Modern Challenges and Modern Solutions
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the bulk of office work we have to face day in and day out. Inasmuch as we would want to subscribe to the modern-day philosophies of putting the self first before our jobs, fact of the matter is, our selves would be put to compromise if we don’t do a “job well-done”. To not take a hard look at productivity would mean a misrepresentation of our professional identity.
Things are taken up a notch when we assume the position of a manager or supervisor. Saying that handling a team of varying capabilities, skills, and posts is challenging would be an understatement.
All of a sudden, the 8 hours allotted for work proves insufficient in the face of pressing tasks and work-related issues. Incidents are filed, NTEs are requested, and on top of it all is possibly a client that might have his or her own share of professional woes.
And the new working setups that the global pandemic had created had made it even more complicated for supervisors to ascertain if actual work is being done. The only time they would actually get to know the status of a project is when the deadline hits. By that time, all bets are off.
For all these, another mantra fits like a glove: modern problems require modern solutions. And modern solutions is what this piece of literature can offer. Some of the work productivity tools that would be mentioned here might already sound familiar, some, not.
But for all intents and purposes, the discussion details the various tools and techniques that would help nettled professionals ground and streamline their work processes so that they may be able to monitor their employees’ productivity.
How to Keep Track of Employee Productivity
1. Use Time Tracking Software
Paper time cards and attendance log books are like actual, face-to-face romantic dates before committing to a relationship: Passé. If a company is still thinking of using such, it will do them good to look into terms like “carbon footprint” and “global warming.” So instead of making strides in monitoring productivity, using physical time cards might actually be doing a company harm.
The use of tracking software allows for the ease of determining how long an employee of a company stays in front of a company computer, suggesting the time he or she undertakes a certain job, project, or administrative task. This is an efficient way to ascertain if the employee is actually in front of the unit when he or she is expected to be.
Some tracking software also have a screenshot feature that takes snaps of what the employee actually views in the monitor. These types of software even monitor the sites that employees visit and how long they have stayed there. The advantage of these software is clear: to determine if the employee is actually making progress in the job he or she is being paid to perform. Such instills a consciousness to their professional responsibility.
2. Perform Weekly Routine Assessments
These types of productivity routine assessments are applicable to all types of projects regardless if they are professional or personal.
While Annual and Monthly routines are just as effective, weekly routines may be employed with little to no need of backtracking when analyzing the work delivered. On top of that, the missions and objectives managers and supervisors are supposed to come up with are more high-level with Annual and Monthly assessments.
These assessments are ideally done on Fridays or Monday mornings. But if the employee are within a work-from-home setup, Sunday evenings would be conducive as well, the supervisors only need to establish a timeframe that would not bleed into the employees’ personal time. To get into the details of the assessment, be sure to look into establishing these two facets:
Plan The Week
It is pertinent that what needs to be done be specified ahead of the week. This helps in magnifying the supervisor’s impact and achieving the week’s goal. It is advisable for the supervisor to focus on only a few things, say 3-5 non-negotiable goals or tasks.
Assess The Previous Week
More often than not, outcomes do not reflect what a plan intended. But no need to languish in things that faltered. Accept the outcome and hope for the best. Or to establish greater agency, work towards the best. A supervisor’s job is to see his or her team through so that the outcome would come close to what is ideal or initially planed. For this to happen, the supervisor or manager need to see where the team is exactly.
It would help if both the employee and the supervisor will determine the number of hours that needs to be spent to undertake the number of projects. It goes without saying that plotting everything in a calendar is recommendable. Selecting specific time frames within it rather than just placing the task in a date would prove gratuitous.
Should something do not go as planned, noting the shortcoming and changing the calendar for future tasks would be advisable.
By the end of the week, the supervisor should review the calendar and count the hours spent on the pertinent tasks and juxtapose it with the hours that was initially meant for it. By doing so, the supervisor would be able to determine if the expectations for projects of the same nature is appropriate.
3. Use Apps
The applications for monitoring productivity, especially for employees who work from home, are numerous. The current professional landscape had created conditions that allow professionals to get more done with apps. To give a general idea of what these are, dividing them into these categories helps:
Communication
Communication apps are all the rage with the industry given plenty to choose from. These communication apps may be tied to a specific workplace depending on the setting of the company’s account.
These communication apps not only allow exchange of written messages, but also grant venues for successful meetings with both visual and audio capacity.
Project Management
These types of apps keep track of which projects have been delegated, in-progress, or have already been delivered. These let teams see where a specific project stands or what else needs to be done to accomplish it.
File Sharing
These are apps for the submission and sharing of files across members of a team. The file’s creator has the liberty of sharing it to as many people as needed.
The Takeaway
Indeed, our modern concerns demand us to be smarter. And while it may be easy to fall into needless stress due to the bulk of work and the learning curves that come with the productivity tools we might need to use, these technologies aim at keeping us cool and collected throughout our work days. All that one needs is patience in learning through these applications and processes and everything is guaranteed to fall into place.
