Table of Contents
Introduction
From remote to hybrid and now back to the office, how we collaborate has changed significantly in recent years.
While both office and remote working has unique perks and challenges, one thing remains constant: need for seamless collaboration.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the top 7 tools that will empower your team to communicate, ideate and execute effectively regardless of where they work.
Whether you’re looking for better project management or a more streamlined communication system – this blog post has got you covered!
So let’s dive in and get started.
Evaluating Remote and Office Teams: A Side-by-Side Comparison
Overcoming Challenges: Tools for HRs to Manage Remote Teams
Overcoming Challenges: Tools for HRs to Manage Remote TeamsChallenge#1: Remote Employee Engagement
One significant challenge HR managers face in managing remote teams is ensuring employee engagement.
With team members spread across different locations, it becomes more difficult to:
- Get everyone onboard with the same goals and objectives
- Create a sense of camaraderie among teammates
- Keep track of progress and ensure accountability
Recommended Tool: Project Management Tool
Project Management platforms are software tools designed to streamline and facilitate the process of:
- Planning
- Organizing
- Executing projects
These platforms offer a centralized hub where teams can:
- Collaborate
- Assign tasks
- Track progress
- Communicate effectively
Making it easy to stay on top of deliverables and deadlines.
Challenge#2: Monitoring Real-time Operations
Monitoring the real-time operations of remote employees can be a complex task for HR managers.
Unlike office teams, where managers can easily observe employees’ work in progress, it is more difficult to:
- Track the amount of time each employee is spending on their tasks
- Gauge an employee’s productivity in real-time
- Ensure that employees aren’t wasting time on social media platforms
This makes it hard to hold remote employees accountable for their output.
Recommended Tool: Activity Monitoring Software
Activity monitoring software makes it easier for HR managers to monitor employee activity and identify areas of improvement.
These platforms track employee operations by:
- Capturing real-time screenshots of employee operations
- Tracking URL and app usage and screen time
- Providing detailed reports on employee productivity
This makes it easy for HR managers to have complete transparency into employees’ operations, whether remote or office teams.
A popular activity monitoring software is:
Workstatus offers a range of features that assist HR managers in managing office and remote teams effectively.
It provides:
HR managers can use Workstatus to gain insights into:
- Employee activities
- Optimize workflows
- Make data-driven decisions
Challenge#3: Ensuring Employees Work for Required Hours
Since remote workers have a flexible schedule, it can be quite difficult for HR managers to:
- Ensure that employees are spending an adequate amount of time on their tasks
- Track the number of hours worked
- Ensure that all deadlines are met
Remote working makes it challenging for HR managers to ensure that employees meet their performance targets and work the required hours.
Recommended Tool: Time Tracking Software
Time-tracking software helps HR managers:
- Track hours worked by employees
- Generate reports on time usage
- Identify areas of improvement
These platforms provide an automatic timer that allows HR managers to”
- Accurately records the time spent by employees
- Easily track and monitor off-time usage for teams & employees
- Report on & analyze time usage for payroll
By utilizing time tracking tools, HR managers can ensure that teams:
- Deliver tasks within the allotted time frame
- Addresses any discrepancies accordingly
- Assists in the efficient management of both office and remote teams
Challenge#4: Attendance Management
Due to the distributed geographic locations of remote teams, managing employee attendance can be quite challenging as it is hard to:
- Monitor when employees are clocking in – out
- Track the duration of logged hours
- Keep accurate attendance records for payroll
Recommended Tool: Attendance Management System
Attendance management systems make it easier for HR managers to track and manage employee attendance, irrespective of location.
These platforms have features that enable HR managers to:
- Keep accurate attendance records
- Ensure that attendance is logged accurately
- Monitor employee working hours
- Generate timely reports
Moreover, the attendance management system with selfie validation provides additional security and transparency, leading to more accurate and secured attendance & payroll procedure.
The exclusive Timezone feature helps you track hours at different timezones, which is instrumental for a globally dispersed workforce.
Now that we have taken a look at the challenges of managing remote teams, let’s move on to the
Challenges Faced by HRs in Managing Office Team
Challenge#1: Productivity Monitoring
With office teams, managers can continually:
- Monitor performance
- Assess the team’s output
- Identify areas of improvement
However, this becomes difficult when there is an influx of data, information, and tasks that all require different levels of attention.
It can:
- Be time-consuming to parse through this data
- Become hard to accurately gauge the productivity of individual team members
- Make it difficult for HR managers to identify areas that need development and improvement
Recommended Tool: Productivity Monitoring Software
Productivity monitoring software enables HR managers to measure and benchmark the productivity of different teams and individual employees.
These platforms have features for
- Tracking activity levels of employees
- Generating reports on task performance
- Identifying areas for improvement
These platforms make it easy for HR managers to get an accurate snapshot of employee productivity and then provide training to the entire workforce for improvement, promoting better collaboration.
Challenge#3: Fetching Real-time Reporting and Analytics
With office teams, one of the major challenges HR managers face is ensuring accurate real-time reporting and analytics that measure performance.
This involves:
- Setting up appropriate reports
- Generating meaningful insights from data generated by employees at all levels of the organization
- Utilizing dashboards or other specialized technology to visualize how particular tasks or projects are performed.
This can be a tedious process for HR managers, requiring continual monitoring and updates to ensure accuracy.
Recommended Tool: AI Reports Generator
Artificial Intelligence (AI) report generator provides reports such as:
- Time & Activity
- Weekly
- Apps and URLs
- Timesheet Approvals
- Project & Todos
- Attendance Report
This makes it easy for HR managers to generate meaningful insights from data collected from employee operations and make an informed decision for the team’s betterment.
This platform provides features like:
- Automated report generation
- Ability to generate custom reports
- Comparative analysis of the performance of various teams and individuals
AI report generators make it easier for HR managers to quickly identify patterns in employee performance and take corrective measures as needed.
Challenge#3: Tasks Management
With all the data and tasks circulating in an office team, it can be challenging for HR managers to manage projects effectively.
This involves:
- Breaking complex tasks/projects down into manageable todos
- Assigning tasks and todos to individual team members
- Accurately tracking progress on each task and todo (due dates, budget estimates, milestones, etc.)
It can often be difficult for HR managers to juggle multiple projects simultaneously while ensuring that teams work seamlessly together.
Recommended Tool: Task Management Platform
Task management platforms allow HR managers to easily assign and monitor tasks. These platforms provide features such as:
- A centralized hub where tasks can be:
- Assigned
- Monitored
- Completed
- Customizable tracking tools that enable real-time updates on the status of tasks
- Ability to assign various tasks to multiple team members with ease
These platforms help streamline workflows, ensuring the completion of timely assignments and improving collaboration among teams.
They also make it easier for HR managers to stay updated with task status and reduce bottlenecks for task completion.
So these were the top 7 tools for managing remote and office teams. Utilizing these platforms, HR managers can ensure that their teams are working harmoniously.
However, now the main question that arises is –
Which tool can be the one-stop solution to effectively manage and collaborate with office and remote teams?
The answer to this question is Workstatus – the ultimate platform for successful team management & collaboration.
Workstatus offers a range of features that assist HR managers in managing office and remote teams effectively. It provides:
- Real-time employee monitoring
- Project and task tracking
- Comprehensive productivity reports
- AI-driven insights and analytics
- Centralized dashboard
All these features make Workstatus, a one-stop solution for HR managers to stay on top of their teams and ensure seamless collaboration across the organization.
Conclusion
Managing remote and office teams can be daunting for HR managers.
However, by utilizing the right tools and leveraging technology, an HR manager can effectively manage and collaborate with various teams while ensuring quality output.
Workstatus is a platform offering all the features required for successful team collaboration.
It provides visibility and control of projects allowing managers to gain insights into:
- Employee operations
- Measure productivity
- Optimize workflows
Making it the ultimate solution for successful team collaboration!
Discover the power of Workstatus
Take your team performance to the next level.
It’s also helpful to try different tools and gather feedback from your team members to ensure the chosen tools align with their workflows and preferences.
