In the world of remote work, managers often face challenges in evaluating remote workers due to the lack of a direct relationship between working hours and productivity, which is more common in traditional work settings.
Given the absence of direct supervision for employees working from home, evaluating their performance based on attendance and departure times might be unfair. But how do successful remote companies evaluate their teams?
Evaluation Based on Quality and Quantity, Not Working Hours
When evaluating remote workers, you’re not assessing them based on time but on performance. You pay them for the results they achieve, not the time they spend working.
You need to evaluate remote workers based on metrics related to the quality and quantity of work and adherence to project deadlines.
For example, if the employee works in marketing, their performance can be measured by the company’s brand awareness on social media, reputation among the public, and sales volume.
If the employee works in SEO, their performance can be evaluated by the number of visits the company’s website receives.
Some Remote Jobs Require Fixed Availability
Certain remote jobs require the employee to be available during specific working hours.
For example, in the case of technical support, you may assign a remote employee to provide customer support, either by phone or through written correspondence.
In this type of job, customers expect to receive support quickly or even immediately, so the remote employee needs to be available to answer questions during designated working hours.
Naturally, adherence to working hours should be included in the evaluation system for such roles, alongside the productivity and quality of the employee’s work.
Remote Workers Evaluation Model: Six Key Steps to Conducting Job Evaluations
While job evaluation makes sense for most small business owners, it may be helpful to consider the goals of the evaluation system, which are as follows:
- To improve the company’s productivity.
- To make informed decisions regarding promotions and job changes for employees.
- To determine the necessary goals and responsibilities for job performance.
- To evaluate employee performance against these goals.
Six Key Steps for a Remote Workers Evaluation Model
- Create an Objective Evaluation Model: The evaluation model should be unbiased, measuring the performance of remote workers in a way that suits all employees. It should also comply with legal standards to avoid liability issues.
- Set Performance Metrics: Establish accurate criteria for the evaluation, helping to identify the correct evaluation of each employee.
- Apply the Reward Principle: After evaluation, employees who continue to work diligently should be rewarded, while those who do not should be dealt with accordingly.
- Set an Evaluation Schedule: Set appropriate dates for the evaluation to ensure accurate results that can lead to informed decisions.
- Establish Guidelines for Feedback: After evaluating remote workers, new structured guidelines should be developed, and employees should be informed of the feedback they received in a clear manner.
Benefits of Using a Remote Workers Monitoring and Evaluation System
- Enhancing Employee Performance: Monitoring and evaluation systems help boost employee productivity by tracking their work hours and output.
- Real-Time Analysis: These systems provide immediate, real-time analytics of employee activities, allowing for continuous improvement in remote worker evaluation and performance.
- Ease of Evaluation: This type of system facilitates monitoring remote employees’ productivity and helps managers identify the most productive employees.
- Increasing Savings: Employee behavior monitoring tools help save money by ensuring employees are productive during work hours.
- Protecting Company Data: Employee monitoring programs allow for tracking of documents, applications, and websites accessed on company property, helping to protect sensitive information.
- Reallocating Resources: These tools enable managers to reallocate resources based on the data provided by the monitoring system.
The primary goal of using employee monitoring and evaluation tools is to correct the course, identify strengths and weaknesses, and understand workflow issues to benefit both employees and employers.
In conclusion, remote workers evaluation systems have proven effective in helping businesses make decisions regarding promotions and rewards. Whether you’re a small, medium, or large company, we’re here to assist. Learn more about our services here.