Are your remote employees watching Netflix instead of answering emails? Are they missing sales opportunities because they slept in? Are they stretching one hour of real work across a full eight-hour day?

It is hard to argue against the benefits of working remotely. Remote employees tend to be more productive, more efficient, and happier — with higher sales and better employee retention for the organizations that employ them. But your employees are not guaranteed to be productive just because they work from home.

From running a fully remote operation for the last decade, I can tell you that many people simply are not wired to be remote workers. Without accountability, they slack off. It has happened to me more times than I would like to admit — and it is why I created EmailAnalytics. Here is how to know if your remote employees are working, and what to do if they are not.

How Should You Define Productivity for Remote Workers?

Productivity in a remote environment can and should be quantified differently than in a traditional office. In a traditional office, we loosely gauge productivity by how many hours a person spends at their desk and how busy they look. In retrospect, this approach is flawed. Just being at the office does not make you productive, and workers can easily pretend to be busy by randomly clicking and typing. There is also the George Costanza approach to simulating productivity — acting stressed and annoyed to seem overworked when there is very little to do. There are also busy braggers who project an image of being overwhelmed without delivering proportional output.

Consider a hypothetical: back at the office, an employee completed 10 tasks in an 8-hour period. At home, they complete 11 tasks in 2 hours and take the rest of the day off. Are they more or less productive? It depends entirely on whether you measure hours worked or results produced. Decide how you want to define work for your workforce before you start evaluating who is “slacking off.”

What Are the Best Ways to Measure Remote Employee Productivity?

Hours worked. This was once the primary way to measure productivity, but it is typically outclassed by output-based metrics for remote teams. If you still want to track hours, use one of the top-ranked time tracking apps.

Tasks completed. If your team uses task-based project management platforms, counting completed tasks is a convenient and easy-to-quantify metric — though not all tasks are equal in difficulty. See our list of top-ranked team management tools for platforms that make this easy.

Emails sent and received. One of the most surprisingly reliable ways to measure employee productivity is to track email volume. Since many aspects of work are tied to email in one way or another, email activity is an effective proxy for overall workload — and for spotting when someone is doing less than others. EmailAnalytics makes it easy to measure these statistics across your entire team.

Active time. You can observe the time an employee is “active” or “online” using instant messaging apps or project management platforms. See our list of top-ranked employee productivity tracking software for tools that measure this.

Remote monitoring. For more granular visibility, full-fledged employee monitoring tools can track detailed productivity statistics, web browsing activity, and even mouse and keyboard inputs. This is the most invasive option and should be used carefully with clear employee disclosure.

What Are the Signs a Remote Employee Is Not Working?

Should you fire an employee who worked 39 hours instead of 40? Or issue a strike for missing a single deadline? Probably not. Everyone slacks off to some degree, some of the time. But these are the situations that warrant genuine concern.

Low-quality or incomplete work. Is the employee closing out tasks without actually completing them? Are they submitting documents with obvious spelling and typographical errors? Beyond surface-level metrics like hours worked, cutting corners and doing unsatisfactory work is a clear signal to intervene.

Significant drop in performance or productivity. A sudden, unexplained decline in whatever metrics you track is one of the strongest indicators. If an employee typically sends 100 emails per day and that number drops to 40, something has changed. If received emails remain the same but sent emails drop, it is likely a slacking problem rather than a workload reduction.

Stagnated learning, growth, or improvement. New employees make mistakes and struggle with certain concepts. That is expected. What is concerning is when there is no improvement after a few months on the job — it suggests the employee is not actively trying to advance.

Attitude or personality issues. Consistent negativity, back talk, complaining, or being difficult to work with is a productivity problem even if individual output looks acceptable. The employee may be dragging down team morale and overall performance.

Chronic unavailability. Everyone should take breaks. Walking away from the computer for fresh air or a snack is fine. But if your manager calls six times in a day and you do not pick up any of those times, that is a problem. Chronically unavailable employees are probably not meeting expectations, and at minimum, it is worth a conversation.

Breach of responsibilities and duties. Employee responsibilities vary by role and organization, so this is harder to quantify objectively. But if an employee is clearly failing to meet expectations or shirking significant responsibilities, action is necessary.

What Should You Do When a Remote Employee Is Underperforming?

Have a conversation. Start with a direct, private conversation. There may be more to the situation than you realize — the employee might be handling untracked work, or a temporary personal issue could be affecting their performance. Either way, you address the problem head-on and cooperate on a solution.

Set clear expectations. Identify exactly how and why the employee is falling short, and explain what improvement looks like. Be as objective and quantifiable as possible. Instead of “you need to be better,” say “you need to close 12 tasks a day” or “I need you available until 5 PM every day.”

Take corrective action. With specific metrics in place, monitor performance. If the employee continues to underperform despite clear expectations and support, escalate with a formal performance improvement plan, a strike system, demotion, or termination — depending on the circumstances.

How Do You Have a Productive Performance Conversation with a Remote Employee?

Focus on what you know. Do not let suspicions or hunches dominate the conversation. Instead of “it seems like you are watching movies instead of working,” say “your task close rate is down 20 percent.” Instead of “you are not pulling your weight,” say “your email response times are 40 percent longer than the team average.” Be ready to prove your statements with data.

Point out solutions, not problems. It is fine to introduce the problem, such as slow email response time, but then shift the conversation toward resolving it. For example, “I think keeping your email platform open throughout the day can help you respond faster” or “What do you plan to do to respond more quickly?”

Keep it brief. You do not need to schedule an hour-long meeting to address the problem. As long as you make your point clear and establish a path to resolution, you can both move on.

Be unambiguous. Too many managers use ambiguous language to avoid confrontation. In professional settings, this causes misunderstandings and additional conflict. Instead of “I think we would all be more comfortable if you were more available,” say “We expect you to be available on chat from 12 to 3.”

Do not threaten. Employees should understand that there are consequences for not meeting expectations, but overt threats make people defensive and hostile. Instead of “If you do not improve, I am going to have to fire you,” keep your tone positive and supportive: “You need to meet your deadlines more consistently if you want to succeed in this position.” Provide tools and resources that can help them do it. This implies the necessity of improvement without making a hostile accusation.

Whether your remote employees are performing well or falling behind, get ahead of the problem by tracking your team’s email activity. EmailAnalytics shows you how many emails your team sends and receives, how fast they respond to leads, clients, and customers, and where time is being spent across threads and conversations.