Being a manager or a small business owner carries many challenges and time-consuming processes that can get in the way of the success of your business. With so much to worry about, you might not actually get around to setting your business up for growth. These days, fortunately, technology can come to the rescue.
If you need to have confidence that your team will keep themselves accountable, with a little automated guidance, then it is worthwhile to explore contemporary software that can achieve this purpose. Try an online timesheet system, for example, or one of many other tools that are designed for this purpose.
Having a sense of what the technological options are to keep your team accountable will help you get started. Let’s look at five specific technology systems that you can use to keep your team accountable.
Communication Software
While smartphones and email can be useful for some communication tasks, it is immensely useful to have a dedicated platform where your entire team can communicate together.
This open forum style of communication will allow team members to keep an eye on who is contributing to the discussion and help to keep employees accountable and connected.
Project Management Software
Choosing the right project management software is a great means of also keeping your teams accountable and on task. Project management software allows you to quickly keep in contact with all of your teams and assign tasks directly to individual employees. You can then easily keep an eye on the progress of these tasks over time.
Online Timekeeping
Online timekeeping and scheduling software are a great means of keeping a bird’s eye view of how productive your employees are. By using this software, your employees can update their own hours with the digital platform.
Having this up-to-date data available at any time and from any place allows you to perform a variety of analytical tasks on it to gauge who is performing well and who on your team could benefit from a little encouragement or motivation.
Online timekeeping software is also great for tracking both expected and unexpected absences to detect any patterns in this regard. As a manager, it is important to know that all members of your team are as motivated as you are, and this software helps you do just that.
Employee Monitoring Software
While the concept might seem a bit Orwellian, if your employees have historically had a difficult time with being distracted by online diversions then you might consider installing employee monitoring software on your network.
This will allow you to oversee what your employees are looking at and working on throughout their day, on work computers. In many cases, this gentle social surveillance can lead to large boosts in productivity.
GPS Fleet Management Tools
If you run a delivery business or if you have many remote teams functioning independently without much supervision, then it can be a good idea to use GPS fleet management tools.
This software allows you to track the vehicles in your fleet using satellites and intuitive software. You can see how quickly your drivers are reaching each stop and whether any member of your team is straying from their responsibilities.
Start With A Soft Approach
While technology is a great way to provide an extra accountability incentive, it is important that your business takes a comprehensive approach to accountability for the best results. Be sure to hire employees that you can trust and make sure that you set the right tone in terms of your expectations right from the start.