The arrow in the illustration above is precisely how employee productivity is falling as they are trapped in work from home birdcage due to “the big Rona.”. From being the most efficient business operations, many organizations have taken a free fall towards unproductivity as the pandemic hit the world. Employees do their best to manage their personal and professional life simultaneously from the same place. However, there is only so much that they can do. As an employer, you must take the initiative to ensure that the employee gives their maximum and yet, do not overwork themselves.
Tools that increase the remote employee’s productivity
Having almost all the workers working from home can be a challenging task. All the employees are putting in their efforts from various places. Keeping a watch on all of them is physically impossible. Communicating and coordinating with every employee top the list of the issues that lockdown and remote work have brought upon us. There are numerous tools that the employer can combine with a human resource management platform. Here are five tools that will help you monitor your employee and increase their productivity.
1. Geo-Fencing
Geo-fencing is a location-enabled service whereby an application or other software program uses Wi-Fi, radio frequency identification (RFID), cellular data, or GPS to prompt a targeted action (like text, notification, email, or in this case, attendance punch in) when a mobile device enters or exits a geographical virtual “fence” boundary, referred to as geofence.
In this case, the employee’s attendance is automatically punched in/ out when they enter/ exit the geofence. You can set a virtual border in the employee’s home outside of which they cannot operate the company devices. This ensures that the employee is working when they are supposed to. When the employee goes out of the geofence, he will automatically be punched out of the system. When this tool is used, the employee makes sure that he completes his personal chores apart from the office hours. This increases their focus on work, thereby increasing their productivity.
2. Geo-Tracking
Geo-Tracking uses GPS data from an individual’s smartphones or other GPS empowered devices to identify their current, corporal location. This tool can be installed on the employee’s cell phone.
It is not necessary that if a person is logged in through geo-fencing, he will sit at the same place. An employee may leave his system within the geo-fenced area and get out of his working area. To know if he is within the geo-fenced area, it is necessary to employ geo-tracking. This tool enables the employer to know the exact location of the employee and avoid attendance theft. When the employee knows that his activities are monitored, he will give more attention to the work and avoid wasting his time.
3. Chatbots
A chatbot is a tool that is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can duplicate a human-like conversation/ chat with a user. This communication takes place through websites, messaging applications, telephone, or mobile applications. Chatbots analyses the user’s requirements and then gives the most relevant replies.
The employer can use this tool to solve the employee doubts regarding the new working policies or provide them access to their performance reports. Chatbots are the easiest to use tools as all the employee has to do, is talk or type out their problems. The employers are able to focus on more essential fields as the chatbots manage the employee queries. Chatbots assist the HR in keeping the employees informed, providing them guidelines, and saving time by giving quick responses.
4. Selfie punching
This tool allows your HR application to take a punch in with the selfie. When the employee is at home, it is not necessary that it is himself that has entered the punch in/ out. To avoid such identity theft, this tool makes use of the front camera in their phone to capture a selfie and matches it with the submitted selfie, and automatically marks punch in when the match is 100% verified.
Doing this ensures that the punch is done by the employee himself and not anyone else. It must be noted that this is different from facial recognition. When this tool is put to use, the employee makes sure that they report to work on time and do it themselves. With this, the employer can sit back and relax as the employee makes sure his records are maintained, and his work is done on time, resulting in enhanced efficiency.
5. Online timesheet management
Timesheet management requires the employee to put down the time that they have spent on any allotted task. It gives you a daily report based on projects, activity, product, and individual employees. It measures an employee’s unproductive hours and records details about the same against the everyday attendance of the employee.
This tool helps the employer and the employee to know the latter’s productivity based on how much time they spend on any assigned task. The employee can see his productivity and hence can focus on increasing their productivity and avoid wasting time doing unproductive things.
Ending notes
With working from home becoming a new usual, it becomes necessary to have these tools to enhance your employee’s productivity and overcome attendance and identity theft online. It is advisable to integrate these tools with HRIS software to overcome the problems of inefficiency, unproductivity, and unethicality on the employee’s part.
The world has not paused until now; a virus will not control it, and we have seen it try. Despite the conditions, we, as a society, have risen even after a downfall. Letting the unproductivity and inefficiency stop us now would be quitting a step away from the finishing line. It would be better if you use these tools to earn a competitive advantage by getting the organization back on track by the time the world resumes its activities.
Author bio:
Divyang Metaliya is a Business Consultant working with factoHR. Apart from managing and improving business processes, his hobby is to spread his vast area of knowledge to the people out there. He loves to create content that is innovative and engaging for the readers.
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