How Riseup Labs boosted its productivity during the pandemic
Meet Riseup Labs – an information and communications technology company based in Bangladesh with over a decade of experience creating different tech solutions (websites, apps, games, and much more). Founded in 2009, Riseup Labs now employs a team of around 80, which includes software engineers, digital marketing experts, designers, and more. The team is spread across 11 departments, and since the company offers a wide range of services, everyone's typical workday can look quite different from their colleagues.
Adjusting to the changes brought by the pandemic
So how do you make sure that everyone stays on the same page when it comes to projects and maintains productivity throughout the work week? This question became particularly urgent for Riseup Labs when the COVID-19 pandemic started. Like so many other companies worldwide, the team at Riseup Labs had to suddenly and rapidly shift to remote work. This kind of unexpected change naturally came with lots of adjustments, and one thing that became apparent was that employee productivity experienced a dip when they started working from their homes.
Khondaker Zahin Fuad, Riseup Labs Digital Marketing Executive, says that once the managers realized that they needed to identify the cause of the productivity decrease, they decided that time tracking software could be the answer. When it came to choosing the right tool for their team, Riseup Labs listened to a personal recommendation. The need to understand what was happening with the team was urgent, so there wasn't much time for lengthy research. Instead, Riseup Labs relied on word-of-mouth: a friend of the company's CEO had experience using DeskTime in his own company and suggested it as a tool that could bring results.
So in April 2021, Riseup Labs started using DeskTime to see if it could help change the downward productivity trend. Asked how DeskTime was introduced to the team and what their reactions were, Khondaker says that while the introduction was quite sudden, everyone quickly realized that the tracking software could bring benefits to both managers and employees alike – all it took was some hands-on experience with the tool.
"After using the software, the team saw DeskTime as an opportunity to track their own productivity, which would help optimize the workflows and identify any shortcomings, such as the use of unproductive apps," says Khondaker.
Boosting the team's productivity and effectiveness
For a company that values precision and reliability and offers the same through its products and services to its customers, it was important for Riseup Labs to find a time tracking tool to enhance these qualities further. DeskTime proved to be the right choice – the app has helped improve the team's productivity and effectiveness.
"When we decided to utilize a time management software, we were able to ensure that every employee checked in at the regular time, as well as spent their time well. Using DeskTime, we've seen the average productivity rise by 50%." – Khondaker Zahin Fuad, Digital Marketing Executive at Riseup Labs
Asked which of DeskTime's features Riseup Labs has found to be the most useful, Khondaker starts by mentioning the productivity bar. As the dip in the team's productivity was one of the driving factors why Riseup Labs decided to start using a time tracker, the company was interested to see how DeskTime could improve things in this regard. And the results came quickly. Khondaker explains, "DeskTime has enabled us to determine the work habits of our employees, which we use to improve our workflows by reducing the time spent idle or engaging in unproductive apps."
This, of course, goes hand in hand with the reports section – managers download and peruse the detailed reports, which let them dig deeper into how their teams are working. But for Khondaker, the dashboard is still the place where the magic happens.
"What I like the best is the beautiful and informative dashboard that shows all the right stats for my team – the productivity percentage, who's late, who's absent, who's slacking, and who's the most productive."
Going beyond productivity tracking
Once the productivity question was answered, Riseup Labs found that DeskTime offers other handy tools to improve the company's workflow. As the company provides different services and tends to work on various projects simultaneously, DeskTime's project tracking feature turned out to be a welcome addition to their workday. "The Projects feature allows us to divide our time between tasks easily, which augments multitasking and ensures each task is worked upon as efficiently as possible," Khondaker says.
Another helpful feature that Riseup Labs has been taking advantage of is shift scheduling. Khondaker says this feature "has made scheduling shifts an easy process, which removes any confusion between teams." If everyone knows precisely what and when they are supposed to be doing, productivity can improve even further.
Asked if Riseup Labs would recommend DeskTime to anyone else after their experience with the software, Khondaker says that they definitely would. In the company's experience, the use of DeskTime brings tangible, observable results – the team works smarter and produces better results. Employees now spend less time on unproductive apps, focus on the tasks at hand more, and, as a result, company time is not wasted on unimportant things.
"DeskTime has helped us utilize the office hours productively, and now we have a very high percentage (90%+) of employees coming to work on time and utilizing the time in a way that aligns with our needs."