What's the best way to keep track of your employees hours who work online?
 

I would like to know the best way to keep track of the hours employees put in while working for me online. It just seems to never add up to what I think they put in.. Maybe i'm just a workaholic and I expect everyone to bust their ass like me, but my program is growing, and now it's time to trim the fat, so that means less bullshit and more of a "corporate" way of doing things. Accountability!! lol. Any suggestions or programs that I can have my employess use to keep track of their hours that is sent to me on a daily basis that is fraud proof?
Thanks,
Duke

Live webcams.

hire in-house employees, remote workers don't work as well. people need to feel the hot breath of the boss breathing down their neck occassionally.

I think thats my next step :)
Duke

You need to watch over them or have some one else you trust watching over the employes

That's probably a good idea..

Or.. pay them on piece work instead of hourly.

When I had my machine shop. We would give the employes paper to track their time of whatever project they were working on. Kept pretty good time.

exe
20 min at the band saw
3 hours running production parts.
1 hour lunch.
45 min to dial the machine and set up the for new job. etc, etc
you get the point

there are programs for when ur working off location that the worker logs into.. if they are inactive for x amount of mins it logs them off.. that way you can keep tabs on their work time and patterns..

Pay them based on salary. Make a deal that keeps the both of you happy. :2 cents:

Go visit them, get them drunk and while they are passed out install this on their work PC

:glugglug

How about not care how many hours they work, but if they are productive dont give them any shit about hours, if they arent productive fire them.

:thumbsup

I tried this once, and it was a nightmare. The upside was that already-quantifiable tasks got done much more quickly. The downside is that anything "not assigned" won't get done, so employees won't "pitch-in" on tasks, which is often a huge benefit. For instance, a remote employee notices that the copywrite notice says 2003 and not 2004 on all sites. Instead of writing a script for 5 minutes to change them all, they submit a "defect report" about it and then it takes about 3 man-hours of management to see the change through to it's completion (qualify, quantify, price, assign, track, verify). For a corporation this makes sense, but not for the average adult web venture.

Within a week, I know who is pulling their load and who isn't; it's quite obvious. No need for "pay-per-task" there, unless it's a simple repetitive job and the skills required are basic.

If they don't get results.. can em. It's as simple as that.

Setup a good flat pay + GOOD commission for results type package, and you'll see some busting of the ass. :)