Why Your Remote Employee Are Busy But You Can’t See Progress

After the COVID-19 pandemic, working remotely became a new trend, and many companies continue to follow it despite strong return-to-office policies. Busy remote employees enjoy their benefits, yet remote work also comes with its own challenges.

Imagine a scenario in which one of your employees reports the work s/he did today.

The task report says:

• Replied to all emails
• Completed all meetings with clients
• Completed some tasks (that, according to you, might not take much time).

His or her day sounds jam-packed.

But when you ask the question: What essential tasks did you work on today? Did you make any progress in your ongoing project? The response might not be clear.

And this is the problem with remote work. In the long term, this brings clashes between employees and bosses. So, what can be the best possible solution for this gap?

Time tracking. 

It’s not like people are not putting in effort when working remotely. No, most people work seriously at home, but what is lacking is having a clear picture of how time is spent.

In this article, we’ll walk you through why time tracking matters and the best practices for time tracking and communication in remote teams.

Benefits of time tracking for busy remote employees

When everyone is working from home—maybe from different cities, states, or countries—it’s challenging to tell who is doing what, how much time a particular task is taking, or where your employees are getting stuck.

In a remote setup, you can’t do any desk-side check-ins or casual hallway walks to monitor ‘how’s everything going?’ But what you can do is use time tracking to improve remote work efficiency.

Time tracking helps you see what is happening during the day at work. This is done to understand what is working, what is slowing down things, and where help is needed. It shouldn’t be done to monitor or micromanage because everyone works at their own pace to produce the best work.

It gives structure to what feels like chaos. With time tracking software, you are not guessing anymore. You know everything.

Here’s how time tracking helps remote startup teams stay on track:

• Visibility: You can see how much time is being spent on a project, so that you can help them wherever you can. This is done to support, not to micromanage.
• Highlights workload: You know which person has what work. You can figure out, by any chance, whether one employee is overloaded with work and the other is waiting for work. This ensures proper work management. For more on this, read this article on work management software.
• Proper planning: You now know, with the data, how much time a particular project takes. So, you stop underestimating and start delivering results on time.
• Improves accountability: If time logs are a part of the workflow, then people stay focused and are honest about their progress.

But do you think only time tracking is enough? If people don’t talk about what is behind the numbers, then it is just data. The transformation happens when teams use this data to deliver projects on time or support each other.

That is where proper communication in remote teams is necessary.

Communication challenges affecting productivity

Now, let us talk about the other half of the equation: communication.

Even with the best time-tracking in place, nothing changes if your team isn’t communicating in the right way. In remote work, the challenges are real:

• People are in different time zones, so questions and handoffs are delayed, sometimes by a full day.
• Messages disappear in long Slack threads, buried under unrelated conversations.
• There might be meeting after meeting, but no one is clear on what was decided or who owns the next steps.
• Product changes get approved internally but never reach marketing, so campaigns move forward on outdated timelines.
• Client feedback is shared with one department but not others, causing duplicate work or missed requirements.

Time tracking can help spot where work slows down, but it’s cross-team communication that actually resolves those slowdowns. One way to enable that is through cross-functional collaboration, where updates are shared across departments, priorities are visible to everyone, and blockers are addressed before they ripple through the project.

Picture this: a designer spends hours creating assets for a launch, only to learn later that the product release date was moved. Time tracking would have revealed the wasted hours, but collaboration between teams could have caught that update early and saved the effort.

Align time-tracking with communication

Consider one of your team members finishing a complex task earlier than expected. He stayed late, solved problems on his own, and delivered something incredible. But because he works remotely, no one knew how much effort he had put in.

What if his time tracking showed extra hours of work? He left a quick note of the unexpected bugs he solved. During weekly calls, someone might have appreciated, “Hey, we saw the extra effort. Great job.” Employee recognition is possible only when there is proper tracking and clear communication between teams.

Here’s how you can align time tracking with communication:

Use time tracking as a conversation tool

Don’t treat time logs as a performance report. Instead, look at them together as a team and ask,

• “Where did things take longer than expected?”
• “What slowed things down?”
• “How can we make this more effective next time?”

Make it easy to give context

In tracking tools, you can add notes or comments while tracking the time. So, tell your team to explain the blocks or unexpected problems immediately when they face the issue. 

Tracking and weekly check-ins

Every week, review the time logs as part of your team sync. It helps everyone stay updated, figure out problems together, and adjust priorities. 

Create a culture of honesty

If something took time, then that’s okay. The goal is to learn. When people feel safe to share what is going on, then you get better data.

Use this time data to ask better questions, make smarter decisions, and support each other. This boosts remote productivity.

Best practices in remote teams

By now, it is clear that time tracking and communication in remote teams can increase productivity. The following are some practical ways to achieve it:

1. Choose an easy tool

Use a tool that is easy to use. Choose a tool that helps your team track time without breaking their flow. Tracking time, especially for work, should be something that can be done within seconds without much effort.

Use Paymo Track for free: download here.

For example, a design team starts tracking time per project and realizes they’re spending more hours on revisions than on the original design. With this insight, they can create better briefing templates.

2. Have a discussion

Data is useless without context. Keep weekly team review sessions to look at how much time is being spent.

You can ask questions like:

• Did anything take longer than expected?
• Are priorities shifting?
• Who needs more support?

3. Create psychological safety

The word ‘tracker’ may seem scary to many people. So, be clear that “you are not using this data to monitor anyone’s activity second by second. You are using it to plan better, support better, and work smarter.”

Make sure your team knows: “This is about helping us see what is working and where we need to adjust. It is not about catching anyone doing something wrong.”

For example, a project lead notices a team member is logging for a few hours only. So, instead of scolding them, she asks whether they need help in balancing the workload. The employee opens up about personal struggles, and the team collaboratively adjusts the deadlines. 

4. Highlight wins and efforts

Highlight the efforts of people who are putting in extra work. A small “well-done” can mean a lot in a remote work culture. Timely recognition is a key part of better talent management strategies.

For example, a customer support lead notices that one agent consistently handles the trickiest tickets. She gives them a shoutout during the weekly review.

These small efforts lead to improved productivity.

5. Use your data to plan better

After using time tracking for some time, you can see various patterns.

You can use these insights to:

• Adjust a project’s timelines based on the efficiency of the person.
• Balance workloads so that no one feels overloaded.
• Spot the problems in the process and remove them.
• Prevent employee burnout before it happens.

Build a team that works with time

Remote work gives people freedom. But freedom without clarity leads to chaos.

By combining an innovative tracking tool and regular communication, you can create a workplace where everyone knows what matters the most.

Time tracking is about supporting your team to do the work efficiently.

Want to boost the remote work productivity of your team?

Paymo is a great time-tracking software built for remote collaboration: