Presence isn't productivity. Why do we track them the same way?
Been having some great conversations here lately, and one thing keeps coming up: most tools that try to answer "is my team working" actually only answer "was my team present." Those aren't the same question, but we treat them like they are.
For field and delivery roles, presence often is the job, showing up at the right place at the right time matters. But for remote knowledge work, presence tells you almost nothing. Someone can be "checked in" for 8 hours and get nothing meaningful done, or be checked in for 2 hours and ship something great.
Building Trackly has forced me to actually separate these two problems instead of bundling them. GPS/check-in solves presence for field teams. But productivity, the "what actually got done" side, needs a completely different signal: milestones, outcomes, client acknowledgments, not location data.
Curious how this community thinks about it:
Do you track presence and productivity separately, or does one tool try to do both for you?
For remote/knowledge workers specifically, what's actually told you someone's doing good work, if not visible activity?
Has anyone found a clean way to combine both signals without it turning into micromanagement?
I like the distinction you're making between presence and productivity. If you had to choose just one metric that best reflects real productivity for remote teams, what would it be?
I think you've uncovered a more fundamental distinction.
Presence is evidence that someone was available. Productivity is evidence that meaningful progress happened. Those are different questions, so trying to measure them with the same signal almost guarantees disappointment.
The interesting challenge is deciding which question a manager is actually trying to answer before collecting more data.
I completely agree. I think a lot of teams end up collecting data before they're clear on what decision that data is supposed to support.
In some businesses, productivity is the only thing that matters. In others, like field services, presence is part of what's being delivered to the client. The context changes what "success" actually looks like.
That's exactly what made me think there's a bigger strategic decision underneath your reply.
I don't think it's really about measuring presence or productivity. It's about a business decision that becomes much more significant as the product grows, and I don't think I can explain the reasoning properly in a thread without oversimplifying it.
If you're interested, what's the best email to reach you on?
Thanks, I appreciate that. I'd love to hear your perspective. You can reach me at Shahroz@contactVA.com. Looking forward to learning more about the strategic angle you're referring to.
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.
Separating presence from productivity is a massive shift in mindset. Tracking presence for field teams makes perfect sense because showing up is the commitment to the client, but trying to apply that same logic to remote knowledge work is where things break down. Great to see Trackly tackling this distinction head-on.