track work progress and focus on more important tasks. For example, to boost productivity, you need to monitor task completion and time spent on it.
Respect privacy and keep things transparent
While benefits are appreciated, constantly relying on real-time data poses certain challenges, and that is finding a balance so as not to invade employees’ privacy. Consistent monitoring can come off as an invasion of privacy at times. So, it is best for enterprises to be open about the whole thing, like data collection, and why and how you are using it. But before that, do obtain consent from your remote team members and ensure the protection of their data. That will make things more transparent.
Support your team, not micromanage
Live data must be used only to ensure effective remote team management, not to micromanage and control them. While monitoring productivity and ensuring engagement is vital, there should also be enough flexibility. Use the real-time analytics from monitoring to identify common behaviours and offer guidance if needed. This creates a positive work dynamic for overall development.
Integrate analytics with other tools
Real-time analytics in itself is pretty helpful, but if you connect this data with other essential tools, it can enhance its power even more. This may be integrated with different communication tools, project management software, and HR systems. This integration of networks within the organisation helps understand the remote teams better and make smarter decisions. For instance, connecting real-time data with project management tools provides insights into project timelines and task completion rates.
Closure
To deduce, for successful remote work, real-time analytics is of great help. Organisations should only find ways to effectively take advantage of the real-time data to evolve remote work dynamics effectively. To thrive in this modern business era, companies must follow up with all the latest technology and best practices to reach their goals and build a positive remote work environment.