A full 18 months after Covid-19 and lockdowns first struck South Africa, life and business are still not back to normal – and it’s rapidly becoming apparent that they may never be.
Brian Little
“Here we are, 18 months later, and most companies still have their people working remotely,” says Brian Little, chief operations officer of Saucecode.
There are positives and negatives to this situation, he adds. On the positive side, millions of people have been able to continue working even during the hardest lockdowns, helping to keep the economy ticking over.
“For most people, after a short delay, they were able to make the transition to remote working fairly well and carried on with their normal activities,” Little says.
While some people were able to make the switch almost overnight, other workers took longer to adapt to working from home, to set up the disciplines required to remain productive and efficient.
“There are so many distractions when people work from home,” Little points out. “Yes, there are also distractions in the office, but these tend to be work-related distractions. At home, the distractions are different and are typically related to family. These distractions make it very difficult for people who haven’t established working disciplines at home to be efficient.”
As people learned to deal with these issues, productivity could be seen to improve, Little adds. “Over time you had a gradual increase, with the majority of workers climbing the bell curve in terms of work-related activity. As more people learnt the disciplines of working from home, they were seen to be more efficient.”
But people still need to be managed properly, or these early gains can quickly dissipate as people become distracted, unmotivated or simply feel isolated.
Declining efficiency
Bell curves don’t rise for ever – at some stage they level out, then start declining. And Little believes South African companies are starting to see the downward slope of the bell curve now.
“Based on evidence and from the service levels I can see out there – especially in entities that weren’t well managed in the first place – efficiency is starting to drop off; and service levels are being badly affected.
“I am convinced that efficiency and activity levels in a large proportion of home workers have been reduced to a minimum – and this is having an impact on businesses which, even in a slowed economy, have slowed down more than they should have.
“It’s time for organisations to revisit how they manage their remote workers,” Little adds. “It is evident that a general malaise is gripping a lot of remote workers, and this is not likely to improve without being coaxed that way.
“A lot of inefficiencies have flown under the radar because of the slowed economy but at the same time they are contributing to that slowing.”
What this is showing up is a management failing, Little believes. “With so many people working from home, even where there are workers in a face-to-face environment, the management is not there with them. So no-one is overseeing service levels anymore.”
Management to the fore
The solution is to get systems in place to increase monitoring and management, and get productivity back up to acceptable levels, he says.
Remote monitoring and management is the obvious way forward – but beware the consequences of doing this wrong, Little warns.
Workers will quickly kick back against invasive monitoring methods, which is why Saucecode advocates a less invasive system that still gives managers the drill-down data they need to identify issues or tender assistance.
“You can’t just plug in a monitoring system and expect to find productivity levels spring back to normal,” Little adds. “For a start, you have to figure out what normal is.”
The popular idea that, because people work eight hours a day, they display eight hours of efficiency is the first myth Little dispels. “We have found that when people first start working remotely, about four hours of efficiency per day is a pretty high norm.”
It’s particularly important that people are measured correctly according to their job profile, he adds. “This way you can immediately tell if people are achieving against the relevant profiles.
“It is critical that this is set up properly, with the initial configuration matching your company profile, you division and business profiles – and to match those accurately in how the product is set up.
“This way, when you are pulling statistics and measurements, they will make sense to you and be relevant for the business.”
A monitoring and management tool like Tistro allows companies to set up individual or job profiles, which take into account how many hours a worker should be online, the type of activity they should be engaging in, and the applications they should be accessing.
“This helps you to keep track of what people are doing with their time, and also gives you insight into the IT resources they are using,” Little explains.
“There is a level of granularity that lets you see whether people are using business-approved applications – remember the business could be liable if they aren’t.
“You can also get an idea of whether people are using the business applications that you expect them to. You can get an insight into what people are doing on their work profiles, and also start understanding your company’s software licencing issues, usage patterns, applicability of software to job function and more.
“And, if there are anomalies either in people’s work efficiency or their application usage, you can investigate them.”
The Tistro advantage
With Tistro, managers are able to get a top-down view on what is happening in the company.
“So you have very simple reporting that allows you to see what people are doing overall – the hours that they work, in which applications, and what Internet sites.
“Importantly, this top-level reporting is anonymised so managers don’t have pre-conceived ideas about what to expect from individual workers.
“If they see any anomalies, they can then drill down for more details.”
Managers are able to set reporting according to company policies and worker profiles, and can gain a very granular view that’s built up over time.
“You can set up rules and alerts according to your own business, staff and management situation,” Little explains. “You tweak the product over time as you define or modify your business.”
Worker-friendly monitoring
Some user monitoring systems can be pretty invasive, and it’s no wonder that workers don’t enjoy the experience, according to Little
“So many of these systems push the fact that they take screenshots, record keystrokes and even take videos of users. In other words, they record a worker’s every move.
“In Tistro, we have deliberately disabled these functions – because we are not interested in providing a Big Brother product. We’d rather let the data do the talking.”
One feature that distinguishes Tistro is the fact that it doesn’t record keystrokes, but rather makes a note of key releases. “So we don’t know what they user is typing. The only keys we do record are enter, delete and backspace – non-informational keys. What we want is not a record of the user’s input, but an indication of their efficiency.”
Tistro doesn’t do screen shots either. “Most of our customers realise there could be issues around recording personal information and, in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), we don’t gather this type of information.
“What we record is what application was opened, at what time; what files were accessed and how many keystroke releases happened in that file until it was closed.”
Tistro also records just activity, not an absence of activity. “So if there were no keystrokes within a file or Internet site, we don’t record it. When it comes to meetings, we record when the user entered and exited the meeting but not what happened in the meeting.
“The report will then show that a particular user was active in a particular set of applications or Internet URLs just for the period of they were active.
“The manager can then drill down if they have reason to.”
The detailed data can show activity by the second, which could be necessary to investigate anomalies.
More than people management
While it’s important to understand workers’ activity, whether they are working in the office or remotely, Tistro can help with software optimisation as well.
“The tool helps companies to understand the applications they are running: what they are doing, how much they use them, are they work related, are they licenced?
“It helps managers to figure out if the correct applications are being used in the appropriate times and timeframes, and whether they are valid business applications.
“More detailed information can be extracted, like whether workers are using the applications appropriately, or identify if there is a need for additional training.
“CIOs can use Tistro to audit the business’s licencing needs and liabilities, and make sure the organisation isn’t paying licences for unused software – or vice versa. Because you can pull detailed usage stats it’s easy to see who actually uses software, and licence it appropriately for the relevant job profiles.”
How to get Tistro
Tistro is available as an on-premise solution or in the cloud.
Little says that, while SMEs find the cloud-based subscription service most useful, larger users often prefer to install their own server version. “This allays any concerns they may have about sensitive worker data exiting the business, and allows them to do much more detailed and granular reporting.
“The subscription version is usually preferred by smaller companies or those that want to do just basic monitoring.”
The cloud service is hosted in-country with Siedor Networks (PTY) Ltd in Johannesburg, a reputable ISP that provides all the appropriate security, backups and more.
Made in South Africa
Tistro was developed in South Africa, which makes it very attractive for local users.
“For a start, it was developed in rands, so the pricing is automatically a lot more reasonable than international products,” Little points out. “And it means the price is stable, because we don’t have to deal with fluctuating exchange rates.”
At the same time, Tistro’s functionality compares favourably with more expensive and complex solutions. “Technically, it holds its own with any other solutions out there,” Little says. “The only difference is that it was developed locally, specifically for South African conditions.
“And, because the developers are right here, additional product development, enhancements, post-sales support and access to skills are so much easier for South African customers.”
Tistro has been in the market for more than two years and is a mature product, Little adds. “We have run it in an IT company environment, in financial services and in distribution environments. It is well-suited to customers across the board, wherever there are IT- or computer-based staff members.”
Tistro and the channel
Tistro is available through the reseller channel.
Saucecode has a mature channel organisation that works with partners to identify opportunities, help with pre-sales consulting, set up proof of concept trials, and assist with reseller and customer training.
“There are numerous opportunities for resellers to add value, provide services and earn additional revenue,” Little points out.
For more information, contact SauceCode.