When Preferred Rate Mortgage embraced remote work, executives had no way to measure productivity — until the team discovered workforce analytics. Chris Lekousis, Co-Founder and VP of Operations, recently chatted with Gabriela Mauch, Chief Customer Officer at ActivTrak, to discuss how his team uses ActivTrak to:
- Measure and improve productivity
- Right-size teams and technology
- Gain a competitive advantage
Here are the highlights from that webinar — listen or watch the full discussion here.
(The below is a shortened version of the original webinar transcript.)
Going remote after 100x workforce growth
Gabriela: I’d love for you to introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about Preferred Rate and what led you to consider workforce analytics.
Chris: Absolutely. We are a mortgage banking institution with employees that span the country.
We started as an organization that had approximately 7 employees, and over the last 15 years have grown to around 720 full-time staffed employees across the United States.
When we hit the pandemic, we really couldn’t understand or equate how people working remotely would impact our productivity and workload balance.
Building the “best team possible”
Gabriela: Did you think it was temporary, or did you think this might be a turning point for the mortgage industry to become more distributed and more remote?
Chris: It was an opportune time for us to shed some additional costs related to office space expenditures. We all know it could be very expensive bringing people into one location.
I also wanted to build the best team possible. That meant, I couldn’t be beholden to a small subset or one individual market to be able to do that.
Pro tip: Measure productivity by location
One of Preferred Rate’s favorite ActivTrak features? Productivity by Location. This report makes it easy to gauge performance across work environments — and to align office space planning to actual need.
Replacing assumptions with data
Gabriela: How did you leverage ActivTrak to give you confidence?
Chris: Before ActivTrak, we couldn’t quantify the impacts of remote work. You can make assumptions about what people are doing, or how effective or efficient they’re being.
We found out that employees have actually been more productive and more accountable in their own homes and working remotely from various locations, specifically because we’ve cut down on a lot of the minutiae in their daily grind.
Pro tip: Prioritize trust and transparency
Want to follow Chris’s lead and see if your people are productive when working from home? Follow these proven strategies to see if remote employees are working as expected — without killing culture or trust.
Supporting people to do their best work
Gabriela: Let’s talk about how you’ve managed federating that data in a way that preserves people’s comfort. How was that journey for you, and what does it look like today?
Chris: I was looking for something to quantify what people were doing on a daily basis. We expected them to be productive 6 to 6.5 hours a day, and came to find they were actually exceeding that and putting in more effort during that time period.
When I get in in the morning, I can look at [the daily reminders] and address [issues] in my team meetings. Maybe we need to address one individual or another to get them to where they need to be. And it gives us an opportunity to have a coaching moment.
It even gave us insights into whether or not the person may have had a latency issue with their networking equipment. I’ve actually provided people with updated networking equipment in their homes, specifically because I knew that they had the desire to work hard but couldn’t do it in an efficient and effective manner.
Pro tip: Check activity in real time
ActivTrak’s real-time visibility shows who’s online and how productive they are — and if they need support. These daily checks help Chris see when hard-working employees get stuck and need his help.
Driving smarter decisions across the business
Gabriela: How do you partner with your business leaders?
Chris: I work very closely with HR and the finance team, specifically because I need to keep them in the loop as to whether or not we’re operating efficiently and effectively. The goal is always to run lean and have the least amount of overhead we possibly can.
Pro tip: Use data to guide hiring decisions
Worried about over- or under hiring? ActivTrak’s Capacity & Headcount Planning makes it easy to decide between adding headcount, redistributing work or approving overtime.
Addressing employee concerns up front
Gabriela: Have you handled situations where employees have been skeptical? And if so, how have you handled that?
Chris: When we started rolling this out, people did have those questions. Why are you watching me? Did I do something wrong? Is there something I need to know? Is this legal? Are you invading my privacy?
I would simply explain this is a piece of software that we’re leveraging as an organization to help them be a better professional, and to assist them in being more efficient and effective in their current role. At this point, I don’t believe anybody is thinking this is a negative measure.
Transparency is a core value here, and the more you educate them as to the why, and you’re proactively preaching that to them, they’ll understand and you won’t get the pushback.
Free resource: How to introduce ActivTrak
New to workforce analytics? Look at our step-by-step guide for introducing ActivTrak to your teams.
Moving forward with a data-driven workforce
Gabriela: What are you looking forward to doing in the future?
Chris: I want to turn this into a solution that drips down to each individual…and they understand this is a great measurement of how they can manage their days and work through their goals. That way, they can be more effective and efficient while still trying to manage their personal time, take their breaks and get done what’s expected of them in the time frame that we’ve set forth.
Pro tip: Empower your people with personal insights
By giving people access to their data, employees learn healthier work habits over time. Use ActivTrak’s Personal Insights to deliver weekly reports.
Ready to empower your people with workforce analytics?
Preferred Rate’s journey shows the difference workforce analytics makes — on productivity, accountability, culture and more. And their story is relatable. Every day, we see thousands of organizations boost ROI with metrics that were previously out of reach.
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