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Managing a remote team is a different kind of challenge. Since remote team managers don’t have the usual desk check-ins or a quick glance around the office to see how things are going, they’ll have to rely on remote employee analytics.
If you're overwhelmed by what productivity metrics matter, how to track them, and how to get buy-in from your team, you've come to the right place.
Hubstaff shows you the data you need to spot what's working, catch issues early, and support your team more effectively. But first, let's make sure we're on the same page and define remote employee analytics.
Remote employee analytics is just what it sounds like: using data to better understand how your remote team works. It involves tracking patterns, behaviors, and performance over time.
This kind of visibility is necessary for managing remote teams effectively. It's easy for work to get lost in the shuffle when everyone’s working from different locations (and even different time zones). Deadlines slip, workloads become uneven, and no one knows who’s overloaded or underutilized until it’s too late.
Remote analytics is about combining all the small details:
How time is spent, which projects consume the most hours, who's active, and when.
From there, it's about turning them into something you can use to lead better. Here are some of the core metrics that workforce analytics can help you track:
Time worked (by project, task, or individual)
Activity levels based on keyboard and mouse input
App and website usage during work hours
Idle time vs. active time
Tasks completed vs. time spent
Workforce efficiency trends over days, weeks, or months
Team availability and login patterns
Budget usage per project or client
These numbers don't tell the whole story independently, but they give you a starting point. They show you what's happening across your team — even when you can't physically be there.
Managing a remote team without the right data is like flying blind.
You might have a great crew, solid goals, and a stack of tools, but it's hard to lead confidently without clear visibility into work progress.
You end up relying on assumptions, gut instincts, or sporadic check-ins. That might work in the short term, but small problems get missed over time, productivity dips go unnoticed, and decisions start to feel reactive instead of proactive.
Analytics makes a real difference here. But if you're not convinced, let's examine what happens without data.
You're guessing where time goes. Without data, it's tough to know how long tasks take. From there, you'll also struggle with employee throughput, staffing, and project budgeting.
Burnout sneaks in. You might not notice when someone consistently works late or picks up slack until it's already a problem. Once burnout becomes a challenge, retention issues soon follow.
Project delays feel unpredictable. If you don’t have early warning signs when a project is off track, you run the risk of going over budget.
Performance reviews can be awkward. Giving meaningful feedback is hard when you don't have concrete examples or trends to refer to. Without the tools, employees can also struggle to advocate for their career growth.
Trust in teams decreases. Team members might feel micromanaged or judged unfairly simply because there's no shared view of the work.
But with analytics in place, you can shift from putting out fires to making informed, confident decisions.
Transparency. Everyone has access to the same data, so there is no more confusion about who's doing what or where time is going.
Accountability. Team members know what’s expected and can see how their work contributes.
Better decision-making. You can spot patterns, see what’s working, and pivot when things aren’t before project delays and budgeting issues arise.
Fewer surprises. These early signals lead to better decision-making, which, in turn, lets you course-correct before a small issue becomes a major delay.
Stronger communication. Data gives conversation context, so feedback and support feel grounded and helpful, not arbitrary.
More balanced workloads. You can see who’s overloaded and who has room. This makes it easier to distribute work fairly.
If you've ever tried managing a remote team without any real data, you know how quickly things can get fuzzy. You're often left guessing how long work should take and how many people should be staffed on each project.
Hubstaff's analytics platform gives you a clear, real-time view of your team's activities without constantly asking for updates.
Hubstaff quietly runs in the background, collecting work data as it happens. It tracks time for specific tasks and projects and creates detailed, itemized timesheets in one click. Users can add manual time, leave notes, and submit for one-click approvals to streamline payroll.
Real-time remote employee productivity data lets you catch delays early, spot patterns, and make small tweaks before problems snowball. It gives you a live sense of momentum, so you’re not always playing catch-up.
It’s important to note that remote employee analytics are subjective. Not every manager wants to see the same thing, so tools like Hubstaff let you:
Customize your dashboard. Use drag-and-drop widgets to gain real-time updates on hours worked, earnings, PTO, and more.
Pull reports. You can access over 20 types of reports, and each can be filtered by team member, date range, project, and more. You can even export them in Excel or PDF format.
Tracking performance is a lot easier when you have a baseline for comparison. Hubstaff helps you set and follow key metrics, like:
How much time your team spends on billable work
How productive they are during different parts of the day
How project budgets are trending over time
It's especially helpful to see how your team compares to industry standards. That context helps you make smarter decisions.
Are you moving at a healthy pace, or are people stretched too thin? Are projects profitable, or are hidden inefficiencies eating up time?
Hubstaff's analytics give you the information you need to lead without guessing — not by adding more meetings or asking for status updates, but by gathering the details that help you manage with confidence.
Hubstaff gives you a clear overview of your team’s productivity by providing straightforward, real-time data and actionable data insights that offer clarity without overwhelming you with unnecessary details.
At its core, Hubstaff functions like a digital time clock. Team members start and stop the timer as they begin and end tasks, so time tracking aligns with the actual work. Beyond tracking hours, Hubstaff is a remote employee monitoring software that measures activity levels based on keyboard and mouse usage. This data helps identify patterns, such as when someone might be stuck on a task or if workloads are unevenly distributed.
Hubstaff allows you to observe trends in productivity over time. You can see:
Peak activity hours
How workloads fluctuate
Periods of high or low productivity
This information is invaluable for planning as it helps you manage resources effectively and identify workflow bottlenecks ahead of time for better performance management.
For instance, if you observe employee behavior and notice that productivity dips every Friday afternoon, you might decide to schedule lighter tasks during that period or hold team meetings then, so you reserve peak productivity times for more demanding work and better remote work management.
Understanding your team's performance is more meaningful when you have a standard against which to compare. Hubstaff provides industry-specific benchmarks, showing how your team's productivity compares to similar organizations.
If your team's activity levels are consistently below the industry average, you might need to rethink your team's workload distribution. It can also mean your team faces potential obstacles you aren't seeing.
Hubstaff connects with the tools you already use, like Slack, Trello, Asana, QuickBooks, and more. Your workforce analytics will fit right into your existing workflow.
The data flows where you need it without adding extra work — whether that’s syncing time with payroll, getting alerts in Slack, or seeing time worked in your project management apps.
Visual dashboards and charts make patterns obvious. No digging through spreadsheets. Just clear, at-a-glance info on how things are going.
Drill down into the details that matter. See productivity by project, person, or date range.
Spot bottlenecks before they become blockers. Know where work is getting stuck and make adjustments early.
Fewer check-ins and less burnout. With everyone aligned on the data, there’s less need for status meetings or back-and-forth.
Keep projects on track with real milestones. Compare effort vs. progress so teams stay focused on what moves the needle.
See how time connects to budgets. Know where time and money go so you can plan smarter.
Spot unusual activity. Detect suspicious activity for keyboard and mouse movement simulation tools, time fraud apps, insider threats, and more.
Hubstaff focuses on the metrics that help you understand how work gets done. You can do so without crossing boundaries and micromanaging with fully customizable employee activity monitoring permissions.
Time tracked. See how much time your team spends on tasks broken down by project, client, or individual.
Web and app activity. Understand which tools your team is using during work hours and how often.
Mouse and keyboard activity. Tracking employee activity through keyboard and mouse movement frequency gives a general sense of employee engagement without keystroke logging.
Optional screenshots. You can enable automatic screenshots at set intervals. Team members can review and delete their own screenshots anytime, so they’re always in control.
Focus time. Track uninterrupted work time to get a sense of how often your team can dive deep without distractions.
Time spent in meetings. Balance productive work time with how much of the day is going to calls and check-ins.
Industry benchmarks. Enhancing productivity is crucial, but how do you know where to start? Compare your team’s productivity against similar businesses to see where you stand and where you can improve.
Privacy should be a foundational pillar of tracking productivity in all remote work environments. Hubstaff is built with that in mind. That’s why we live by our guiding principles of transparency, access, and control, which help us maintain compliance and build trust with user activity monitoring.
Hubstaff helps teams gain visibility and the ability to control their own data for more ethical productivity management. Screenshots, for example, are completely optional or can be tweaked with blur settings, frequency adjustments, and more. Team members can delete any image they’re not comfortable with.
The platform also helps you ensure compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC-2 Type II. But more than anything, it’s the transparency that matters — because when people know what’s being tracked and the why behind it, it builds real trust.
Many businesses have used Hubstaff to simplify how they manage remote teams, grow their business, and develop healthy work habits.
Alpha Efficiency has been fully remote since day one, but as their agency grew, so did the challenge of staying on top of time, productivity, and project budgets.
They turned to Hubstaff to track time, monitor daily work patterns, and get clearer visibility into how their team was operating across time zones.
That shift helped them speed up payroll, reduce meetings, improve project accuracy — and even finish some client work 30% faster.
As Mr Digital expanded from a solo operation to a global agency, managing a growing remote team across countries quickly became a logistical challenge.
Using Hubstaff from day one enabled them to track time, boost productivity, and reduce unnecessary check-ins. This saved them time without compromising on quality.
That visibility gave them the confidence to fully embrace remote work, improve team performance through incentives, and track project profitability with more accuracy.
Unlock the power of data-driven decision-making with Hubstaff analytics and reporting features. Capture and analyze valuable insights and optimize your team’s productivity.