Is Employee Monitoring Right for My Business?
Employee monitoring works for many types of businesses, but whether it is right for you or not depends on a number of factors. You may want to consider employee monitoring if you:
Manage a team that regularly uses computers. If your team uses computers every day, there is a strong possibility that some time is wasted on social media, playing games, or browsing the web. Employee monitoring software can track these activities so you and your team can discuss how to break these bad habits.
Manage a remote team. Sometimes, it is hard to gauge performance when it comes to remote employees. Employee monitoring helps you better understand your remote team’s activity during work hours.
Would like to improve your team’s efficiency. There is always a little room for improvement. If you think that your team could be more productive, employee monitoring can isolate causes of limited efficiency, giving you the power to approach your team with data rather than conjecture.
Free time from supervisory tasks Leading a team takes a lot of work, and sometimes, that work does not necessarily take place near the people you manage. If you spend a lot of time in meetings or out of office, employee monitoring software can help keep your team focused when you are unavailable.
What Type of Employee Activity Can be Monitored?
Employee monitoring allows managers to responsibly track various activities, such as:
- Amount of activity. This includes clicks of the mouse, scrolling, and keystrokes.
- Onscreen tasks. Through screenshots, managers are able to view what tasks employees have open, whether they are webpages, apps, or other software.
- When employees are clocked in. The real-time dashboard allows you to see exactly when employees are clocked in and online.
- All websites and apps visited. Screenshots are not the only way to see what webpages and apps an employee is interacting with. Monitask also provides a comprehensive list of all websites and apps employees visit.
Employee monitoring will not allow managers to:
- Gain remote access to employee computers. Having remote access to an individual’s computer is intrusive and will quickly upset your employees. Employee monitoring is meant to measure productivity, not immediate intervention.
- Monitor off-the-clock activity. When your employees are finished with their workday, their time no longer belongs to the company. As such, monitoring stops once an employee clock out.
How Does Employee Monitoring Help Productivity, Performance, and Cost?
Employee monitoring tracks your team’s activity, provides reports, and measures productivity. Most importantly, it prompts communication.
Once you have determined which areas are in need of improvement, collected data empowers you to discuss these areas with your team. It is likely that your employees do not realize how much time they spend on social media or how often they step away from their desks. An open dialogue can be enlightening not only for leadership, but for your team too.
When Your Team is On Your Side
Once your team is committed to bettering their work habits, you will see an increase in productivity and performance. In fact, teams using Monitask see a 10% to 80% increase in productivity.
This directly affects costs, because when employees’ work output increases, costs decrease. How? More work is being completed for the same budget, so a project costs less to finish than it would if your employees were not being productive. Plus, you save money by avoiding needless overstaffing.
Pros and Cons of using employee monitoring software
PROS
- Better data. With improved data regarding your employees’ computer etiquette, you can make decisions to better your business processes and set reasonable goals.
- Improved performance. After discussing your employees’ work habits with them, they have an opportunity to improve their level of performance.
- Increased productivity. When you keep your finger on the pulse of your team, they are more productive. Most teams see a 10% to 80% increase in productivity.
- Easy reporting. Access productivity reports with ease.
- Less overstaffing and lower costs. When you have better data, you can cut costs. By learning how your team can improve, you can find areas to improve overall efficiency and get the most out of your budget.
CONS
- Reluctance of staff. Some staff members may be resistant to the deployment of monitoring software. To deter this, explain why it is important and how it will help the team as a whole.
- Learning curve. It can be hard to find the right balance between monitoring and letting your employees motivate themselves. Don’t worry, though! After you try it for a while, you will figure it out.
