There is a growing trend for employees to work somewhere other than the office, but how can you really know they’re working? If your employees work from home, employee monitoring software can help your company increase productivity while tracking your employees’ workload.
What is remote employee monitoring? Remote employee monitoring gives employers the ability to monitor how their employees are using their time while working remotely. Depending on the program, it’s possible for employers to monitor websites employees visit, which programs they use, and any files they download. The ultimate goal for remote employee monitoring is to examine employee activity.
How Does Employee Monitoring Software Work?
Remote employee monitoring starts with the installation of a program on the employee’s computer. Once the software is installed, the employer establishes what will be tracked and how the software will work.
Most programs provide the option for different levels of surveillance. Do you want to only monitor your employees to ensure they’re not wasting time on social media when they’re working, or do you want an in-depth report including time tracking, inactivity, attendance, task management, websites visited, and programs run?
Once the program is installed and the report conditions are set, the program runs in the background and keeps track of what you have established. Most programs generate an up-to-the-minute report that actively tracks what is happening on an employee’s computer.
What Can Be Tracked with Remote Employee Monitoring Software?
All activity on a computer can be tracked with remote employee monitoring software.
You can track the time employees spend on different programs and applications and capture screenshots of these activities. These capabilities depend on the type of employee monitoring software, the settings and configuration of the program, and the needs of the employer.
Reports can even show keyboard and mouse activity to ensure employees are working on the correct screen with the correct program and their work is being done productively.
Why Should You Use Remote Employee Monitoring?
Remote employee monitoring can help your company run smoothly and efficiently. Here are a few benefits of employee monitoring software.
Boosts Productivity
Employees who are not monitored or watched can easily become distracted or inefficient with their time. Being watched makes employees more mindful of what they are doing at their computers, how they are using their time, and the relevance of those actions. This can help boost productivity and keep employees on task.
Provides Company Security
If critical data is leaked or stolen, you can use the monitoring software to track where the leak came from, as well as where it was sent.
Supports Personnel Decisions
When it comes time for employee reviews, monitoring software can be used to give evidence of why employees should be promoted or terminated. With the ability to track and see clearly how an employee is spending their time every day, management can make better decisions on whether an employee is a right fit for the organization.
Improves Accuracy of Client Billing
Employee monitoring isn’t all about trying to catch your employees doing something wrong; it’s also there to catch when they are doing something right. Employee monitoring software helps you track and manage the time your employees spend on projects for clients.
Monitoring software shows direct hours of work along with potential screenshots to justify the billing cost to a client. Your employees deserve to get paid for the work they do, and remote monitoring software can help make that a reality.
Help Employees Become Accountable for Their Work
When you hear the word accountable, you might think it’s a bad thing, like you’re going to be held accountable for your crimes. But accountability can be used to illuminate good work performance. It’s not uncommon for a soft-spoken employee to get overlooked or under-recognized for the work they perform.
Remote employee monitoring shows in detail just how much work the unsung heroes of your company are putting into a project and helps them become accountable for their successes.
What Are the Best Practices?
You shouldn’t jump into implementing remote monitoring without considering how to do it in an ethical and legal way. You need to think about the transparency of the monitoring program as well as the privacy of it.
Transparency
There can be a moral dilemma when it comes to tracking and screen monitoring. There’s a thin line between efficiency and a bit too much of a “Big Brother,” ensuring employees are actually working when they say they are. When considering the ethics of employee monitoring, transparency is the best way to address most concerns.
Not being transparent about tracking your employees or monitoring their computers raises the potential for ethical or moral and legal complications. In most states, advance notice in writing is required to protect employees’ privacy. If you are not transparent about the monitoring software and how it will be used, you are breaking the law.
To help improve your transparency, you should first understand why you want to implement employee monitoring in your company. Are you wanting to better track employee productivity, increase billing, or do something else? Whatever your reason, focus on tracking and monitoring those associated details only.
Sharing your timesheet, report, and monitoring information can create transparency and help increase employee motivation. If employees see that it is a company-wide initiative and even leadership and management are using the software, they are more likely to adopt and accept the program.
Privacy
Even if your employees are working on a company project from their work laptop, there are still privacy concerns and laws you have to keep in mind. Because it’s possible for remote employee monitoring software to capture all activity, there needs to be restrictions and limitations to give employees the personal privacy they deserve.
Your employees should have the privacy to do what they want when they are not on the clock. If you choose to use employee monitoring software, make sure there are limitations on when it is turned on and what it captures. It should never track what employees are doing during their off-hours.
How monitored data is shared and inspected is also part of privacy. Only direct supervisors and management should have access to employees’ information. Some companies even develop policies about how long information will be kept before it is deleted. Ensuring data will be deleted or removed after a set time helps protect employee information and privacy.
Latest Solutions Can Help
Monitoring your entire company can be overwhelming and require a lot of time. Partner with Latest Solutions to get help optimizing your remote worker monitoring options with our white-glove concierge IT service.