Employee monitoring has become a buzzword in every industry since the pandemic hit businesses. From the time organizations started adopting remote work as a new normal, the leaders have become more conscious of ensuring that their remote employees are actually working when they work from home. That is why more and more companies understand the need of enabling such a tool for employee monitoring that can foster their regular operations and protect their resources.
However, that employee monitoring software gets mistakenly associated with micromanagement and big brother at the office which can lead to trust issues among remote workers. If we deep dive into the subject, we can understand that technology like activity monitoring software is not synonymous with being intrusive.
Still, got worried about the policies and resentment from employees? This is why we want you to have clarity on everything you need to know related to aspects such as what is employee monitoring and how it can benefit you.
Take a look at some of the vital information your business needs related to employee monitoring.
What is employee monitoring software?
Whether your workforce is operating remotely, hybrid or in-office, an employee monitoring system is an empowering tool to keep track of work hours. By providing detailed insights into what staff is doing and how they are performing, activity monitoring software differentiates between the productivity hours and sitting idle status with clarity.
An employee monitoring software provides insights on how agents work in their daily activities no matter if they are working remotely or from the office. The activity data include application usage, web activity tracking with login hours of employees. Modern time tracking tools possess comprehensive analytics based on employee work behavior that determines the flow of productivity.
Today’s organizations who understand the potential of going digital also know that employee monitoring is merely an indicator for collecting instant data that contributes to productivity, work efficiency, and staff engagement. When used appropriately and with complete transparency, employee activity monitoring software can bring people, processes, and technology together even when teams go hybrid.
3 Benefits of using employee monitoring software
Employee monitoring software came to the rescue when businesses went remote while bearing the lockdown consequences. But, how did that make a difference to employees and impacted their productivity? That is simple! If you want to know how your employees are performing, capture their daily work-related and non-work-related activities.
There could be a plethora of different reasons influencing why a business would enable remote worker tracking tools within a company. Let’s look at some of the facts supporting the following reasons that would ensure your decision of implementing remote workforce tracking at the workplace.
1. To detect and avoid wastage of time
There is no doubt that the internet has been the biggest contributor to time-wasting activities. Be it in the office or working from home, employees can face massive distractions while completing their tasks. Workforce management tool can help detect such a decline in productivity by tracking the idle status of employees and helping to notify supervisors about it.
To get more insights into what employee monitoring has to offer, check out the stats given below and what role employee monitoring tools will play in it.
2. Increase productivity and accountability
Productivity compliance is not solely based on how employees perform when they are in office. Most of the time supervisors do not know what their workers are doing at home. The trick is they could have access to unlimited devices at their home which companies can’t control. Moreover, managers cannot control or ban smartphones else they would face rebellion.
Time tracking software makes it easy for supervisors to get detailed analytics on how much time certain employees spent sitting idle and will help to take instant actions.
3. Data and network security
Data breaches were the biggest threat that companies faced or were vulnerable to during remote work. These breaches could occur due to the employees who were inactive or negligent at work. The possible threats would be the leakage of the company’s confidential information consisting of client and customer details. Remote monitoring software with data and network protection capabilities can help detect such threats through network monitoring.
(A process of analyzing all the incoming and outgoing traffic in an organization’s network)
This monitoring also involves monitoring of staff’s screens accessing social sites, unproductive or non-work-related ones which could become the potential threats to business’s safety.
Legal and ethical aspects related to employee monitoring software
Employee monitoring is not about being active or going extra at micromanagement. This should never be the goal of any organization that wants to try its hands-on hybrid work monitoring. Remote work tracking should include employee monitoring ethics revolving around productivity at the workplace and making your workforce accountable. No personal issues or malicious practices could be part of efficient and reliable employee monitoring.
Therefore, your business needs thorough research on the types of workforce monitoring software that covers what, when, where, how, and who of the incidents taking place at work.
Laws about employee monitoring could differ from country to country or even on state levels. Where some places require organizations to notify staff before monitoring them whereas others refuse to do so. However, they can inform them regarding some monitoring strategies. It also depends on if the employee has devices or IT infrastructure including hardware and software; companies have the right to monitor the usage of their devices, data, and assets provided.
Businesses cannot use employee information that they brought from time tracking and activity monitoring for their personal purposes. This also implies work from home monitoring policies where companies can bear consequences by hindering employee privacy.
2 Steps to ensure credibility with employee monitoring software
As we have covered almost all aspects related to employee monitoring and how it can benefit businesses in the long run. Take a look at some steps through which you can ensure credibility among employees even when you are using productivity tracking software for better results.
1. Be transparent with your decision of enabling EMS
There is no other best way than, to be honest about what you are going to do. Especially, when it is about employee monitoring it is advisable to provide your strategies and ideas behind implementing remote worker tracking tools. Give clarity to your employees on what you are going to do with the information that you will get from the metrics provided by workforce monitoring software.
Give your employees to ask questions that they would have in mind. Prepare a list of benefits that you think would help you in giving answers to your employees.
2. Research the options with required features
Alright! You have observed the pros and cons of employee monitoring and now it is time to enable it. We understand that there are different types of employee monitoring software available in the market. And there is no going back once you made the decision. Making the right choice can be overwhelming. Thus, before spending a lot of time shopping around, you can begin by creating a checklist of features in monitoring software that your company will need:
- Real-time monitoring
- Employee productivity
- Website blocking
- Data leakage prevention
- Time tracking
- Apps and website usage tracking
- Remote team collaboration
- Login hours monitoring
- Categorize activities as productive and unproductive
Now, it is your time to make the best decision by choosing an efficient monitoring software that will be great for agents, employees, back-office operations and, a right fit for the industry you are in while addressing privacy concerns.
Conclusion
Make sure that your employee monitoring initiatives address all your concerns related to productivity and take care of employee privacy. Do a strict check on types of employee monitoring software that will be beneficial to all teams and departments across the organization. Be aware of the legal procedures regarding employee monitoring in your country and state.
Choose the right employee monitoring software to stay ahead in your remote workforce management initiatives.
