Remote Employee Activity Monitoring Software for Organizations

Remote employee activity monitoring refers to tracking and analyzing remote employees’ digital activities and behaviors.

During the pandemic, there was a complete overhaul in how we live and carry out our daily routines. It also altered the way we conduct our business. Work from home emerged as a new normal that enabled companies to scrape through in rough weather when the lockdown was the order of the day.

Most companies with modern technological infrastructure easily negotiated the transformation, while others struggled to keep pace with the new scenario. Work from home was a familiar and alien concept for companies and employees, but it is gradually being adopted across the board.

However, the work culture transformation from office to home wasn’t as smooth as initially believed. There were certain impediments for companies to change and adopt a new routine. According to a survey by SAP Concur published in TOI dated 29 July 2020, 88% of workers now prefer to work from home, and 69% believe it has increased their productivity.

For companies facing problems, embracing new technology and starting operations as early as possible became imperative. In this blog, we will discuss work-from-home solutions providers to help your enterprise successfully navigate a path against any pitfall it confronts in today’s scenario.

Work From Home – Problems

Working from home is fraught with problems for employees and the organization. An organization may lack the necessary technology infrastructure or have issues adapting to remote work procedures.

Some other major problems faced by companies looking to board employees on remote work platforms are

Communication Barrier

One of the biggest issues in a remote work environment is the communication barrier, as employees are not available face-to-face to interact with each other.

As a result, team collaboration is vital for the smooth functioning of an organization suffers. The lack of transparency further leads to distrust, confusion, and often conflicts among the team members.

In an office environment with effective in-person meetings, face-to-face discussions are impossible from home, negatively affecting the workflow.

Employee Engagement Issues

Companies often face difficulty engaging with new employees who struggle to understand a company’s work culture when working from home.

Employees sooner or later lose the required sense of belonging or common identity and peer pressure to excel, leading to low morale and a lack of integrity towards an organization. The low morale and lost sense of belonging may lead to a high attrition rate.

Technology Hiccups

The lack of technology infrastructure for small and medium enterprises is a major problem in implementing a remote work culture. Companies in non-metro cities are specifically not tech-savvy to hire employees on remote work platforms.

In addition, broader problems like application crashes, internet outages, broadband network limitations, and stable internet create further hindrances. A company must have a viable and modern technology infrastructure to avoid disruptions in its operations.

Security Issues

Malware attacks are frequent, and no organization is immune to them. However, workers operating from remote locations are more prone to such attacks, according to reports.

One reason is using personal laptops or desktops devoid of enterprise-grade security. Connecting home-based devices to the enterprise network can seriously threaten an organization’s safety. The result of such attacks is a data breach, causing irreparable financial loss to the company.

Benefits of Using Remote Activity Monitoring Software

As it became necessary for companies to adapt to the changed scenario, these companies are gradually embracing new technology that can be their savior in the current environment.

To find solutions to the emerging problems of working from home, an effective remote employee activity monitoring software is available that can come in handy for companies.

The efficient software solutions are custom-built to cater to a company’s requirements and help them conduct smooth operations.

The software is specifically designed to keep all requirements of an organization in mind. Some of the benefits of using remote employee activity monitoring software are.

• The software remotely and successfully manages the business process.
• It is instrumental in avoiding any disruptions in services such as corporate training.
• The software seamlessly maintains customer relationships and related services.
• From a remote location, it can manage the processes like packaging, manufacturing, distribution, etc.
• It provides real-time data on the company’s operations or business processes.
• Hassle-free communication with employees, business partners, and other different stakeholders.
• It ensures access to a cloud-based environment, keeping data safe and providing backup.
• It enhances productivity with simple interfaces.

Benefits for Employees

As an employee, the remote employee activity monitoring software is a boon that can help enhance his productivity without affecting his privacy. The benefits for an employee are:

An employee can manage breaks according to requirements during which the camera is disabled for privacy purposes

Video conferencing is available ensuring better coordination among the team members. The remote employee activity monitoring software ensures seamless connectivity vital for smooth operations.

Benefits for Companies

Security

One of the benefits of user activity monitoring is in cybersecurity. These tools secure the network and devices that, in turn, reduce any risk of a data breach.

It further protects proprietary information and a company’s trade secrets. Some of the threats the companies face include:

• An employee shares proprietary information with an unauthorized user
• Cyber-attack or Malware attack
• Uploading malware by an employee to the company’s device or network.
• An employee unintentionally accesses harmful web content.

User activity monitoring tools can track threats, allowing security experts to respond in real-time.

Legal Issues

Some companies rely on employee activity monitoring solutions to be legally compliant and protect themselves from litigation.

E.g., Companies in the financial sector have stringent rules and regulations to ensure what kind of info can be shared. The activity monitoring tool lets a company know that the users follow the guidelines.

Moreover, if any employee carries out any illegal activity, he can be easily and readily tracked and taken to task.

One benefit of the tool is that it not only carries real-time surveillance but also stores it, which can be useful in case of any litigation by the customer or disgruntled employee in the future.

Employee Activity Monitoring

The tool can be used for employee activity monitoring to see how the user utilizes his/her time during office hours. In addition to the above benefits that an employee can avail of, the software is an activity monitoring tool that helps supervisors and management keep an eye on employees’ work.

The software ensures seamless connectivity among the team members, maintained without interruption.

The software has emerged as an important and beneficial tool for companies who want to verify that their employees are using their time productively and not wasting it on leisure activities like watching videos or social media.

Challenges of Using Software for Employee Monitoring

Companies are increasingly employing Employee activity monitoring software to get the necessary information on attendance, time spent working, break duration, etc.

However, with increasing usage, certain challenges are emerging. Some of these are:

Unfamiliarity

One major challenge is the negative feedback from employees on being closely monitored by software.

Introducing software to monitor user activity throughout the day is a challenge.

Affects Employee Morale

The software can ultimately lead to low morale among the workforce. The company must take the employees in confidence before introducing the software and give strong reasoning that justifies the usage of the software.

Solutions

As working from home is becoming a new normal post-Covid pandemic, companies are increasingly facing new problems.

These problems, like a data breach the low morale of the employees, and the wastage of time by employees on unproductive activities are some of the issues.

To overcome these problems, companies are using employee activity monitoring solutions. The software provides remote working solutions to the issues faced by different organizations. Some of these are:

The Software helps in Workforce Monitoring

The software ensures customer support without compromising data security while working remotely.

The tool maintains transparency and builds the trust necessary to increase productivity by keeping an eye on the work of the employees.

The software further helps understand the team’s functioning, determine what works for them and what doesn’t, and improve operational efficiency.

Assures Transparency

The software helps in monitoring the employee activities and keeping track of their tasks and projects. This helps in enhancing accountability and transparency along with resolving any conflict in the office.

Remote Team Collaboration Tools

The tools are necessary to create a robust and lively workplace communication environment.

It allows seamless remote collaboration between the team members and the organization using controlled groups, private channels, and broadcast features. The group chats come in handy to instantly connect with supervisors, trainers, or subject matter experts.

A supervisor can use the tool to flag important updates, obviating the need to send e-mails or phone calls.

Upgrade the Project Deliverability

The software enables the company to deliver all the pending projects on time. The team members can use the tool and prioritize their tasks while avoiding the gaps during the process.

It helps better time management and allows the employees to work on their problem areas.

Enhance the Productivity of Employees

By keeping track of the employees’ activities, the company can save 20% (approx.) of the time that is otherwise wasted on unfruitful work.

Thus, by monitoring the activities, the company can supervise and channel the time wasted by employees. The employees, on their part, can devote more time to the company’s work, making themselves more productive.

Reporting Management Platform

A supervisor can use the software effectively to manage and access the team’s performance and report. It optimizes the supervisor’s duty and brings the organization’s team members on the same page.

Using the software, the management can access everyday reports that can help improve the company’s prospects.

Data Security

Productivity and data security are also big concerns for companies. The data is becoming increasingly vulnerable with the increase in remote work culture.

A data breach is possible from any external cyber-attack or the user’s end, potentially damaging the company’s prospects.

According to a survey, 66% of companies in India faced a data breach during the pandemic affected by the remote working model, as reported in the Economic Times on 20th August 2020.

Network Health Check

The workforce operating from a remote location needs all the help it can get to ensure no disruptions in functioning. The tool proactively finds the fault before creating problems for the end-user.

Conclusion

The COVID pandemic disrupted the old working model that was operational for decades. Most companies were caught off guard and faced the daunting task of keeping their customer service channels and contact centers operational.

During the pandemic, work-from-home culture became the new normal as companies were forced to relocate their work to remote locations. However, working from home has its own set of problems both for the companies and the employees.

While employees face issues like isolation, lack of discipline, low morale, network issues, etc., the problems companies face are performance-specific and security. In helping companies tide over the crisis, remote employee activity monitoring software comes to the rescue with features tailor-made to solve a company’s problems.

From ensuring seamless connectivity to instant chat with a supervisor or trainer whenever and wherever required, the software ensures no disruptions are reported in the company’s operations.

The bigger advantage of the software is the AI-based security features and constant user activity monitoring necessary to improve productivity.

Work-from-home culture is here to stay and, if effectively used, can result in productivity gains, cost-saving, and a more efficient workforce.

As businesses rapidly learn to adjust to the changing environment, employee activity monitoring software and tools, like those offered by Leapmax, will only increase. The software can effectively maintain a vibrant work culture even in a remote place, but it is equally important for companies to be transparent with employees.

The companies should be more forthcoming about integrating the software and take workers’ consent before implementing it. Before the installation of the software, both the employees and the company must be on the same page.