After the initial impact of the pandemic and confinement, millions of companies around the world discovered (or confirmed) the advantages of the home office . Among them, savings in office maintenance costs, in travel times to the workplace… and in increased productivity? Well, the reality is that this point is still a problem.

Over the weeks, the initial enthusiasm gave rise to doubts about the ability of many employees to self- manage: manage to separate their work from personal activities and maintain their work rhythm. One of the most important questions that arose was how to measure productivity in the new scenario?

The challenge remains with the decision of many companies to maintain 100% remote work or to form hybrid work teams. Today we want to help you get some answers.

Of course, technology plays a key role. For example, although remote work has to be measured by objectives and not so much by face-to-face, today there are applications with geolocation functions that allow you to control the attendance of collaborators through your mobile device , either when they are working from home or en route to a client’s office.

Now, to measure the performance of every employee, we need data and metrics . Key performance indicators or KPIs , for its acronym in English, of course adapted to the home office modality . These are quantifiable measures that analyze the performance of employees based on previously established goals.

Let’s look at some concrete examples in three areas that, in many cases, today are operating remotely: Marketing and sales, Customer service and Human resources .

#1. Marketing and sales

Brand communication skills . It refers to the size of a brand’s audience on the Internet and the level of interactions it generates with its followers. For example, it can be measured by the number of visits per month to a site , the number of fans on the company’s Facebook profile and the number of times the publications are shared or with the opening rate of a monthly newsletter .

Sales by representative . This KPI indicates how many sales each remote agent has closed in a given period of time. It is a direct measurement, but it is important to consider factors such as the seniority and experience of the collaborators , as well as the assigned client base.

Conversion rate . This metric indicates, for example, how many visitors to an online store provided their email to receive promotions or how many completed a purchase. In the case of sales agents, you have to take into account the number of leads that entered the sales funnel against the number of purchases or contracts closed. It is a key indicator of the profitability of daily marketing efforts and the effectiveness of the overall strategy.

#two. Customer Support

Call volume . Measures the number of incoming and outgoing calls handled by a support representative during a given period .

Average speed to reply . It is a key indicator of customer satisfaction. The goal is to keep average times as low as possible.

Service rating . Surely, after speaking with a customer service representative of a company, have you ever received a survey to rate your experience on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). With this same scoring system, you can confirm how productive the remote support team of your business is.

#3. Human Resources

Efficiency metric . It is the expense per employee; that is, of the costs that each worker means (from his payroll and benefits, to benefits such as lunch or taxi transfers). To calculate it, the operating cost of the previous 12 months is considered and divided by the total number of collaborators . If this metric is higher than the industry average, HR has to do a better job.

Benefits per employee . To calculate this KPI , you have to take the profits of the business areas that work remotely in the last 12 months and divide them by the number of collaborators. If the average profit per employee is low, it means that they have not adapted to the new scenario, that they need training to improve their self-management skills, or that you are hiring the wrong candidates.

Turnover rate . This indicator measures the number of employees who have voluntarily decided to leave the company. Understanding the reasons behind the resignations will help to understand what may be failing in the company : from the leadership and organizational skills of the heads of each area to improving the company culture.