Table of Contents
Introduction
Remote work has become the new norm, allowing organizations to tap into talent from across the globe and provide employees with the flexibility they crave.
However, managing a remote workforce comes with its own set of challenges.
How to track remote employee productivity?
The answer lies in the power of technology.
This blog post covers the top 9 remote worker management software to help your organization overcome the obstacles of managing a remote team & keep your business running smoothly.
Let’s get started by understanding. 
Top 9 Remote Employee Management Tools
1. Time Tracking and Productivity Monitoring
Monitoring productivity across dispersed locations is a significant challenge in remote employee management.
Ensuring remote employees utilize their work hours effectively and productively with no centralized office becomes challenging.
To tackle such challenges effectively, the solution lies in employing time tracking and productivity monitoring tools.
These tools are tailor-made for remote employee management and offer a range of features to keep your team on track:
a. Automatic Time Tracker
Workstatus provides an automatic time-tracking feature that captures every second of your remote employee’s workday, ensuring accurate records without manual input.
b. Idle Time Detection
With built-in idle time detection, you can identify unproductive hours, allowing targeted coaching and resource optimization.
c. Productivity Graphs
Visualize your team’s performance effortlessly with productivity graphs, enabling data-driven decision-making and the ability to spot trends and improvements over time.
2. Employee Scheduling
Crafting efficient work schedules for remote teams can be daunting.
Balancing time zones, individual preferences, and collaborative needs can become challenging. Here’s where employee scheduling capabilities streamline the process:
a. Automated Shift Planning
These tools streamline the process by automatically generating schedules, factoring in time zones and employee availability, and reducing the administrative burden on managers.
b. Real-Time Employee Availability
Managers can easily access real-time information about each team member’s availability, ensuring shifts align with personal preferences and work-life balance.
c. Shift Reminders
To minimize no-shows or missed deadlines, these tools remind employees about their scheduled shifts, promoting accountability and punctuality in a remote setting.
3. GPS Location Tracking
Ensuring accountability and project management for remote employees often requires the ability to track their locations.
However, doing so while respecting privacy can be a challenge. Here’s how GPS location tracking provides a solution:
a. Real-time Location Data
GPS tracking tools provide real-time location data, allowing managers to monitor employee whereabouts as needed for project coordination or safety measures.
b. Geofencing
Managers can set up virtual boundaries, known as geofences, to receive alerts when remote employees enter or exit specific locations, enhancing project management capabilities.
c. Safety Measures
For field or remote work with safety risks, GPS location tracking ensures timely assistance in emergencies by pinpointing employees’ locations.
4. Employee Activity Monitoring
Managing remote workers efficiently often involves gaining insights into their daily activities and ensuring productive work hours.
However, doing so remotely can be challenging. Here’s how employee activity monitoring tools provide a solution:
a. Website and App Usage
These tools offer a comprehensive view of employees’ digital activities, helping managers understand where time is spent and identify potential distractions or non-work-related tasks.
b. Active Screenshots
Regular screenshots of employees’ screens provide visual evidence of their work activities, enabling managers to verify productivity and address concerns.
c. Productivity Tracker
Real-time productivity tracking offers data-driven insights into each employee’s performance, facilitating performance evaluations and enabling targeted coaching and support for remote workers.
5. Task and Project Management
Coordinating with remote teams on projects can be a significant challenge due to geographical dispersion, varying time zones, and the need for seamless collaboration.
Task and project management tools are essential in addressing this challenge. Here’s a detailed explanation of how these tools help:
a. Centralized Task Management
Task and project management tools provide a centralized platform to organize and share project tasks, deadlines, and priorities. Team members can easily access and update their tasks, ensuring everyone stays on the same page.
b. Progress Tracking
Project managers can track the progress of tasks and projects in real-time. This visibility allows them to identify potential bottlenecks or delays and take corrective actions promptly.
c. Resource Allocation
Managers can allocate resources efficiently, matching team members’ skills and availability with specific project tasks. This helps in optimizing workloads and preventing burnout.
6. Employee Time Off and Attendance Tracking
In remote teams, keeping track of when employees are working and taking breaks can become complex, potentially leading to issues like time theft, scheduling conflicts, and difficulties in ensuring compliance with company policies.
Here’s how employee time off and attendance tracking tools provide a solution:
a. Workstatus’s Selfie Validation
Innovative selfie validation ensures that employees are virtually present, providing a unique way to confirm attendance in a remote work environment.
b. Online Timesheets
Online timesheets simplify attendance recording, making it easy for employees and managers to track work hours accurately.
c. Online Time and Attendance Reports
Robust reporting tools generate comprehensive time and attendance reports, facilitating effective management and decision-making.
7. Central Dashboard
Facilitating effective coordination among remote teams is a crucial challenge.
The absence of face-to-face interactions can lead to communication gaps, misalignment, and reduced collaboration, hindering the productivity and success of remote teams. With the central dashboard at your disposal, managing remote teams becomes an efficient endeavor.
a. Real-Time Data Aggregation
This central hub aggregates real-time data from remote teams, offering a comprehensive view of ongoing projects, tasks, and team activities.
b. Data Visualization
With intuitive data visualization, complex information is transformed into easily digestible visuals, empowering managers to make informed decisions at a glance.
c. Personalized Insights
AI-driven insights provide customized recommendations and actionable strategies, ensuring teams work at peak performance.
8. Integration With Other Remote Work Apps
Streamlining remote work workflows when using multiple apps can be cumbersome and inefficient.
Manually switching between these tools can lead to decreased productivity and increased chances of errors or miscommunication.
Workstatus is an example of a comprehensive solution that addresses the challenge of managing multiple remote work apps. Here’s how:
a. Automated Workflows
Streamline and automate workflows by connecting different apps, ensuring tasks are completed logically with minimal human intervention.
b. Mobile Accessibility
Many integrations are mobile-friendly, allowing remote workers to access the integrated apps from their smartphones or tablets, enhancing flexibility and accessibility.
c. Enhanced Productivity
Integration fosters a unified workspace where employees can focus on tasks without constantly switching between applications, ultimately boosting productivity in the remote work environment.
9. Payroll and Invoicing
With remote teams dispersed across different locations, time zones, and potentially even countries, ensuring accurate and timely payment to employees and handling client invoices can become complex and error-prone.
Incorporating Payroll and Invoicing management can bring essential value to your remote team management. Here’s how:
a. Time Tracking Integration
Integration with time tracking tools allows for accurate calculation of billable hours for remote employees, making payroll and invoicing more precise.
b. Automated Invoicing
Automated invoicing features allow businesses to generate and send invoices to clients promptly, reducing payment collection delays.
Integrating time-off management features helps track paid time off, vacation days, and other leave types, ensuring accurate payroll calculations.
Effectively managing remote employee payroll and invoices with these features in payroll and invoicing tools helps businesses maintain financial accuracy, compliance, and transparency in remote work arrangements.
So these are the 9 top remote employee management tools that can significantly enhance productivity, streamline collaboration, and facilitate efficient management of your virtual team.
However, finding these tools separately and integrating them into your workflow can take time and effort.
Workstatus: Your All-in-One Remote Work Management Solution
Workstatus is the comprehensive solution to manage remote teams seamlessly.
With a suite of tools encompassing time tracking, project management, attendance tracking, and much more, Workstatus simplifies the complex landscape of remote work management, allowing you to foster productivity, collaboration, and accountability among your remote workforce.
Conclusion
The remote work landscape continues to evolve, presenting challenges and opportunities.
However, managing and optimizing remote teams becomes achievable and highly efficient with the right tools.
Workstatus offers a holistic solution, addressing the diverse needs of remote workforce management – from productivity tracking to task coordination and everything in between.
As we embrace the future of work, let Workstatus empower your organization to thrive in this remote-first world.
