Remote work and remote teams are the preferences of employees and employers alike due to the many benefits, including the comfort of working from anywhere, flexible schedules, and better work-life balance for employees. Plus, employers and employees also save money on commute expenses. However, the alarming issue is that when it comes to tracking and improving efficiency, organizations face various issues. One of them is that they have no clue what their employees are doing. Thus, taking charge of teams becomes complex, and employees may also take liberty of the freedom. Fortunately, time tracking tools for remote teams do exist.
So, what are the time tracking tools that we heard have made remote employees more accountable, responsible, efficient, and productive at work? Simply put, these are specialized software solutions that accurately track and log the work hours of employees. These apps and tools have a plethora of features and functionalities, including
- Real-time time tracking
- Attendance tracking
- Seamless integrations with the other tools and apps you use
- User-friendly interface
- Compliance management
- Communication and collaboration tools
Time tracking tools provide many benefits in a work-from-home and/or anywhere setting. These are for both employees and employers. That’s why most businesses and organizations worldwide use tools for tracking time these days. With that being said, let’s see what are these advantages.
This happens as automated as the tool itself. When your employees know that their work-time is being logged, they will surely focus more on the task at hand. This will improve efficiency as well. Plus, more efficiency leads to:
- More productivity
- Better work performance, which is good for your business
Remote work time tracking tools accurately track the work hours of your employees and make work-time utilization reports. With this, you will:
- Have a clear idea of who is working on what and at what time.
- Identify who is utilizing their time to the best of their skills.
- Have a record of employee work-time for better audit, documentation, and payroll.
Having an accurate record of the work hours of your remote employee teams ensures that everyone knows who is working on what. This ensures that:
- Everyone is working on the same activity with perfect collaboration
- There is trust between you and your employees and their colleagues
- Everyone contributes fairly to the work completion with the best of their skills
Time tracking lets you get a 360-degree view of the work insights of your employees. You can easily identify:
- Work gaps
- Flaws
- Low-productive work patterns
- Obstructions
- Trends
Usually, all of it is in real-time, so you can fix these issues on the spot without disrupting the workflow and processes. Over time, it also boosts the time management efficiency of your employees.
Thanks to accurate time tracking, you will know where your employees are lagging and why. This way, you can:
- Allocate and reallocate resources in a better way.
- Ensure that the right people are working on the right job.
The above did it for the benefits of time tracking tools for remote teams. However, every organization is different. Since their workforce is also diverse, they also need different time tracking tools. In short, you can’t use the time tracking tool your competitor is using, as it will only be a waste of your money. So, here’s how to choose the right time tracking tool for your business.
Like everything else in your business, your time tracking tool for remote employees will also be an asset. So accessing your cost vs budget and requirements is essential. Considering questions like these will help:
- What are the activities I need to track?
- What features do I need?
- Do I also need integrations and security features?
- How much ROI will I get by using the software?
- Are the costs worth it?
Answering such questions will give you a clear blueprint for shortlisting the best options.
The next step in choosing the best remote work time tracking software is to make a shortlist of the best software solutions. This will be based on your cost vs. budget vs. requirement analysis. So, that step is essential.
Time tracking tools and software solutions for remote teams also provide extra features and functionalities for remote teams. These include:
- Communication tools
- Collaboration tools
- Virtual workflow tools
- Synchronized reporting features
You can check for these features if you require them. However, it will affect the costs involved. So, small businesses need to be careful.
Next comes the price check. This is very straightforward. The price of the time tracker tool depends on various factors, including:
- Vendor reputation
- Whether free trials and demos are included or not
- Size of your teams
- Size of your business
- Mode of payment (/user/month, flat rate, etc)
- Whether add-ons are included or not. Plus, do they charge extra for add-ons?
- No of features
The next part in selecting your time tracking tool for remote teams is to read reviews of others who are using it. In short, competitor analysis. However, how will you know if the reviews are genuine or not? Let’s see below:
- Don’t read the reviews on the website
- Check for reviews on trusted websites
- Ask the users directly
Now that you have finalized your remote work time tracking software, it’s time to get to real business. The free trial will let you know whether the software you choose is right as per your organizational and employee requirements or not.
So, now you know how to choose the best time tracking software? However, unless you have a dedicated team for it, the process is time-consuming and overwhelming.
Plus, you have other essential tasks as well. Instead, a better option is to go through the expert shortlist of time tracking tools, which we made for you.
- DeskTrack
- TogglTrack
- Clockify
- Harvest
- RescueTime
- Time Doctor
- Trello
- ClickUp
- Hubstaff
- Everhour
DeskTrack is the best time tracking tool for remote teams. More than a time tracker, it’s the best employee monitoring, project management, and productivity monitoring software integration. We also recommend it for your field and in-office teams.
ToggleTrack is a simple and intuitive time tracking software tool, which we recommend to teams and individuals. What we like about it is that it provides you with accurate visuals of your employees’ work hours, making it easy for you to identify productivity patterns and trends.
Clockify is a pure time tracking software, which is known for two things. The first one is editable timesheets and the second one is automated timers. Plus, the user-friendly interface makes it simple to use and navigate.
Harvest is a time-tracking software and tool which we recommend to small businesses and freelancers. Plus, the invoicing features streamline client billing and project management from one platform.
Rescue your remote teams from wasting their valuable work hours with RescueTime. This automated time tracker tool tracks time spent on URLs and apps, which provides you with insights into the productivity levels of your teams.
Time Doctor has the right medicine to heal time wastage. The focus of the time tracking software is primarily productivity monitoring. It does so to a great extent due to features including screenshots and detailed reporting.
Say hello to Trello. It is primarily a project management tool. However, it also provides you with excellent integrations for time tracking. That, in our opinion, is one of the best combinations ever for all things time tracking and project management from a single platform.
What we like about this all-in-one project management tool is the built-in features for accurately tracking work hours. Additionally, it combines task management, goal setting, and time tracking in one platform.
Hubstaff is a time tracking tool purely built for remote teams and employees. This is due to features and functionalities including GPS tracking, productivity monitoring, and others. We recommend it to businesses of all sizes and scales.
Make every hour productive with Everhour. The time tracking tool seamlessly integrates with the project management tools you use to provide you with the best of both worlds. Plus, the integrations also provide good budgeting features for your expense tracking needs.
So, we have wrapped the post for today’s topic on remote work time tracking tools. To summarize, remote work time tracking tools are excellent digital solutions for organizations and businesses worldwide to increase the focus, efficiency, and productivity of their work from anywhere teams and employees. Plus, using such tools also helps to virtually communicate and collaborate to improve teamwork, accountability, and responsibility. However, it’s also important for you to choose the right software as per your business’s requirements for the best output. Searching for the leading time tracking software for remote teams? We recommend DeskTrack.
Lakshya Pareek is the SEO Manager and a content writer at Aryavrat Infotech Pvt. Ltd. He specializes in driving organic growth through strategic SEO techniques and creating engaging content. With a keen focus on improving website visibility and search engine rankings, Lakshya ensures that the company's digital presence remains both competitive and impactful.
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