Employee assessment on a remote team

Question

This is the first time that I'm asking about team management on this site. Please guide me I'm I did something wrong in asking.

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We have 9 employees that we were working in our office. These days, because of COVID-19, we have to work individually in our houses.

We were talking at the first hour of the day to exchange information and what's our day's tasks. Also, we the same plan on the last hour of the day to talk about what we have done and what's the problem, etc.

Now, we decided to join an online meeting software at first, to tell each other what's our tasks and what should we do then start working, and, the other colleagues/employees must send a summary report of their work result.
In detail, I send them a list of tasks that they have to accomplish those tasks the entire week. By their decision, they plan to which task they should carry out and they're free in this case. They should send a report (summary) to my mail to what exactly they have done.

Now, the thing I'm looking for is an assessment method. I figure it out with one of the colleagues to evaluate their report by the following perspectives/aspects:

1. How the report is complete and comprehensive? Did he/she write all the details?
2. Did he/she attach all the files/reviews required?
3. Did he/she send the report at the right time?
4. How to understand the report is true and they didn't add more fake details?

I somehow know their behavior but I need more options to evaluate them. In addition, I would be happy if you suggest ideas about software to help us in these special days to manage employees.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is too unorganised.

Why are they free to plan their weeks work if you don't trust them?

You should have a report template at minimum if not a job tracking system. Then everyone knows what is expected in terms of reports and evaluation is easy.

You're expecting them to become experts at writing reports and yourself at deciphering them. This is messy. Take things to basics and make it as easy as possible to understand and accomplish. At the end of the day your primary focus shouldn't be about looking for problems, it should be about anticipating them and ensuring as far as possible that they don't occur. These things take more effort to set up, but they pay off by mitigating against issues that can become serious.

The less leeway staff have and the clearer their responsibilities and your expectations the better, at least to begin with. It's important to get things running well from the start.

I'm unsure why you think 2 hours discussion a day is needed. It seems overkill at best.