Picture this: Two employees are working on the same project. They have the same skills, experience and know-how. Yet employee #1 completes an outstanding product in a single day, while employee #2 turns in subpar work.
The difference? Employee #1 is more productive.
The sooner you identify these high performers, the faster you can coach entire teams to replicate their healthy work habits. To do this, you need to measure employee productivity.
Productivity tracking lets you monitor factors like focus time, distractions, work hours and time-consuming meetings — elements that make or break an employee’s ability to produce quality work. The best way to do this is with productivity reports.
Let’s look at employee productivity reports to help you get started with this vital business tool today. We’ll discuss what they are and how to use them — and introduce you to some employee productivity report templates you can start using today.
What is an employee productivity report?
Employee productivity reports are like report cards for work. They show managers how much time people spend on different activities, such as working on tasks, using apps, browsing websites or attending meetings. Together, these activities paint a picture of how efficiently teams complete projects and achieve goals.
These reports not only measure productivity but also provide important insights. Some highlight distractions or areas where people might need more support to stay focused. Others show you if teams are more productive when they're in the office or working from home. Productivity reports also help highlight training needs, identify top performers and reveal employee engagement levels. This data-driven approach helps foster a culture of accountability, where employees are more aware of their contributions to the team and the organization as a whole.
4 Employee productivity reports templates for 2025
Ready to get started? Let’s look at four reports to help you quickly understand your employees’ work habits and give you ideas for improving productivity across your entire team. You can get started with the following productivity report templates by signing up for a free ActivTrak account.
The working hours report
This productivity report template includes an overview of daily activity. It's a great way to compare the amount of time people spend on productive and unproductive activities, and to understand what productivity looks like across your team.
The work efficiency report
This productivity report goes beyond work hours to show you how much time people spend on focused activities. This report allows you to identify distractions and other issues contributing to unproductive behavior, and makes it easy to spot employees who need more support.
The activity breakdown report
Want to know how people actually work? The activity breakdown report will tell you. This report template ensures you get all the need-to-know details in one central dashboard — how much time goes to activities like email and live chat, who's meeting their productivity goals and how many hours a day are devoted to meaningful work.
The personal insights report
This personal productivity report template is designed specifically for your team members. It allows them to get an objective view of their work habits, such as their biggest distractions and what helps them to stay focused. It also allows them to compare their own activities to those of the broader team.
What are employee productivity reports used for?
Productivity reports provide all kinds of useful applications. For project managers, they’re a great way to see if workloads are balanced appropriately across team members. For productivity managers, they show when and where employees work most efficiently — whether in the office, at home or on a hybrid schedule. These reports make it easy to track progress toward team goals, see when unnecessary meetings get in the way of deep work and get real-time snapshots of daily activity. They even help with essential management practices like time tracking.
Should you use employee productivity report templates?
Some companies offer productivity report templates to fill in manually, either by using a spreadsheet or creating simple word documents. While these templates may be handy for managers of small teams, expect to face issues. For example, these templates:
1. Require manual input
Unlike ActivTrak’s automated reports, templates require manual data entry into a Google Sheet or Excel spreadsheet. This not only adds more work to your schedule but also increases the likelihood of errors.
2. Don’t track productivity in real time
Weekly or monthly manual reports provide a general overview of employee productivity, but can’t tell you what employees are doing in real time. This limits your ability to spot the signs of disengagement or see when someone needs help prioritizing tasks.
3. Lack context about factors that impact productivity
Templates cover the basics, but don’t provide a way to track important productivity influencers such as location and meeting insights. These details tell you a lot about how employees spend their time and are valuable when it comes to optimizing productivity across your team.
Automate employee productivity reporting with ActivTrak
The templates above are just the start. ActivTrak’s productivity reports cover a wide range of insights to help you spot and resolve issues fast. For example, you can also use them to:
View productivity by location to compare remote, in-office and hybrid work activity and see where team members are most efficient.
See in real time if employees are active, passive or offline — and which applications or websites they're using.
View overall productivity metrics by day, week, month or year to identify spikes or dips that need your attention.
These productivity management tools remove the guesswork from important decisions, allowing you to move your team forward based on data. In fact, more than 9,500 organizations rely on ActivTrak productivity reports to do just that.
Get started today with your free account. And if you’d like more tips and tricks, get in touch so we can connect you to an ActivTrak productivity expert.
