Excel daily productivity Log

[Rbcconst]

Does anyone have an excel Daily productivity log sheet they want to share? I want some of my work from home people to fill out a daily log of what they are doing during the day, besides walking there dog on my time.

 

[Badchoices03]

Does anyone have an excel Daily productivity log sheet they want to share? I want some of my work from home people to fill out a daily log of what they are doing during the day, besides surfing RDP on my time.

*fixed

 

[DWC]

I have 4 admins that work from home Tues/Thursday and sometimes Friday . The response time is noticeably different on office days vs home. Pre-Vid vs post isn’t even close.

 

[Rbcconst]

I have 4 admins that work from home Tues/Thursday and sometimes Friday . The response time is noticeably different on office days vs home. Pre-Vid vs post isn’t even close.

haha thats what I am saying. I need some accountability. Most of our team works from home Monday and Friday.

 

[BabyRay]

Good luck!

Back in the day (retired now), we had sales people in multiple states. We continually had to stay on them to get sales reports.

So, yes, we expected reports, but not detailed activity reports. That would have gone over like a lead balloon. Instead we had a required minimum number of sales calls, and sales quotas.

Perhaps there’s a way to track their productivity, instead of fighting that battle(?)

 

[DaytonaBabe]

 

[ChumpChange]

I’m sure a law firm or accounting firm could easily provide. They love billable hour sheets.

 

[LuauLounge]

They will spend more time filling out the report than they did working.

 

[DWC]

View attachment 1352700

We have detailed laptop/system usage reports available. I’m not sure i want anyone to start pulling those though.

 

[Rbcconst]

They will spend more time filling out the report than they did working.

at least there doing something lol.

 

[AEA]

Does anyone have an excel Daily productivity log sheet they want to share? I want some of my work from home people to fill out a daily log of what they are doing during the day, besides walking there dog on my time.

Why don't you have them use the same one you do?

 

[NicPaus]

How do they work from home doing construction? Unless it's office personnel.

 

[Rbcconst]

How do they work from home doing construction? Unless it's office personnel.

Estimators and admin work from home on Mon and Fridays.

 

[ChevelleSB406]

What kind of team do you have, what industry are you in? I build out CRM systems and related technology, within the sales division of an industrial software company. The past few years I have focused my attention on Activity management and engagement. Its quite the game changer to use ai tools to align engagement to accounts, opps, and contacts. I think most will get a garbage in garbage out end result from manual logs in excel of what people are up to, most of it will be nonsense. These kinds of things work with lawyers for billable hours, and R&D people that have to bill their hours to various cost centers and projects.

My intention with unlocking this data for our company was not to babysit our sellers, but rather increase forecast accuracy. When a seller is telling you they have a significant deal coming in, but has not had a meeting yet with the economic buyer or began the paperwork process, you would be less likely to forecast the deal.

Picked up in the dragnet of course is seeing how many emails, meetings, calls, etc that your sellers are doing, and what an average number looks like across the company. It quickly highlights those that need "coaching" and deeper review.

I would advise a strategy of defining what your KPI's are, what you think will give you an accurate measurement of them, and reasonable expectation for level of effort of your sellers.

If I had to fill out a sheet on what all I did in a day, it would be 100 lines in an excel and take me a couple of hours. Not sustainable, but for those that maybe need "coaching" it could be the stick in a a carrot & stick world for a performance improvement program, and once the results are where you want them, no longer require said Excel sheet.

 

[Bpracing1127]

so i work from home full time, doing a "productivity" chart is a complete waste of time. You need to set the expectation and hold it hard. Im saying this as an employee and not a boss. By setting the expectation of performance whether it be PO's, sales entries, contacts. whatever you need them to do, you control their output and productivity. With all work from home employees the expectation should be higher than in office. They don't meet the goals/expectation then its warning with training. Happens again cya!!

Now if they meet/exceed expectation in say 30 hours a week. Either they need more work or if that is ok then so be it. Don't punish for being efficient with their work. If they have time and are doing high quality work and meeting goals give them a raise and more work.

the premise of work from home is you don't/can't micromanage. If you want to micromanage then pull them back into the office.

 

[n2otoofast4u]

What kind of team do you have, what industry are you in? I build out CRM systems and related technology, within the sales division of an industrial software company. The past few years I have focused my attention on Activity management and engagement. Its quite the game changer to use ai tools to align engagement to accounts, opps, and contacts. I think most will get a garbage in garbage out end result from manual logs in excel of what people are up to, most of it will be nonsense. These kinds of things work with lawyers for billable hours, and R&D people that have to bill their hours to various cost centers and projects.

My intention with unlocking this data for our company was not to babysit our sellers, but rather increase forecast accuracy. When a seller is telling you they have a significant deal coming in, but has not had a meeting yet with the economic buyer or began the paperwork process, you would be less likely to forecast the deal.

Picked up in the dragnet of course is seeing how many emails, meetings, calls, etc that your sellers are doing, and what an average number looks like across the company. It quickly highlights those that need "coaching" and deeper review.

I would advise a strategy of defining what your KPI's are, what you think will give you an accurate measurement of them, and reasonable expectation for level of effort of your sellers.

If I had to fill out a sheet on what all I did in a day, it would be 100 lines in an excel and take me a couple of hours. Not sustainable, but for those that maybe need "coaching" it could be the stick in a a carrot & stick world for a performance improvement program, and once the results are where you want them, no longer require said Excel sheet.

What CRM do you sell? Construction based? If so, PM me. We are going to pull the trigger on a CRM platform early Q2.

 

[C-2]

If you are a simple business, and if the goal is to keep them in check, why not keep it simple and make a quick and easy Word table? Have them fill out the project they worked on, and the time they spent working on it. They email it to you at the end of their shift. Once in a while, you pick a log item you're familiar with and question them about it. Keeps everybody on their toes.

Don't laugh, I work in a State law firm, and we also used the same simple logs at another administrative law enforcement agency. Both logs satisfy the State's telework agreements.

 

[rivermobster]

so i work from home full time, doing a "productivity" chart is a complete waste of time. You need to set the expectation and hold it hard. Im saying this as an employee and not a boss. By setting the expectation of performance whether it be PO's, sales entries, contacts. whatever you need them to do, you control their output and productivity. With all work from home employees the expectation should be higher than in office. They don't meet the goals/expectation then its warning with training. Happens again cya!!

Now if they meet/exceed expectation in say 30 hours a week. Either they need more work or if that is ok then so be it. Don't punish for being efficient with their work. If they have time and are doing high quality work and meeting goals give them a raise and more work.

the premise of work from home is you don't/can't micromanage. If you want to micromanage then pull them back into the office.

This.^^^

 

[Rbcconst]

If you are a simple business, and if the goal is to keep them in check, why not keep it simple and make a quick and easy Word table? Have them fill out the project they worked on, and the time they spent working on it. They email it to you at the end of their shift. Once in a while, you pick a log item you're familiar with and question them about it. Keeps everybody on their toes.

Don't laugh, I work in a State law firm, and we also used the same simple logs at another administrative law enforcement agency. Both logs satisfy the State's telework agreements.

This is along the lines of what im talking about. I have no intent on a long formal report just a quick daily log they have to fill out to keep them honest. I think I have found a good excel sheet thats going to work. Has a tab for each day and can be turned in at the end of the week.

 

[HCP3]

Make them go to work. Problem solved.

 

[Rbcconst]

so i work from home full time, doing a "productivity" chart is a complete waste of time. You need to set the expectation and hold it hard. Im saying this as an employee and not a boss. By setting the expectation of performance whether it be PO's, sales entries, contacts. whatever you need them to do, you control their output and productivity. With all work from home employees the expectation should be higher than in office. They don't meet the goals/expectation then its warning with training. Happens again cya!!

Now if they meet/exceed expectation in say 30 hours a week. Either they need more work or if that is ok then so be it. Don't punish for being efficient with their work. If they have time and are doing high quality work and meeting goals give them a raise and more work.

the premise of work from home is you don't/can't micromanage. If you want to micromanage then pull them back into the office.

Part of the issue is this, we do not have something that is easily trackable and they have multiple tasks. I would agree with you if it was as easy as saying your responsible for doing 5 estimates per day and then on the work from home day they only got 2 done you would know they were slacking. Our estimators need to do estimates which is easy to track but there not always doing estimates, they have follow up calls, some relationship building, light marketing, light admin work. Quite truthfully most of the time they just want to estimate so the other stuff there forced to do. Im not looking for a formal report but a simple daily log keeping them honest. If they don’t have estimates to do that day they need to be doing there other tasks that are not easily trackable. As well knowing the metrics of what they are spending there time on helps for growth. Lets say they are spending a lot of time on admin and falling behind on estimates you know you can hire an assistant or dump those tasks to someone else.

I feel like if they are being honest and really working then why should they have a hard time filling out a quick log. I mean they never say “hey boss im caught up, anything I can help with” I know a lot of the non trackable items are not being completed when at home

 

[Rbcconst]

Make them go to work. Problem solved.

Damn straight. I wish the work from home options were not there. But if there are other companies with work from home options and your the one company who doesnt allow it you will not attract good talent.

 

[Bobby V]

Part of the issue is this, we do not have something that is easily trackable and they have multiple tasks. I would agree with you if it was as easy as saying your responsible for doing 5 estimates per day and then on the work from home day they only got 2 done you would know they were slacking. Our estimators need to do estimates which is easy to track but there not always doing estimates, they have follow up calls, some relationship building, light marketing, light admin work. Quite truthfully most of the time they just want to estimate so the other stuff there forced to do. Im not looking for a formal report but a simple daily log keeping them honest. If they don’t have estimates to do that day they need to be doing there other tasks that are not easily trackable. As well knowing the metrics of what they are spending there time on helps for growth. Lets say they are spending a lot of time on admin and falling behind on estimates you know you can hire an assistant or dump those tasks to someone else.

I feel like if they are being honest and really working then why should they have a hard time filling out a quick log. I mean they never say “hey boss im caught up, anything I can help with” I know a lot of the non trackable items are not being completed when at home

Just curious. Once they sell a project do they just pass the work onto someone else and move onto the next estimate. When I was a estimator for fire sprinklers I would sell the project and then become the PM until the project was finished.which sometimes would take up a lot of time. I also would keep estimating for future projects and turn in my bid/awarded projects at the end of the month.

 

[Rbcconst]

What kind of team do you have, what industry are you in? I build out CRM systems and related technology, within the sales division of an industrial software company. The past few years I have focused my attention on Activity management and engagement. Its quite the game changer to use ai tools to align engagement to accounts, opps, and contacts. I think most will get a garbage in garbage out end result from manual logs in excel of what people are up to, most of it will be nonsense. These kinds of things work with lawyers for billable hours, and R&D people that have to bill their hours to various cost centers and projects.

My intention with unlocking this data for our company was not to babysit our sellers, but rather increase forecast accuracy. When a seller is telling you they have a significant deal coming in, but has not had a meeting yet with the economic buyer or began the paperwork process, you would be less likely to forecast the deal.

Picked up in the dragnet of course is seeing how many emails, meetings, calls, etc that your sellers are doing, and what an average number looks like across the company. It quickly highlights those that need "coaching" and deeper review.

I would advise a strategy of defining what your KPI's are, what you think will give you an accurate measurement of them, and reasonable expectation for level of effort of your sellers.

If I had to fill out a sheet on what all I did in a day, it would be 100 lines in an excel and take me a couple of hours. Not sustainable, but for those that maybe need "coaching" it could be the stick in a a carrot & stick world for a performance improvement program, and once the results are where you want them, no longer require said Excel sheet.

We are in construction. One team does remodeling, new builds and commercial. Another team does restoration for water, fire, mold damage.

Good Idea on the KPI’s. We are working on this.

We do use pipedrive for a crm but only for sales.

We use another job management platform called dash and we are able to check KPI’s.

But nothing we have tracks an individuals productivity or gives you any indication what they spend most of their time doing.

My desire for a daily log is two fold 1 it keeps the individual honest when they might not be a 100% self motivated self starter. And second will help with growth to know I don’t have a high level person spending to much time on low level tasks. And tells you when to hire additional staff

 

[Rbcconst]

Just curious. Once they sell a project do they just pass the work onto someone else and move onto the next estimate. When I was a estimator for fire sprinklers I would sell the project and then become the PM until the project was finished.which sometimes would take up a lot of time. I also would keep estimating for future projects and turn in my bid/awarded projects at the end of the month.

On the remodeling side the estimator is also the PM.

On the restoration side there is a really high job count and estimate count so once the estimate is approved by the insurance carrier the estimator passes to a PM. For small jobs the estimator is pretty well done once they pass it off unless they missed something or an unkown comes up, then they are responsible for supplementing to the carrier. On larger jobs the estimator still passes it to a pm upon approval but they are responsible to still work closely with the PM to make sure its done as estimated and they will hit margin.

 

[BHC Vic]

in the field I always used daily report logs in procore. Description and pictures. Worked great, use it at the training center as well but I don’t think it’s going to give you as detailed a breakdown as what it sounds like you want

 

[Icky]

Just curious. Once they sell a project do they just pass the work onto someone else and move onto the next estimate. When I was a estimator for fire sprinklers I would sell the project and then become the PM until the project was finished.which sometimes would take up a lot of time. I also would keep estimating for future projects and turn in my bid/awarded projects at the end of the month.

Same here to some degree, plus a few other items. My day is spent chasing squirrels

 

[Ace in the Hole]

Does anyone have an excel Daily productivity log sheet they want to share? I want some of my work from home people to fill out a daily log of what they are doing during the day, besides walking there dog on my time.

As a work from home employee who generates millions in revenue a year.. if my boss asked me for this I would not hesitate to tell him to piss up a rope. I already told him fuck no a few months ago about listing my entire contact list into a “conversion tracking software.” For corp tracking…my book is my book…not yours. Talk about micromanagement… Second thing I would do is be going to my direct competitor.

My revenue generated and GP
Numbers are all they need to know to determine if I’m doing my job….

 

[LuauLounge]

First job, straight commission, only paperwork wanted were purchase orders. Spent 5 years there, made good money and didn’t kill myself doing it. Owner was retiring and sold. New owners wanted everyone on salary, and sales reports were #1 priority. We parted ways 3 months later.

 

[530RL]

Consider whether you want to measure Activity and Effort or want to measure Results.

Activity and Effort that doesn’t lead to measurable desired Results is no better than paying them to walk their dog.

 

[Bpracing1127]

As a work from home employee who generates millions in revenue a year.. if my boss asked me for this I would not hesitate to tell him to piss up a rope. I already told him fuck no a few months ago about listing my entire contact list into a “conversion tracking software.” For corp tracking…my book is my book…not yours. Talk about micromanagement… Second thing I would do is be going to my direct competitor.

My revenue generated and GP
Numbers are all they need to know to determine if I’m doing my job….

this!!!!!!!

 

[LuauLounge]

First job, straight commission, only paperwork wanted were purchase orders. Spent 5 years there, made good money and didn’t kill myself doing it. Owner was retiring and sold. New owners wanted everyone on salary, and sales reports were #1 priority. We parted ways 3 months later.

Epilog
They bankrupted the company 6 months later. Someone picked up the ashes and ran it for another 40 years. Another 50+ year old company down the drain.

 

[Sleek-Jet]

Tell me you don't trust your employees without telling me you don't trust your employees.

 

[Bpracing1127]

Tell me you don't trust your employees without telling me you don't trust your employees.

Yep, without trust comes micromanagement. Set the goals and if they don’t meet the goal find someone who will. Best part about remote work is the talent pool is nationally now vs local. Because of that it’s a bit more cut throat for that job

 

[Rbcconst]

As a work from home employee who generates millions in revenue a year.. if my boss asked me for this I would not hesitate to tell him to piss up a rope. I already told him fuck no a few months ago about listing my entire contact list into a “conversion tracking software.” For corp tracking…my book is my book…not yours. Talk about micromanagement… Second thing I would do is be going to my direct competitor.

My revenue generated and GP
Numbers are all they need to know to determine if I’m doing my job….

Not all employees are the same. You have high producers who you don’t mess with then you have guys who do the bare minimum on a good day that you have to track activity. High producers with there own book of business are not that easy to find.

 

[BHC Vic]

I don’t understand why people get so defensive? I bust my ass all day long. I would prefer my boss tracks what I do so he can see how much more I’m doing than everyone else. Wish we had a system like that because I’m tired of carrying dead weight

 

[Activated]

I don’t understand why people get so defensive? I bust my ass all day long. I would prefer my boss tracks what I do so he can see how much more I’m doing than everyone else. Wish we had a system like that because I’m tired of carrying dead weight

…and that is why I hated being a Teamster when I was one back in the day.

 

[bilz]

Move the work at home days to Tuesday, Thursday. That way it won't seem like a long weekend. They may fuck off less because you will be seeing them prior to and immediately after there skate day at home. You can also just move the ones you suspect of abusing the schedule. If you suspect abuse, are they really that great?

 

[530RL]

I don’t understand why people get so defensive? I bust my ass all day long. I would prefer my boss tracks what I do so he can see how much more I’m doing than everyone else. Wish we had a system like that because I’m tired of carrying dead weight

Yep.

When I played basketball, at the end of every game we got a stat sheet. It showed our results in black and white for all to see.

Think about coaching a sports team without data to analyze who is objectively performing and who is not. How can we expect a manager to manage, set goals, set schedules or figure out relative performance without objective measurement against goals and objectives.

You can’t manage it, if you can’t measure it. And that applies to sports as well as business.

 

[Sleek-Jet]

Yep.

When I played basketball, at the end of every game we got a stat sheet. It showed our results in black and white for all to see.

Think about coaching a sports team without data to analyze who is objectively performing and who is not. How can we expect a manager to manage, set goals, set schedules or figure out relative performance without objective measurement against goals and objectives.

You can’t manage it, if you can’t measure it. And that applies to sports as well as business.

I can do that without a "mother here is what I worked on" sheet.

 

[530RL]

I can do that without a "mother here is what I worked on" sheet.

Yes, that is why I suggested they consider tracking results versus activity or effort, or as you say “what I worked on”.

What one works on doesn't matter, it is results that matter.

 

[Ace in the Hole]

I can do that without a "mother here is what I worked on" sheet.

Exactly… They obviously track all of the PO‘s I put in they track all the sales orders I put in they track the gross and net profits etc. I am paid off of a percentage of GP that also depends on whether our warehouses ever touch the product or not. Much of what I do in a given month is never seen by my direct manager. He sees the report at the end of the month, and when he does payroll approvals. We talk about once a week briefly, I stopped into the office one or two times a month to make appearances.

I’m not submitting our call log nor a meeting reference list nor a who I had dinner with etc. my expense report is itemized with some of that stuff.

I was pretty clear when I on boarded at this company but I would never attend sales meetings, nor would I do office hours nor would I do micromanagement. I’ve been here almost a year. Pretty happy where I’m at, think I’ll stick around bc they leave me alone..

 

[530RL]

Exactly… They obviously track all of the PO‘s I put in they track all the sales orders I put in they track the gross and net profits etc. I am paid off of a percentage of GP that also depends on whether our warehouses ever touch the product or not. Much of what I do in a given month is never seen by my direct manager. He sees the report at the end of the month, and when he does payroll approvals. We talk about once a week briefly, I stopped into the office one or two times a month to make appearances.

I’m not submitting our call log nor a meeting reference list nor a who I had dinner with etc. my expense report is itemized with some of that stuff.

I was pretty clear when I on boarded at this company but I would never attend sales meetings, nor would I do office hours nor would I do micromanagement. I’ve been here almost a year. Pretty happy where I’m at, think I’ll stick around bc they leave me alone..

Management loves employees like you describe, unfortunately they are as rare as the dodo bird.

Large organizations at a high level function on realistic plans and measuring results to that plan. Effective upper management allows those managers farther down the organization to manage their different people in different ways to deliver the desired results. Sales meetings aren’t for high achievers, they are for average and below average achievers. All large organizations are full of all types, or they are not a large organization.

The theory is quite simple, the execution is quite hard. I always found it very challenging and that they should change the title from manager to counselor.

 

[rivermobster]

Does anyone have an excel Daily productivity log sheet they want to share? I want some of my work from home people to fill out a daily log of what they are doing during the day, besides walking there dog on my time.

If you Really want to do this ...

ChatGPT can help. Not sure how far you'll get with the free version, but the paid version Will work with Excel.

There are a shit ton of videos on YouTube...

 

[ChevelleSB406]

The software tools I have integrated into Salesforce at our company are People.ai (which auto captures engagement/activities from Outlook/Teams/LinkedIn/Zoom/etc) and ClosePlan which templatizes and embeds the MEDDPICC sales process for our company into Salesforce for our sales team. We sell industrial software, on a large scale, 18 month average sales cycle.

In regards to some of the comments here from sellers, I have heard them my whole career, and were the same when I was selling. Whether they are your clients or your employers clients vary from job to job. Depending on the role and the maturity of the company in its processes dictate what is expected besides just the number and the quota. That only takes you so far in the large scheme of things. Added metrics help with forecast accuracy, pipeline velocity, coaching opportunities, etc. For example, I was always very strong in the early stages of an opportunity, but struggled with my experience level at the time with Legal and paperwork process, once you were working with other members of your clients team, beyond just your champion and end users. This data would jump off the page with these added metrics and visibility.

I don't know what all is possible with what you have in your CRM platform, but for the industry you are describing and the tasks you are describing, I would definitely want to see recorded data and metrics around quote volume, time between quote created to quote accepted, average number of revisions to a quote, etc.

I agree with you on needing to know work volumes for certain tasks, as you don't want your most expensive assets stuck doing too much busy work, we did the same analysis and staffed a deal desk to help with subscription conversions of perpetual license deals. We did not want our sellers stuck on that all, but rather be out selling.

Throwing people at it also isn't always the answer with sellers, as its perfectly fine and proper to have reasonable expectations of dilligence and data accuracy from your sales team. Them simply getting the handshake is not enough for truly well compensated sellers, that was a transition our company had to push for a few years.


If you go with something Excel based for the time being, I am not sure a weekly activity log would net much insight, but maybe a template/checklist per "job" would be more useful to you. Define the actions that they are supposed to be managing with their back office work and make it based on the "job" rather than the day, and see how they perform on those weekly.

I am a master level excel user, but its only a bandaid and don't spend too much efffort on it. Even in sharepoint and everything else, its just its own silo of stale data that doesn't really tie to anything, and you can't report on it. Building tasks and completion of tasks into whatever system you are reporting the health of your pipeline and delivery of your services will be what is worth investing time and money into, the rest will never truly yield what your business needs.

 

[RVR_RCN]

Need to set "Leader Standard Work" for accountability - different than a work log. Sets daily, quarterly and yearly objectives. This is much different than asking what they are doing every minute of every day.

 

[Instigator]

As a work from home employee who generates millions in revenue a year.. if my boss asked me for this I would not hesitate to tell him to piss up a rope. I already told him fuck no a few months ago about listing my entire contact list into a “conversion tracking software.” For corp tracking…my book is my book…not yours. Talk about micromanagement… Second thing I would do is be going to my direct competitor.

My revenue generated and GP
Numbers are all they need to know to determine if I’m doing my job….

I completely agree with this. Revenue and Net Profit cure most all questions.
or
Have them send a screenshot of E-Mails of sent and received, Call Log from Cell Phone, Screen shot from Text msgs or just look at their phone records and email logs. Pretty simple to see who is doing what.
A simple spreadsheet that shows 30 minute time slots can also be used.
You likely wont' like what you see nor the results if you want to become the Daily Arm Chair Quarterback though. If you don't know what your people are doing, my question is why don't YOU know what they are doing?
Ask your people how they can show you what they are working on rather than you tell them.
It is my opinion that you can either lead as a Dictator or govern as a Democracy.
Dictatorships only work until the eventual revolution happens and Democracies are hard to control but, at least the Democracy is controllable with the right group.
Pick your poison.