WSPro Tool Certified
Our proprietary platform, WorkSmart Pro, enables us to consistently recruit and retain the top 1% of global, remote talent.
“The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.” ~ Confucius
“There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.” ~ Freeman Dyson
Introduction
The aim of our enterprise is to recruit and retain the top 1% of global, remote talent. WorkSmart Pro (WSPro) is the platform that enables us to do that. WSPro is a suite of tools which empowers managers to monitor, and to strategically increase their team’s quality and productivity.
WSPro includes applications such as Check-in-Chats, Rank-and-Review, Gemba Walks, and more, which are fundamental to running our company. In fact, your manager uses WSPro, daily, to monitor and coach your own personal performance.
Using the tool
WSPro is not only for managers. High-performing ICs don’t wait for their managers to discover and point out their weaknesses. Instead, they search for and improve upon their own performance, proactively. WSPro provides IC’s the same set of world-class tools for increasing their own personal performance.
My Dashboard
My Dashboard provides information on your role and team, as well as a summary of your recent hours logged. The bottom half of My Dashboard is dynamic, and changes based on which tab you select.
Summary tab
The Summary tab provides two key metrics which may represent “low-hanging fruit” for some IC’s and managers:
Total-time-logged, by day, (default view is the current week), and
Total-time-spent on your six most-used applications.
In combination, these metrics can highlight the overuse of non-value added applications (e.g., chat, redundant note taking apps, etc.)
What is does: It shoes your daily logged time and your most used applications What it does not do: It doesn't show your breaks, focus-breakers, intensity scores, focus scores or any other detailed information
Summary tab: good example
Insight: At the beginning of RemoteU, I took all of my notes using the Workflowy app. When reviewing the Summary tab on My Dashboard in WSPro, I was very surprised to see that I spent more than four hours in the Workflowy application. The worst part was, I eventually had to copy all of my notes into the worksheet, anyway. So, the time in Workflowy was redundant, and therefore wasteful.
Action: Take notes directly in the worksheet.
Summary tab: bad example
Insight: The biggest insight I gained is that I need to improve my time management skills. I didn’t work eight hours per day, and my time varied from day to day.
Action: I will split my work, equally, across all work days next week, in order to become more productive.
Why is this a bad example?
While it’s always good to have an established work routine, this insight was too easy for the IC. “Poor time management” is a somewhat lazy finding, compared to the more meaningful insight of overuse of non-value added applications.
Activity tab
The Activity tab provides a log of your activities, planned vs. actual. Activities are segregated by type, and include your focus, intensity, and alignment scores. As a remote worker, it’s not enough to be busy. We must be busy doing the right things, for the right amount of time (i.e., deep work). What is does: It shoes the manager's daily plan, when you took breaks during the day, your focus, intensity and alignment scores and the main application you used in every 10-minute block. What it does not do: It doesn't show screenshots of your work, nor your minute-by-minute activity such as mouse and keyboard activity or switching between multiple apps within a 10-minute block.
Activity tab: good example
Insight: Our CiCs - along with other meetings - occurred small gaps between them. However, those gaps weren’t long enough to get into the activities that require deep focus. So, those small blocks of time were not spent efficiently.
Action: Realign calendar to contain all meetings within two larger blocks.
Activity tab: bad example
Insight: My calendar is only 42% aligned with my manager's calendar. The largest difference between them was caused by my behavior during check-in-chats. During these meetings, I wasn’t in the Zoom window, rather I was in a Google doc taking notes.
Action: Move between Zoom and Google Docs in order to have meeting time tracked.
Why is this a bad example?
This is a bad example because, rather than addressing the IC’s behavior, the insight addresses only the tracking of behavior. In other words, the insight is concerned primarily with how the tool works, rather than what the manager learned from using it, or how he’ll change his behavior, moving forward.
Logbook tab
Your Logbook is highly-related to the Gemba Walk application your manager uses to stay close to your work. In essence, your manager uses your Logbook to perform their Gemba Walks, in an effort to help you improve.
Your Logbook has two main views:
Timecard Gallery
Timecard Details
The Gallery view allows you to spot inefficient work patterns based on images of yourself, and of the work you performed.
What is does: Allows you to view all time cards on a selected date. You can also see screenshots of your work and you can check your mouse and keyboard activity and get a minute-by-minute breakdown on your used apps/time card. What it does not do: It doesn't show you your manager's daily plan nor your alignment to it and it doesn't show you a global overview of your weekly activities
The dotted blue line between the two images (of you, and of your screen) represents your Intensity Score. Hover over the dotted blue line to see your overall Intensity Score for a particular card, or click the dotted blue line to enter Timecard Details.
Timecard Details allow you to review your minute-by-minute activity, and to discover distractions you might not otherwise spot with the naked eye.
For example, it’s not unrealistic to imagine a friendly colleague asking you for a “5-minute favor” that winds up taking you more than an hour. The friendlier the colleague, the less likely you’ll even notice the time slipping away! They say, “No good deed goes unpunished,” and in this scenario, being helpful made you fall behind in your own deliverables.
Logbook tab: good example
Action: Set status as do-not-disturb on Skype for two 3-hour blocks per day.
Logbook tab: bad example
Insight: I have several idle screenshots that I need to delete.
Action: Stop the tracker when I’m taking breaks. Also, delete timecards where I’m talking on the phone, even if those calls were work-related.
Why is this a bad example?
This is a bad example because it focuses only on cleaning up the log. The purpose of the Logbook tab is to enable a deep dive into the daily work you are performing. You should use it to improve your performance by spotting and minimizing anti-patterns and distractions.
Metric tab
Metric is the app that shows your number of units you delivered. Depending on your team room, you will either use the metric app or the custom sheet/tool your TR is using.
In IC RemoteU, you should use the Stack Rank tab of the Coaching Logs, which provides access to your real time quality and productivity data.
Measuring yourself objectively
You should use your performance metrics and goal to measure yourself objectively. Then, if you are below the goal, you should come up with corrective actions. Objective measurements takes subjective views out of the context and let's you know exactly how you perform. You should use 4 data points to measure yourself objectively:
Quality target
Quality performance
Productivity target
Productivity performance
For each of these, you should have simple numbers (not adjectives. e.g. bad example: "High quality"; good example: "95% FTAR") . After listing these numbers, you should state explicitly if your performance is above or below the goal. Your are on track if you reach both Quality and Productivity targets. Your are below the goal if either your Quality or Productivity performance is below the relevant target.
Ex:
On day 1 in IC RemoteU, you might have the following data
Quality goal: 100% FTAR
Quality performance: 80% FTAR
Productivity goal: 8
Productivity performance: 10
This performance data clearly shows that IC is below the goal. IC was not able to reach the quality goal (80% FTAR < 100% FTAR). In addition, there is a bigger problem: IC valued Quantity over Quality by delivering high number of units with low quality.
As corrective action, IC should set a goal to get back on track. e.g. "Deliver all remaining units with 100% FTAR."
IC should also provide a concrete action describing what IC will be doing differently to reach the goal. Otherwise it wouldn't be clear how IC will reach the goal. Ex: "I will value quality over quantity by 1) doing deep dive on my failures and understanding my failures 2) checking all units against the IQB 3) studying failures of other ICs to avoid failures 4) asking questions to my coach when instructions are not clear..."
Good example
Insight: On day 1, I delivered 8 units at 75% FTAR. I was on track with productivity (8/8 units) but failed on my FTAR goal which was 100%.
Action: To reach the goal, I started reviewing my deliverables against the IQBs so that I would avoid the mistakes I made on day one. I set a goal for 100% FTAR in my remaining deliverables in my CIC app while also staying on track with daily productivity goals. I was able to deliver 15 units and achieve 100% FTAR on new deliverables by the end of day Day 3, hitting the goal (FTAR and productivity).
Bad example
The metrics are not updated for the current week and since it’s my first week I have no real insights. If it was updated in the app I would have them already appearing here.
Why is this a bad example?
This IC is just talking about the tool, but not the actual learnings from it.
Check-In Chats
The Check-In Chat (CiC) application is essential for providing status updates to your manager. In an asynchronous work environment, you may not have the luxury of a daily call with your manager. Instead, use CiC's to tell them where you’re blocked and how they can help.
Check-in Chat: Good example
Below is a good example because the IC precisely describes his problem so the manager can act on it as soon as he receives the message.
Check-in Chat: Bad example
Below is a bad example because the IC provides no detail in support of their help request. The manager now must contact the IC to clarify the issue, before taking action. The process is delayed, and time and opportunity are lost.
Reports
Use the Reports app to view metrics around your various activities, including meetings, email, chat, intensity, and most importantly, focus.
The focus report shows how well you focus in the morning vs. in the afternoon. But even better, it highlights your main focus breaker, which often leads to impactful insights
Reports: Good example
Insight #1: My Intensity report highlights a big issue in my schedule for last week. Even though I log in early each day, I actually don’t complete very much work in the morning. The reason for this is, I usually take a long break after my first CiC in the morning.
Action #1: I will forego my usual break and, instead, plan to watch a training session after my first CiC of the morning. These recordings should fit perfectly into that time block, and lead to a far more productive start to the day.
Insight #2: My Focus report highlights that the biggest distraction I have is Skype.
Action #2: During my deep work time blocks, I will set my status as busy on Skype, to avoid breaking my focus.
Reports: Bad example
Insight: The report shows that I’m more focused during the afternoon, but that’s normal for me.
Action: No action at this time.
Above is a bad example because it provides no plan for improvement. The IC simply restates what they observed on the report, but takes no accountability for improving the process.
Time tracking
Another advantage of WSpro is that you won't have to fill out your work time in an HR app and have discussions about it with your manager.
WSPro tracks the time you work, but you have to adhere to a couple of simple rules to get paid for the time you worked. You, as an individual contractor are responsible for tracking your own time through WSPro, so make sure it runs whenever you work.
You will only get paid for a time block if:
you have at least 8 minutes of time logged into a single time card. E.g.: starting at xx:03 and finishing at xx:07 in the same 10-minutes is only 4 minutes and you won't get paid for it). Therefor, it's always best to start your timer before the 2. minute in your first time block and finish after the 8. minute in your last 10-minute block.
you have mouse or keyboard activity. If you don't move your mouse or type on your keyboard, the app will automatically detect you as idle. If you were on a meeting or watching a training video, then just mark your time card in the app as "not idle"
Conclusion
WorkSmart Pro, our proprietary platform, enables us to consistently recruit and retain the top 1% of global, remote talent. WSPro is for managers and individual contributors, alike, to enable the strategic increase of performance quality and output.
Additional Reading
WorkSmart Overview presentation Read pages 21-25, and 45-49, carefully, as several common questions are answered there.
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