How to Monitor Hybrid Teams Effectively
Hybrid teams are made up of team members working from different locations, like home, office and sometimes both. They have the freedom to choose to work from their preferred location. But as a business owner or manager, you may find it difficult to manage a number of employees who are working from multiple locations in different circumstances.
But how does one measure productivity for their hybrid teams? With the world shifting into more flexible work options, businesses and their way of measuring productivity need to be adjusted for the remote teams if they want to stay on top of managing and optimizing the efficiency of their remote workforce. When setting goals for hybrid teams, we need to be sure that they are realistic and measurable so that you can analyze their productivity accurately.
Hybrid workforces are dominating the world of business today, so knowing how to manage them and how to measure their productivity is the new age challenge for managers. Here are some key tips that businesses should follow when assessing and tracking the performance and productivity of hybrid teams.
- Communicate Effectively: Inefficient communication is one of the major challenges that you will face while managing hybrid teams. Without proper communication you can not nurture a good working relationship with your team. For better team collaboration and performance, conduct frequent video calls with your team members. This will help you to see your teammates virtually and help your team to engage in official work together efficiently. Try to conduct at least one video call daily, and once done talking about official tasks, have a friendly chit chat with the rest of the team members before you end the meeting. The video call allows you and your teammates to exchange thoughts and ideas, which positively influences team dynamics and productivity and helps to develop an excellent remote team culture.
- Ensure Proper Distribution of Information: As your hybrid teams work from different locations, it is important that they receive updated work-related information quickly. Let them know about every update, client meeting reports and everything relevant to the team. This way you can help them to know about work progress and hear their ideas and feedback instantly about any ongoing project and they will also feel involved in the project as a team member.
- Make Goals Clear: Do not expect your hybrid team to understand what you want from them unless you share it with them. Defining your goals will help them to complete their task efficiently and timely. This will help them to focus on work and reduce delays in completing projects. You can resolve this issue by explaining projects and their tasks to your hybrid team members in detail. Let each employee know their individual goals and expected deadline, this way, your team members will perform best to finish projects within the given time frame.
- Set Common Rules: Hybrid team members enjoy flexibility, as there is no tight rule to start work and end work as a specific time. Still when you are working as a team it is important to build an equitable atmosphere by setting a few common rules for everyone:
i)Establish an expectation for work hours for all employees.
ii) Set an adjustable clock-in and clock-out time. Allow employees to choose their own start time within the given time frame.
iii)Ask your hybrid team to share a workday report at the end of each day.
iv)Synchronize meeting schedules so that all team members can participate.
These rules will increase your hybrid team’s efficiency and ensure smooth workflow. - Offer Fair and Equal Rewards: On-site employees are often rewarded by their companies for their outstanding performance, you should keep the practice of offering rewards to your hybrid teams as well. For example, offering free vouchers for dinner, shopping or spa services to your remote colleagues to motivate them. You can also surprise them with a box of chocolates being delivered at their home. Always remember happy employees are the best performers.
- Use Productivity Tools: Finally when you are doing enough for your remote team to manage them and motivate them, still the concern to know how they are performing in real time matters the most to you. You might think your workers aren’t performing efficiently enough in their work because you aren’t aware of their everyday progress. There are now countless employee monitoring software options available in the market to measure the productivity of remote workers automatically. And when you access the reports, you can accurately measure team efficiency with less effort.
So, how will you know whether members of your hybrid teams are productive?
An easy way to monitor each of your remote employees is by using software like CloudDesk. It is an employee monitoring software that enables you to track your hybrid team’s work activities in real time. This interactive software works as a time tracker that helps you keep a log of the time your team members work. The tool also helps you track the time they spend on each task separately. Once installed all you have to do is add employees and instruct them to install the app on their work computer. The app starts to track automatically when an employee logs in and tracks everything including web/app usage, overall working hours, keeps records of work activity by taking random screenshots, verifies employees presence through Face ID verification and provides productivity metrics. CloudDesk offers a Free trial option for 15 days allowing you to try all the features for free to help you understand how it will benefit your company.
