What is Reddit's opinion of Hubstaff?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Not OP, but check out Hubstaff, it's free for a single user and OS agnostic.

Edit: To clarify, it isn't OP's but it seems more comprehensive and a lot of us don't use mac unlike Timing App which is only single platform and costs $20.

>Most of the applications they want would go hand in hand with the databases. For example, an iPhone app that people in the field use to log and track employee productivity, and a Windows app that will be able to view that information in customized reports.

This is stuff you can buy Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS). You guys really should not be trying to reinvent the wheel. It's a lot more expensive.

Example: https://hubstaff.com/gps_time_tracking

Hubstaff is great for monitoring remote work: https://hubstaff.com

Recently hired two remote workers in early September and they've exceeded all expectations. Their output is much higher and of better quality than what I was able to do before.

In addition, setting up regularly scheduled meetings via Google calendar with their tasks/responsibilities listed out to review is very helpful as well.

Not being able to find a remote job without being based in the US was also a problem for me. I'm based in Asia, but am a Canadian expat and regardless of that, I couldn't find much.

I started to dig around a lot more and was surprised to see a lot of other resources that had companies hiring people living anywhere. The one I was able to get a position through was TalentOHire.

Hubstaff and Outsourcely are also really great for finding solid remote work, regardless of being in the US or not. I know there are a ton of other ones I didn't mention, but again, most of those are primarily focused on getting candidates who are based in the US or Canada.

Short answer, yes. HubStaff will take periodic screenshots of employees when they are working and you can use it to monitor productivity. Not free, but not expensive, either.

But as others mentioned here in the comments, you need to really ask yourself if you want to be that kind of boss. Of course, every business is different, but for higher-end knowledge workers like designers, developers, programmers, even customer service I think it's often a much better idea to set key deliverables and look for those rather than trying to micro-manage your employees.

That said, I do know that sometimes, especially when working with contractors overseas, this kind of monitoring is very effective at increasing productivity. Odesk and Upwork have always tracked employee activity while clocking time and provided screen shots. I think every business (and employee) is different so you have to find what works best for you.

Just be aware if you use a service like this to micro-manage your employees and try to squeeze out 100% productivity you're going to be churning through a lot of employees as a lot of them will not want to deal with that kind of hover management.

Replying to myself to provide some value if you didn't like that answer - check https://hubstaff.com - it has alot of features that I might consider as a manager using on contract/hourly staff doing data entry or something.. But not something I'd subject a dev or product person to..

For project management, find a system you like and stick to it. Slack is also great for communications. I must admit though, as I run a distributed team, the one tool that has been incredibly valuable is https://hubstaff.com/. It lets me stay on top of employees output, and it weeds out dishonest people.

First: DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.

Before you get all the Reddit Lawyers in a kerfluffel and decide to lawyer up and go down the war path, read this: read

Next come to the understanding that you are about to fight a legal team of international labor law lawyers who will instantly find a way to prove that you did “xyz” thing wrong and the employer has no way of verifying you even showed up, blah blah blah.

The ethics hotline won’t do much, as this isn’t related to their interaction with Amazon and won’t risk the corporate relationship they have; worst case they get a shame-on-you email.

I HIGHLY suggest you play the lost tourist card, and inquire about why the group must be punished for the few who mess up. Let them know this is definitely going to cause a labor law issue (warning them won’t save them so don’t worry); Flys with honey and all that.

If they still refuse to act go straight to the federal labor commission and work with the inspector to get a group of you together to pursue a class action. Way better results in half the time.

Hope this helps.

It's literally covered in the federal law about labor standards (FLSA). Here is some context: https://hubstaff.com/time-clock-rounding

15 minutes (e.g. the 7 minute rule) is what I was referring to.

That's why we are searching for all-in-one solution. We've considered such apps, as Attrack or Hubstaff. It's better to manage time, efficiency, productivity and finance in one place and don't make lots of additional useless job. My colleagues are annoyed with plenty of these irrelevant to a work flow programs.

I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:

• Hubstaff.com

I did the honors for you.

^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3

You can use Hubstaff. It is a browser plug in and will take screenshots through out the work day at random times. You can see what they are working on but just having it probably encourages higher productivity. They have teams set up and quotas, I didn't use that functionality.

OK, I'm going to do two things here:

1. I'm going to answer the question you've politely asked and recommend looking at something like https://hubstaff.com/features/employee_monitoring
2. I'm going to make it clear that your employer has shitty managers and you should strongly consider looking for a new job.

The way they are approaching this problem is short-sighted and, as you've already identified, incredibly invasive. Concerns about performance should be dealt with by setting performance goals and evaluating whether or not those goals are met, not by spying on employees to see how good they are at looking busy. Make no mistake: they are not looking for something to 'bring to their attention'. They are looking for a reason to fire these people. You need to decide for yourself if you're OK with that - maybe the people being targeted are also assholes. Nobody else here but you is in a position to make that determination, just don't kid yourself about what this request from management actually means.

In my opinion this sort of tracking has its place for formal targeted investigations of serious workplace malpractice such as fraud, theft, or perhaps things like watching porn in the office. If I was asked to implement such a system for the purposes you've stated I would waste no time stating my objections and polishing my resume that same evening.

I do appreciate that attitude is easy to have when you are not living paycheck-to-paycheck, which not a luxury everyone has.

Well, it depends on the level of employee you're talking about. For higher level employees, I think you have to have a level of trust that they are working and you track that by whether they are completing projects, accomplishing goals, and meeting key performance metrics. For hourly or work outsourced to VAs and other overseas teams, I've used software to monitor activity. Services like HubStaff or HiveDesk monitor application usage and takes screen grabs intermittently so you can see what the employee was working on.

This is a pretty popular one

https://hubstaff.com/

When you have it running its not even noticeable to the employee. The employer gets a lot of information-- but this is for computer monitoring. I suppose if you used a service such as Line2 you could also monitor phone activity

I don't know if you or /u/clinkz_eastwood_ will find this helpful or not, but this site (my favorite remote job website) lists a bunch of different fields and employers that hire globally for remote positions. While she lists some sites that are surveys and such, there are tons of legitimate jobs on her website. Sometimes, even places like Apple hire globally, though I don't see anything there currently.

edit: adding Hubstaff, as they are hiring for customer service currently.

Haha best of luck! :) Message me if you need any tips on applying or remote work in general. Here's an infographic on how to ace a remote interview