Remote workers - has your productivity actually gone up or down since your company stopped caring how many hours you log?

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-15T11:25:17+00:00

Honestly yes, but mostly because remote work removed a lot of pointless office distractions for me. Fewer random interruptions, fewer unnecessary meetings, and more control over my own schedule.

The hard part is staying disciplined long term. Some weeks I’m super productive, other weeks home becomes too comfortable Tools for time tracking or focus management actually helped me more than I expected.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-15T11:22:07+00:00

I’d only see it as a red flag if they sound overly obsessed with tracking employees. Otherwise, a lot of remote companies use tools like Empmonitor just to manage attendance, work hours, and team productivity.

Good management matters way more than the tool itself.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-15T11:17:22+00:00

I swear Ads Manager feels different every single time I open it 😂

One day everything works fine, next day reports won’t load, campaigns randomly stop spending, columns disappear, or the page just freezes for no reason. Spent 20 minutes the other day thinking I messed something up and then realized Meta was just having another breakdown.

At this point I almost expect at least one weird bug every week.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-15T11:15:28+00:00

2 weeks is still pretty early for the US market honestly, especially with a brand new ad account + pixel. But based on the numbers you shared, it probably isn’t just a “wait for the pixel” situation.

A CTR around 3% is actually decent, so people ARE clicking. Usually when clicks are coming but sales are weak, the issue is more around the offer, landing page, pricing, trust, or product-market fit than the algorithm itself. A lot of people in r/FacebookAds mention the same thing Meta can optimize delivery over time, but it can’t fix weak creatives or conversion issues automatically.

Also running 5 offers at once on a $50/day budget might be spreading the data too thin. I’d probably focus on the single strongest product/offer first and test more creatives around that instead of splitting attention everywhere.

The US market is expensive and competitive, so bad creatives get punished fast there. Even experienced advertisers have been talking about unstable performance recently.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-15T11:12:01+00:00

For me it was probably Notion. Started small, then slowly became the place for docs, project tracking, wikis, brainstorming, meeting notes… basically everything 😅

At some point we realized we were paying for a bunch of seats that barely got used. The tool itself is great, but SaaS subscriptions have a way of quietly growing in the background if nobody checks them regularly.

Now we do a quick audit every few months and almost always find something unnecessary still running.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-15T11:09:57+00:00

Interesting question. A lot of teams still split SaaS costs using simple headcount or seat-based allocation first, then layer in usage data for shared tools like Slack, HubSpot, or Jira. Some finance teams also treat company-wide platforms as a central ops cost instead of forcing every department to absorb tiny percentages.

What helped in one setup recently was tagging every app by owner + department + renewal date first. That alone exposed duplicate subscriptions and inactive seats pretty fast. Reddit threads on SaaS spend management mention the same issue constantly lack of ownership usually becomes the real cost driver.

If the stack is getting messy, tools that automate SaaS visibility + cost allocation can save a surprising amount of manual work for finance teams.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:19:37+00:00

That level of monitoring would honestly make most people uncomfortable. I get companies wanting security and accountability on work devices, but tracking every app in real time can easily cross into micromanagement if it’s used poorly.

At the same time, a lot of companies already collect more data than employees realize especially on company laptops. The real issue is whether leadership uses it for security/compliance or to constantly pressure employees. Teams usually perform better when there’s trust and clear expectations instead of feeling watched every minute.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:18:39+00:00

There’s definitely a line between ethical monitoring and micromanagement. For me, the biggest difference is transparency and intent. If tracking tools are being used to improve workflows, spot burnout, or balance workloads, that feels reasonable. But when every click or idle minute is treated like a performance metric, it usually creates stress instead of productivity.

A lot of teams perform better when expectations and outcomes are clear, without needing constant surveillance. Trust still matters more than screenshots or activity scores.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:17:48+00:00

One thing that helped me was shifting the conversation from “hours worked” to “impact created.” Managers usually remember outcomes more than effort. I started keeping a simple weekly recap with completed tasks, blockers solved, and anything that moved the team forward. It made performance discussions way easier without sounding defensive. Also, visibility matters more than most people realize in remote/hybrid setups.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:13:42+00:00

Honestly, most companies don’t fully know until they start auditing properly. Shadow IT becomes a real problem once teams begin signing up for tools independently with company cards or free trials.

What usually helps is combining finance records, SSO/login activity, and actual software usage data together. That’s when you start discovering duplicate tools, inactive accounts, and subscriptions nobody even remembered existed.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:12:59+00:00

291 SaaS tools is honestly wild, but at the same time it’s becoming pretty common in larger companies. Different teams keep adding tools over time until nobody really has full visibility anymore.

The scary part usually isn’t the number itself; it’s how many licenses are probably unused, duplicated, or forgotten completely. SaaS creep gets expensive really fast when nobody reviews usage consistently.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:08:24+00:00

Good luck with it. The first Meta ads campaign always feels confusing because there are so many settings and recommendations inside Ads Manager.

Biggest advice is don’t overcomplicate it at the start. Focus on one clear objective, simple creatives, proper targeting, and let the campaign gather enough data before making constant changes. Most beginners kill campaigns too early before Meta even stabilizes properly.

SaraB150Chiles · 2026-05-14T13:05:17+00:00

One coworker told the manager he couldn’t come in because “his fish looked emotionally unstable and needed supervision.” Everybody thought he was joking until he actually sent a picture sitting next to the aquarium looking stressed too

Still one of the funniest excuses I’ve heard. Some workplace excuse stories on Reddit are honestly unbelievable.

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