With over 10 years of experience, Weekdone has provided tens of thousands of teams from startups to Fortune 500 with a simple goal-setting, status updates and progress reporting tool. This is why we developed Weekdone.
Weekdone is your solution for connecting managers and employees through real-time updates, e-mail reports and social newsfeed. Try it here! It’s free forever for small teams and offers a free trial for larger ones! Read about the benefits here.
Falling efficiency, lack of focus, no drive.
Said the team leader who doesn’t have good reporting software
Most team leaders today struggle either with information overload or deficit of information. Less often we see a situation where all the data is present at the moment of decision-making. What is more, a lot of managers still make decisions based on gut feeling and not so much on data and facts. Employee progress reports help to get the insights you need to your team.
Since progress reports allow you to know what your team is currently up to, they enable you to improve decision-making and enhance team focus. Furthermore, implementing this to your day-to-day life is hassle-free.
We are proud to present our very first gifographic on 6 steps to efficient employee progress reporting:
Let’s take this all together. The 6 most simplest steps are:
Step 1. Discover the easiest reporting process
No doubt about it, Skype and eBay where on to something valuable, when they implemented the PPP process in their teams. The easiest and most efficient management technique for recurring progress reporting. It communicates three most important aspects in your team: progress made, plans for the upcoming days and challenges faced.
[Tweet “PPP communicates 3 essentials in any #team: #progress made, #plans, #problems encountered.”]
You can read more about the process from our PPP resource page.
Step 2. Set up objectives
Before moving any further it is important to mark down objectives. We have talked a lot about setting the right goals and introduced one best practice called the OKR’s. But did you know that by committing to someone else what you are going to accomplish will increase execution rate by 65%? So, write those goals down, show these to your team and they are able to start moving towards them.
[Tweet “By committing to someone else what you are going to accomplish will increase execution rate by 65%”]
Step 3. Know the future plans
Ask employees to mark down 5-7 most important things they need to accomplish in the near future. According to American Society for Training and Development having a specific place to check in on the status of your progress will increase the probability of meeting your goal by 95%. So, ask each individual team-member – What are you going to do next?
Step 4. Be aware of the progress
Let your employees write down the key things that got done during the previous week. It’s amazing what results you might get. Furthermore, it might come out that often the busiest people get the least done. it’s often debated that most effective workers are the ones who attempt tasks in short bursts of concentration, rather than long bouts of meandering.
Step 5. Discover problems employees are facing
Ask your employees – what problems do you face? Reporting about challenges can reduce workplace stress and also decrease the task completion time. Being open and honest about difficulties can improve internal communication. Did you know that 1 million U.S workers call in sick to work every day due to stress? Decrease the stress level and encourage your team to face up the challenges.
Step 6. Use progress reporting software to save time
Instead of implementing this process via e-mail or spreadsheet, you can try weekly status reporting software. This will save you a lot of time, since it automatically compiles the reports, sends notifications to your employees and helps everyone be aware of each others’ progress, plans and problems.