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How to Manage Remote Employees Without Monitoring Every Move

Amy Leschke-Kahle

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In this piece, ADP's Amy Leschke-Kahle shares three mindset shifts HR leaders and executives must make to adapt to how the world of work works.

Managing remote employees you can't directly observe starts with a fundamental shift: stop tracking hours and start measuring outcomes. Trust your workforce to deliver results, replace sprawling data dashboards with a few smart engagement metrics measured frequently at the team level, and evaluate people on what they produce — not when or how long they work. These three mindset shifts allow leaders to manage remote teams effectively without surveillance-style monitoring. As work continues to evolve, HR leaders have an opportunity to play a more strategic role in helping organizations build trust, engagement and performance. Learn more about how HR can drive business results in ADP's guide to strategic HR.

Key takeaways

• Remote employees are qualified professionals who perform best with autonomy and frequent attention from team leaders, not overbearing oversight.

• Smart data beats big data: measuring a few insightful engagement metrics frequently gives leaders better visibility than tracking hundreds of data points.

• Hours logged does not equal impact delivered — evaluate remote workers on what they accomplish and how well they do it, not on their time spent online.

• Teams that receive radically frequent attention from their leaders show accelerated engagement and performance, regardless of location. Trust and frequent leader support matter more than surveillance.

"But how do I know they're really working?" he asked with a skeptical look.

I had just told this senior executive at a high-performing company that work-from-home is here to stay. This is not an uncommon reaction from the executives I work with when they're faced with the new role they must play in evolving work. In fact, before COVID-19, many executives seemed to entertain this outdated notion about working remotely.

The world of work has evolved significantly in recent years, and employees' expectations have evolved with it. ADP Research has found that hybrid workers are 1.7 times more likely to be fully engaged than on-site workers and 1.9 times more likely to be fully engaged than fully remote workers. More importantly, employees who have greater autonomy over where they work tend to report higher levels of engagement. For leaders, the takeaway is clear: success depends less on where work happens and more on creating the conditions that allow people to do their best work.

This new model of work is here to stay, and there is an enormous opportunity for organizations to let go of old myths and assumptions about where work can take place.

For this to happen, the highest-ranking executives from these organizations will have to be willing to evolve with the times. Here are three mindset shifts HR leaders and business executives must make to adapt to how the current world of work, well, works.

Trust your workforce to deliver results

Your employees are grown-ups. The people you've hired to be a part of your workforce are adults, and you hired them for a reason. Too many processes, policies and systems within large organizations are built around the notion that the workplace is filled with people who need more direction and hand-holding than they really do. So, of course, the idea of sending those people home to work unsupervised can be unsettling for many.

But that's exactly the inflection point where leaders have the opportunity to change their mindset. After all, when organizations sent thousands of employees home to work remotely, the work didn't stop. If anything, many leaders learned that trust and accountability can be more effective than constant monitoring.

It's much more efficient and realistic to embrace the reality that your workforce is made up of highly qualified, motivated and professional individuals who are eager to do their work. Yes, there has been a transition period as people adapt to the pressures of working from home during a pandemic, but what they need is not overbearing supervision or oversight, but rather the freedom to work at a pace and on a schedule that works for them at this moment in time.

The pandemic has shown that, no matter where they sit, when team members receive radically more frequent attention from their team leaders, engagement and performance accelerate. In fact, ADP's StandOut® research notes that team leaders influence approximately 70% of employee engagement, underscoring the impact regular conversations, coaching and support can have on employee success.  

If you can manage this aspect of evolving work successfully, you might be pleasantly surprised by how remote work can benefit your organization.

Measure smart data, not big data

Big data is not smart data, especially when it comes to people. For some organizations, the solution to the uncertainty of remote work during a pandemic is Big Data. However, you can have too much of a good thing, especially when it comes to performance metrics. HR leaders have more workforce data than ever before but collecting more metrics does not automatically lead to better decisions. ADP's engagement research has repeatedly shown that a small set of meaningful indicators, especially those tied to team experiences and manager effectiveness, often provides more actionable insight than large collections of disconnected workforce data.

The answer is not Big Data, but smart data. It's far better to frequently measure a few insightful metrics to get a clear picture of which efforts are leading to expected results than it is to report on hundreds of data points that don't tell you anything. Where should you start? Start with local engagement, team by team. It gives you and the organization visibility into how your employees are experiencing work in the context of the work.

Rather than tracking every possible metric, focus on a small number of indicators that provide meaningful insight, such as team-level engagement, trust in team leaders and clarity of expectations. Brief quarterly pulse surveys can help organizations monitor these trends over time and identify issues before they affect performance or retention. Now is the time to carefully consider what data is needed to have confidence in your workforce, at both the individual and organizational levels.

Shift focus from hours logged to outcomes delivered

Hours do not equal impact. Almost overnight, organizations sent hundreds if not thousands of people home to work, and work got done. But the typical workday doesn't look the same as it did in the traditional 9-5 office environment, and it's unlikely that it ever will again. This highlights how important it is for organizations to empower employees to work in ways that suit them best, knowing that on some days employees might blast through tasks at an incredible pace, and on other days they might invest several hours just to get the basics done.

In short, today's leaders must adapt to the reality that hours do not equal impact. Evolving work conditions require us to pull focus away from an employee's perceived maturity or productivity monitoring and put the spotlight firmly on what the person does for the business and how they're compensated. Don't put undue focus on the "when" and the "how long," but rather toward the "what" and the "how well," so that every employee has the space they need to achieve their full potential in the current setting.

Doubling down on seeing each other for our own unique gifts and talents creates a differentiating cultural thread that serves employees, leaders and the organization.

Build a remote culture that competes

There's a lot we don't yet know about the world of evolving work in which we find ourselves. Still, there's one thing we do know: the most competitive and successful organizations will not be the ones that cling to confining, stifling and over-structured approaches to work.

Understanding and embracing the emergence of new philosophies around daily work will take time. Still, leaders and managers who take the opportunity to challenge and rethink their assumptions about people, work and productivity may quickly discover they have a starring role to play in the new world of work.

FAQs

How do I know if my remote employees are actually working?

Shift your focus from monitoring activity to measuring outcomes. Set clear, measurable goals for each role and evaluate employees on what they deliver — not when or how long they work. Frequent team-level engagement check-ins provide more useful visibility than surveillance tools, and research shows that employees who receive regular attention from their leaders are significantly more engaged regardless of where they sit.

What metrics should I track for remote employee performance?

Focus on a small number of insightful metrics rather than tracking hundreds of data points. Start with team-level engagement data measured frequently, then layer in outcome-based performance indicators tied to business goals. Smart data — a few metrics measured often — beats big data that tells you nothing actionable.

Does remote work reduce employee productivity?

Evidence suggests that remote work does not inherently reduce productivity. When organizations sent employees home during the pandemic, work continued to get done. The key factor is not location but leadership: teams that receive radically frequent attention from their leaders show accelerated engagement and performance regardless of where they sit. For employers managing a remote and hybrid workforce, the priority should be building trust and measuring what matters.

See what happens when personalization at scale meets actionable data. Learn about StandOut^®, powered by ADP^®.