How to Justify Your Work & Productivity in a Remote Job

After a nearly one-year bear market coupled with concerns about inflation, a global recession lurks. Turn on the television or read the news, and the stress of losing your job or being forced to take other forms of employment can feel overwhelming. That’s just the day and age that we live in. But if you’re a remote worker, learning how to justify your work and productivity is the key to saving your job. Find out what you need to do to justify your work and put yourself firmly in the pile of essential workers.

Different Ways to Justify Your Work by Measuring and Showing Productivity in a Remote Work Environment

The foremost way to justify your work in a remote job is simply by measuring and showcasing your productivity. The best way to do this is to supply concrete examples of how you improve the operations of the company. In order to do this, you should track everything you do over the course of a day in your own log.

This should include an hourly breakdown of your routine, tasks you’ve done outside of your normal workload, and any tasks you’ve done with other team members. If you can show how much you get done, the amount of time it takes you, and how you’re a team player, you justify your position through metrics — something that’s hard to ignore from an employer’s perspective

Take Initiative

Remote work is many things, but one thing it isn’t is a laissez-faire approach to work. Doing the bare minimum is a possibility just because you have no one staring over your shoulder, yet it’s a surefire way to make yourself expendable during tough economic times.

That’s why you should always take initiative and be a self-starter. Completing your task on time is always beneficial to your career, but knowing what needs to be done and taking the initiative to get it done isn’t inherent in the workplace in most cases. You create an intangible quality that gives you an edge over coworkers, all while allowing you to justify your work and job in the process.

Go Above and Beyond

Your job hires you to complete tasks outlined in your job description — that much is obvious. But when a recession looms, it’s not enough to just do the bare minimum. You need to go above and beyond, and you need to start now.

Rather than going the extra mile, many remote workers justify work by simply pointing to the low output or laziness of fellow workers. That’s not going to make you a ton of friends, nor is it going to endear you to management. It’s all about showing, not telling.

That’s not to say that you should abandon your work-life balance. But taking on extra projects, meeting your deadlines, offering creative suggestions, and delivering cost-cutting measures can make you stand out from the rest and justify your work.

Showcase Your Work

A fine line separates the brown-noser from the proud worker, but in order to justify your work and productivity, toeing the line is a necessity. The idea isn’t that you’re shoving your work in the face of employers; it’s merely showing how productive you are on a regular basis. If you improved operations, got a project done before a deadline, or did something else to boost productivity or save the company money, promote yourself. These tangible results can help you leap-frog more tenured workers, especially if you’re contributing to the bottom line where others aren’t.

The ROWE Workplace

The United States has long used a time-based compensation theory for employees rather than a merit-based system. The root of 40-hour workweeks goes back to the days of Henry Ford and a 24-hour production line and again into U.S. law during the Great Depression. The idea became enshrined to such a level that working 9-to-5 has been ubiquitous in jobs and even pop culture over the past several generations.

But starting in the early 2000s, the idea of a results-oriented work environment, or ROWE, started to gain traction. The idea behind this management philosophy is that employers focus on the results their employees accomplish instead of the number of hours they work. For example, as long as workers complete their projects or meet the deadlines required, it doesn’t matter if they work 40 hours a week or 30 hours a week to get it done. This boosts productivity, creates a happier workplace, and gets results.

If you’re searching for ways to justify your work, you can’t readily turn your remote job into a ROWE workplace unilaterally. However, you can use the idea behind it by showcasing your productivity during your time with a specific employer. To build a strong case for your continued employment, results are often the difference-maker and something you can use as a bargaining chip if push comes to shove.

Stats You Can Use to Justify Your Work

Statistics don’t lie, especially in the remote world. Since the COVID-based onset of remote work, 77% of employees showed increased productivity with 30% doing more work in less time and 24% staying on pace with in-office workloads. These statistics also underscore the focus and work ethic that only a remote workplace can offer. Building upon this idea, remote workers may work harder and more productively simply because of less micromanagement, the thought of work-life balance is so much closer, and the ability to stave off commutes that can drain an average of one hour per day.

Whatever the reason for an increase in productivity, using remote employment to justify your work speaks for itself. You quite possibly have never been more productive.

Contingency Planning With Help From Virtual Vocations

Ideally, you won’t have to worry about losing your job. You justify your work and productivity much to the excitement of your employers. But on the off-chance that your company downsizes to factors outside of your control, having a contingency plan is a savvy move.

Enter the world of Virtual Vocations. By signing up with Virtual Vocations, you can get the little extras that can propel you toward work in the future. With a consistently updated jobs board, company database for research, an online portfolio, career services, and more, you have everything you need to at least weather the storm until market conditions approve. Sign up for Virtual Vocations today to give yourself the chance to succeed — even when things don’t go as you planned.

Do you work remotely? How do you stay on top of your work? Connect with Virtual Vocations on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube to share your thoughts and tips. We’d love to hear from you!