How to Manage Your Employees Who Work From Home

by Gabriele Kaier, 24.05.2021

Especially since the Corona crisis, working from home has become increasingly popular. Virtually overnight, many companies were able to enable their employees to work from home. Good for many of them, but a challenge for the management. We have summarized tips on how to manage your employees well despite working remotely.

Working From Home – an Emerging Trend?

Working from home goes beyond just convenience and work-life balance, which is attractive for employees and directly pays in against employee turnover while leading to greater employee motivation.

Working from home is also good for businesses, as it increases employee productivity and provides a greater sense of well-being: healthier and happier employees.

The Advantages of Working From Home

Cutting out the commute: A worker gets an hour or two extra time for recovery, hobbies, education and family. This also has a positive impact on the environment as it reduces carbon footprint.

Eliminates distractions: Office environments can be really distracting. In a private environment there are no people asking questions, no loud talk between employees, no impromptu meetings, and it is easier to concentrate than in a traditional office setting.

Ideal work environment: Working from home gives employees the opportunity to customize their own personal workspace, one which is comfortable and aids concentration.

Better Productivity Through Better Management

Many managers don’t trust their employees to work remotely, while others think that employees do not really work while at home. If they can’t see employees physically sitting at their desks, they don’t feel in control. But it is naive to think that an employee is productive only because he is sitting at his desk.

What can you do as a manager to effectively manage remote employees and stay in control?

Set goals: Of course, setting goals is part of the employee’s job, but a manager needs to give him incentives and deadlines. Regardless of the employee location: when an employee meets deadlines on time, he is, hence, productive.

Track time: To gain more visibility into the employee’s workday, you can just let the employee track his time on projects, track time on meetings, on the phone, or time spent writing reports and so on. Time tracking can help both sides, it relieves the manager from extra work, and it is useful in order to analyze how time is spent. Above all, time tracking can help anyone prioritize.

TimeTac´s Employee and Project Time Tracking Software make it easy for you to stay in control when working with remote employees, while improves communication. With a time tracking tool, you can gain an overview of the tasks and projects employees are working on in real time, no matter your or your employees’ location. Last but not least, you can acquire reports and statistics per employee and observe your projects and employee productivity in just a few clicks.