Remote Team Timekeeping: 7 Best Strategies for a Time-efficient Team

7 time management strategies to improve your remote team's timekeeping abilities
Written By
WorkPilot
September 28, 2022
Written By
WorkPilot

Working remotely and away from the office may be quite challenging for several reasons, including the lack of formal structures, a conducive work environment, personal supervision, elevated team purpose, and effortless face-to-face interactions.

Employees may struggle with timekeeping and management. Admittedly, not everyone will struggle. While it's important to identify who needs help the most, remember that some workers may appear fine but may actually find it hard to cope.

So, which strategies can you implement to make remote timekeeping more practical? Well, the following tips can help:

  1. Help employees identify timekeeping inhibitions

Before charting a path towards better remote team timekeeping habits, you should help employees identify the current challenges. Factors inhibiting their efficiency and time management may include:

  • Procrastination

It’s the tendency to postpone tasks with the intention to complete them in the near future.

  • Lack of motivation

Remote staff may have days where they have a lot of motivation to get things done, and at times they may not feel like doing anything.

  • Work-life imbalance

It means that employees are having to dig into their personal time to complete work projects. It can result in burnout.

  • No designated workspace

Remote workers may struggle with finding a private space to work with little disturbance.

  • Regular disruptions

Disruptions always find a way when working at home, whether it's a lack of concentration because there is no supervision or getting up to attend to something in the household every 20 minutes.

You should have open consultations with your remote staff to identify what’s contributing to their inefficiency.

  1. Provide guidance on dealing with time management challenges

After assessing the challenges plaguing your remote team, it’s time to look into the solutions. Providing a time management course can be a good starting point. You can find time management courses online through platforms such as Udemy.

Your company can develop  a personalised time management course, which may be more impactful and relevant. In the  course, you can share timekeeping techniques such as:

  • Setting daily themes;
  • Doing the hardest things first;
  • Time blocking;
  • Creating to-do lists and checklists
  • Setting time limits;
  • Using the Pomodoro technique;
  • Physical Kanban boards;
  • Arranging tasks into four quadrants (Urgent & Important, Urgent & Non-important, Urgent & Not-important, Not-important & Not-urgent)

You can use an online training software such as WorkPilot to build online corporate courses.

  1. Implement time blocking and task scheduling

You can promote better timekeeping by having employees schedule tasks ahead of time by using a calendar and blocking off chunks of time for certain tasks. There's no need to use a complicated productivity tool. They can use Google Calendar or similar calendars to organise their day.

  1. Use time tracking tools to measure time use

It’s important for your remote staff to have an idea of how they use their time. They can use time tracking tools to track their workday’s activities. You can even consider platforms that offer screenshots monitoring. The added oversight may motivate employees to avoid distractions.

  1. Hold regular stand-up meetings

In the office, teams hold stand-up meetings standing up for approximately 15 minutes. Participants answer three questions:

  • What they did yesterday?
  • What they're going to do today
  • What’s standing in their way?

The meetings can reinforce accountability, and ensure that tasks are not taking too long to get completed. Learn tips to run great remote standups.

  1. Enforce the workday limit to prevent burnout

With no commute times or office closure hours, employees  may find that they are working for more hours than they did at the office. It's important to enforce the workday limit.

Once the remote staff recognise that they have a limited window to complete tasks, they will be more motivated and productive.

  1. Streamline your workflows with WorkPilot

You should continuously re-examine your workflows and improve them to make sure that you are completing the task using the easiest and fastest methods. Start by conducting a workflow analysis to identify inefficiencies and improvement opportunities . You can then build processes with WorkPilot and use its productivity suite to manage tasks.


Implementing these tips along with continuous performance management will improve your remote team’s timekeeping abilities.




Try WorkPilot

Create your first learning experience in less time than it takes to drink a coffee.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.