Types of Employee Monitoring Software

 

The best employee monitoring software may actually seem geared primarily to boost productivity, increase productivity, or both. And, of course, access control and computer security are also an ever-present concern today, as these days almost all important data and secure technology are stolen in many companies rather than from "outsiders." It's important to remember that employee monitoring software, if used correctly, can indeed help to reduce a business's costs, but only if the objectives are clearly defined and monitored. Here are some things to keep in mind when looking into which employee monitoring software might be right for your company.

While it is certainly true that productivity will definitely rise as a result of the use of employee monitoring software, this isn't always the only thing that an employee monitoring software program can help to accomplish. For example, the monitoring of employee computer usage often occurs when the employee is away from the office, which can result in a large amount of time that is being wasted on nonproductive tasks. By installing a computer monitoring tool, it is actually possible to monitor the use of computer stations throughout your company and can even get full logs of what is being done on each computer station at any given time. This can then be logged and emailed, which can then be used for a variety of purposes.

Time tracking is something that can definitely be improved upon with the use of employee monitoring software. Many of the time tracking tools being sold today can do more than just provide an exact number of hours that a particular employee was logged into the system. Other tools can even provide a percentage of that time that was spent working, texting, using the internet, and so forth. Not only can this provide a great amount of insight into what employees are really spending their time doing, but it can also prove to be a useful tool in the workplace.

It is also quite common for employee monitoring tools to have real-time reporting capabilities. This can prove to be very useful. For example, if you want to keep track of the productivity metrics of a certain department, it is fairly common for the system to provide you with graphs and other types of visual displays that show you just how departments are performing relative to one another. The best of these systems will be able to generate a heat map, which can be extremely helpful in figuring out which departments are performing best and which are not. If you simply have a basic dashboard tracking tool that shows you general productivity statistics, however, you won't be able to generate a heatmap.

It should go without saying that if your employee monitoring tool is able to generate heat maps, it can also be useful for tracking which departments and staff are most productive. Generally, the software you buy should be able to hook up to your company database in order to pull the reports generated and provide them to you. In many cases, you will be able to view these reports and spend some time looking at them. If they are detailed enough and provide you with enough information, though, you may find that you can make some changes on your own.

If you buy into employee monitoring software that has some type of mobile capability, though, you should be able to check in on the progress of each team member from anywhere. If you are on vacation and suddenly come upon some bad news, you can easily download the employee productivity report and look over the different aspects of the productivity reports. If you are on a business trip and suddenly come upon some paperwork that needs to be done, it should also be easy to pull up the information on the fly. The only thing that will limit this type of software is the amount of time that you have to travel between when you purchase the software and when you actually use it. If you are going to be away from your desk for any amount of time, though, you should make sure that the tracking capabilities are able to keep up.

The last type of employee monitoring system that can help you monitor your people is known as the work examiner. This tool is not as powerful as the tracking tools mentioned above, but it still can be very useful for keeping track of what employees are doing at any time during the day. The work examiner tool allows you to log in to your computer and see every screen that is open in the program that you are running. You can see all of the windows and tabs that are open and everything that is active in the program. This means that you will have a good idea of how much time your employees are spending working, which will allow you to get a better idea of how productive they really are.

These are the main types of employee monitoring software. There are plenty of other options available, too, which makes it more important that you understand what is available before you choose what kind of system you want. In some cases, you might be able to save money by opting for just a basic system, without any additional features. However, if you want to make sure that you have some way of catching employee activity, then you should definitely look into one of the other options. Either way, having the right tools will help you keep your business running smoothly.