Your Step-by-Step Guide to Productivity Tracking in 2025

Employee productivity is an evolving concept, especially for remote and hybrid organizations. The productivity tracking tools and strategies we once used in shared office spaces simply don’t work for most remote-friendly teams.

This shift is happening at a critical time for workplace efficiency. Desk workers report spending a third of their day on low-value tasks, according to the Workforce Lab at Slack. While AI saves time, employees tend to fill it with 37 percent more routine administrative work rather than strategic activities. This productivity drain has made workplace analytics software essential for team leaders, who can use metrics to identify patterns and challenges, make targeted improvements, and create a culture of accountability.

Let’s explore how employee productivity tracking looks in the modern workplace.

What is productivity tracking?

Productivity tracking tools and methods capture employees’ work activities—including tasks completed, time spent on each task, and overall efficiency—and turn these activities into data for analysis.

That analysis helps gauge how well an organization’s workflow is operating. A workflow is best understood as all the steps or tasks employees take to complete a process from start to finish. Consistent patterns help work move smoothly from person to person or team to team, making it easier to spot and fix bottlenecks. Team leaders might use productivity insights to adjust employee responsibilities, tweak processes, assess the need for automated workflows, and use other supportive tools. For example, because productivity is often linked to employee morale and satisfaction, a dip in productivity metrics could indicate deeper issues in team structure, dynamics, or processes.

Step-by-step guide to track team productivity

1. Define clear productivity metrics that match your business goals

When it comes to productivity metrics, business leaders and their employees aren’t always on the same page. According to Slack’s 2023 State of Work report, desk workers believe key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals should be the most important productivity metrics. However, executives believe it’s best to measure productivity based on employees’ visible activity.

Before adding a new productivity tracking solution to your tech stack, it’s important to consider what productivity actually means to your specific team and organization. The best productivity tracking method for one team might not make sense for another. Likewise, the most relevant metrics vary depending on each team’s function and objectives.

Here are some common KPIs to consider, depending on your team’s unique characteristics:

• Time management metrics, such as time spent on tasks and adherence to deadlines
• Quality measurements, such as error rates and customer satisfaction
• Project progress metrics, such as completion of project milestones and task completion rates
• Employee engagement, feedback, and satisfaction

To improve business productivity, leaders must align these metrics with their team’s core objectives rather than simply tracking activity. The goal is to measure value creation, not just time spent working.

2. Choose productivity tracking software that’s right for your team

Choose workplace analytics software that provides actionable insights without friction, especially asynchronous-friendly tools for remote teams. When evaluating productivity tracking tools, prioritize:

• User experience and minimal disruption to existing work streams
• Integration capabilities with your current tech stack. For example, Slack, the AI-powered work operating system, seamlessly integrates with today’s essential productivity apps.
• Privacy features that respect employee boundaries
• Customizable dashboards that highlight your chosen productivity metrics
• Data export options for deeper analysis

Balancing visibility with trust is crucial. Overly invasive monitoring can damage morale and actually decrease productivity, so focus on tools that measure outcomes rather than monitoring every moment.

3. Enhance productivity tracking with AI

Integrating AI time management tools with your productivity tracking system creates a powerful combination that not only measures performance but also gives employees more time back in the day for deep work.

Case in point: productivity takes a hit when employees can’t find the information they need. According to Gartner, 47 percent of digital workers have struggled to find critical information, and 32 percent have made the wrong decision due to a lack of knowledge. But what if all your team members could instantly understand the context of any project or policy in your company’s history? This is how Slack AI transforms work.

By bringing conversations, files, and decisions into searchable channels, Slack creates a gold mine of institutional knowledge that grows more valuable over time. Its AI features tap this data repository to deliver actionable insights, so employees can make better decisions faster. As teams discuss topics in channels, hold huddles, share clips, and automate processes with workflows, every interaction adds to this searchable knowledge base.

Pairing AI time management tools with your productivity tracking system creates a powerful combination that doesn’t just measure performance—it gives employees more time to tackle important tasks.

4. Include employees in the tracking process to build trust

Rolling out your productivity tracking approach with complete transparency is the best way to maximize work productivity while maintaining trust. Involving team members in the implementation process and clearly communicating how data will be used supports both individual growth and team success.

Effective implementation includes:

• Hosting kickoff meetings to explain the purpose and benefits of productivity tracking
• Providing training on how to make the most of new productivity tools
• Creating opportunities for feedback on the tracking system
• Establishing clear boundaries around what will and won’t be tracked
• Setting expectations for how often metrics will be reviewed

When team members understand that tracking aims to identify process improvements and provide support, rather than micromanage, they’re more likely to embrace new solutions.

5. Regularly review data to identify patterns and opportunities

Analyze and review data at regular intervals, whether that’s once a week, a month, or a quarter. Look for both team-wide patterns and individual productivity trends without jumping to quick conclusions from limited data points. Consider how AI tools for business can help identify these patterns more efficiently.

Focus your analysis on:

• Identifying peak productivity hours and potential workflow bottlenecks
• Recognizing which task types consistently take longer than expected
• Understanding collaboration patterns and potential communication gaps
• Comparing productivity across different work models (in-office vs. remote days)
• Correlating productivity metrics with business outcomes and team satisfaction

The most valuable insights often come from combining quantitative tracking data with qualitative feedback from team members about their experience. Using modern team communication platforms can streamline this feedback collection process and ensure all voices are heard.

6. Turn insights into action

Now for the fun part—putting all that productivity data to work. Take what you’ve learned and make changes that help your team perform better and support employee engagement. Based on the patterns you’ve spotted, zero in on specific fixes, whether that means tweaking how work flows, shifting resources, or helping people build new skills.

Here’s what making improvements might look like in practice:

• Spotting and fixing workflow bottlenecks that slow everyone down
• Using AI tools for productivity to handle repetitive tasks
• Rethinking your meeting schedule if meetings are taking up too much focus time
• Trying out more flexible work setups that match when and how your team works best

After you make changes, watch metrics to see if the tweaks you’ve made are helping. Think of productivity tracking as an ongoing conversation: measure, understand, improve, check results, and repeat.

The benefits and challenges of productivity tracking

Productivity isn’t only about how much work gets done; it’s also about how well that work is done. When business leaders rely too much on quantitative metrics to evaluate employee performance, it can lead to a lack of trust between team leaders and employees.

So what’s the right thing to do here? Let’s examine some benefits and challenges of monitoring employee productivity and take a look at how to overcome those challenges.

Benefits of productivity tracking

• Measuring employee productivity helps enhance team performance and accountability.
• Data-based insights can help identify productivity gaps and inform targeted improvements, like upgrading your tech stack or introducing flexible work hours.
• Team leaders and executives can make data-driven decisions, such as adjusting employee workload or rebalancing resource allocation.

Potential challenges of productivity tracking

• Employers may value quantity metrics over quality, drawing inaccurate conclusions about employees’ productivity.
• Employee surveillance can lead to decreased job satisfaction.
• These tools may create a sense of job insecurity, leading to burnout and lower morale among employees.

Overcoming challenges

The biggest challenges associated with productivity tracking include concerns about employee privacy and morale. To help combat these issues, companies can:

• Anonymize and secure sensitive data, addressing privacy concerns and minimizing compliance risks
• Involve employees in decision-making, encourage open communication, and set clear productivity expectations
• Apply tracking measures consistently across all employees, regardless of their location or schedule
• Establish transparent criteria for performance evaluation

Making productivity tracking a win-win

Productivity tracking should benefit both employees and leadership. For example, tools might show that employees are spending too much time in meetings or on repetitive, low-value tasks. Leaders could respond by replacing some meetings with asynchronous collaboration tools, such as Slack, and using a tool like Workflow Builder to automate some routine workflows.

The result works for everyone: employees get to focus on more interesting tasks, and teams become more productive.

Avoiding ‘Big Brother’ syndrome

Most remote-friendly workplaces have left behind old productivity tracking systems, such as paper timesheets and activity logs. Many organizations—about 60 percent of companies, according to research by Gartner—turn to productivity tracking software as a modern solution.

These web-based applications on employees’ computers and mobile devices can monitor their work hours, keep tabs on their tasks, and identify where they’re located during work. But some software goes further: It records employees’ device screens, takes pictures of their faces, and follows their smartphone data to ensure they’re fulfilling responsibilities.

A 2023 study by StandOut CV found:

• 38 percent of tracking tools use video recording and monitoring.
• At least 38 percent of employees who have monitoring software on their work computers do not know it’s active because of “stealth mode.”
• More than 1 in 4 employer-managed surveillance tools allow employers to remotely access their employees’ devices.

If you think these tracking methods sound invasive, you’re not alone. Many remote workers feel that productivity tracking software goes too far, especially since these employees often work from their private homes.

Best practices for productivity tracking

Effective productivity tracking is about supporting your team, not surveilling them. Whether you’re leading a remote, hybrid, or in-office team, these best practices will help you introduce performance tracking software that balances visibility with trust.

Find the right balance of visibility and trust

When getting started with productivity tracking tools for any team:

• Start with complete transparency about what you’re tracking and why
• Focus on measuring outcomes rather than monitoring activity
• Seek explicit consent and address privacy concerns upfront
• Use data to support, not scrutinize
• Protect employee data with robust security safeguards
• Create regular feedback loops to improve your tracking approach
• Choose tools that you can integrate with your work operating system to maintain an open dialogue about tracking

Choose tools that support rather than surveil

Today’s leaders have many options to maximize work productivity, each with different strengths:

• Time management tools that help employees allocate their hours more effectively
• Project management platforms that visualize progress and remove roadblocks
• Collaboration analytics that reveal communication patterns and potential gaps
• Goal-tracking systems that connect daily work to larger objectives
• Feedback tools that capture the qualitative side of productivity
• Workflow analytics that identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies
• Workflow automation tools that allow teams to automate routine tasks—like sending onboarding information to new hires or collecting feedback after meetings—to reduce busywork
• AI time management tools that handle routine and administrative tasks so employees can focus on higher-value work.

The best approach often combines several complementary tools integrated with your existing workflow management tools.

Make data actionable

Collecting productivity data is only valuable if you use it to drive meaningful improvements:

• Schedule regular review sessions with both individuals and teams
• Present insights visually to make patterns easier to recognize
• Focus discussions on removing obstacles rather than increasing speed
• Use data to identify and spread successful practices across teams
• Connect productivity metrics directly to business outcomes
• Experiment with different approaches and measure results
• Celebrate improvements and publicly recognize progress

By following these best practices, productivity tracking becomes a powerful tool for team development rather than a source of stress. Successful programs evolve over time, adapting to changing team needs and organizational goals while consistently prioritizing employee well-being alongside performance metrics.

Best productivity tracking solutions in 2025

These tools are some of the top choices for companies tracking productivity of remote and hybrid teams. If you’re a Slack user, you can integrate them into your work OS so you can access the data without switching apps.

Geekbot

Geekbot helps distributed and hybrid teams stay synchronized and keep projects on track with automated check-ins and updates that integrate directly with Slack. Remote teams can use it for daily standups and track progress without interrupting workflow. Meanwhile, AI-powered insights identify blockers, track participation, and monitor mood.

Harvest

Harvest offers time-tracking capabilities on desktop and mobile devices. Turn timesheet data into intuitive graphs and charts to gain critical insights into how team members spend their time and how their projects are progressing.

Justworks

Justworks is an HR solution that includes employee time tracking and workforce management features like geolocation, overtime alerts, customizable break rules, and advanced reporting. Justworks produces metrics that can help you make operating decisions, improve scheduling, and reduce employee management costs.

OrgaNice

OrgaNice is an employee engagement app teams can use to stay organized, connected, and appreciated. Manage org charts, time off, and team recognition while gathering valuable feedback—all in Slack.

Ticky

Ticky streamlines time tracking directly in Slack channels, eliminating the need for separate tracking apps. This solution offers one-click time logging for projects and tasks, customizable automated reminders, and comprehensive reporting to track spending and profitability.

Strike the right balance when tracking productivity

Productivity tracking tools give team leaders and executives data-driven insights so they can optimize workflows, adjust responsibilities, make the most of their resources, and boost team performance.

Consistency, transparency, communication, and the right toolkit can help you implement an effective productivity tracking strategy for your team. To maintain trust, morale, and strong performance, make your productivity tracking solution work for both leaders and employees.

Productivity tracking FAQs

What’s the difference between productivity tracking and time tracking?

Productivity tracking focuses on what was accomplished (completed tasks, goals achieved, outcomes delivered), while time tracking only tells you how long someone spent working, not how effective that time was.

Who should monitor employee performance?

Direct managers should be the primary monitors of employee performance, because they have context about individual workloads and challenges. However, a balanced approach involves employees in self-monitoring through clear KPIs and regular check-ins.

What is the 3-3-3 rule for productivity?

The 3-3-3 rule suggests breaking your day into three parts: Spend 3 hours on deep, focused work on your most important task; dedicate 3 hours to collaborative work and meetings; and use 3 hours for learning, administrative tasks, and planning. This balanced approach helps maintain focus while allowing for necessary collaboration and growth.