7 Reasons For Monitoring Employees
Employee monitoring has become more common since the coronavirus pandemic when everyone worked from home. The demand has stayed strong even though people are back in the office. Searches for employee monitoring software like Wolfeye have increased by 75% since the lockdown in March 2020. But what are the reasons for monitoring employees?
There are 7 main reasons for monitoring employees:
- To track and increase productivity
- To understand how time is being spent
- To assess the performance of in-office and remote employees
- To keep company data from being stolen
- To minimize distractions
- To prevent burnout
- To save the company money on software
Let’s explore each of these reasons in detail below. Keep reading to learn more about motivations for employee monitoring, and how software like Wolfeye can benefit your organization.
Tracking and Increasing Employee Productivity
Employee monitoring can be used as a tool to track employee productivity during the workday. The data collected during monitoring is used to come up with strategies to improve workflow. Data collected relating to productivity includes what applications your employees use and the length of time they use them.
Another way that monitoring boosts productivity is that it allows company leadership to track mistakes and work to fix them in a more time-efficient manner. The faster mistakes are caught, the sooner they can be corrected.
Consistent monitoring highlights the strengths that each individual brings to the workplace while completing tasks. Knowing what everyone excels in increases productivity because people get more done when they enjoy the work they are doing.
Productivity is an important statistic because if employees do not stay on top of their work, projects do not get finished and the company suffers. Their reputation is damaged and they will lose revenue.
Understanding How Employees Are Spending Their Time
Monitoring gives management a better idea of how the people working under them are using their time. When employees spend too much time on non-work activities and socializing, productivity decreases. Monitoring software can track the time that computers spend idle and the amount of personal time employees spend.
Furthermore, monitoring software discourages employees from spending an excessive amount of time avoiding work. Using Wolfeye, employers can see what software employees are using, what meetings they have been in, and how much time they are spending on tasks.
Members of the administrative team can use tracking to receive alerts when violations of company policy occur. This allows violations to be addressed as they happen and prevents them from reoccurring frequently.
Assessing Remote and In-Office Employee Performance
Software like Wolfeye tracks and allows to measure performance metrics. It can also help match work across the department and highlight mistakes being made. Knowing what areas need improvement means that plans can be made to address them. Common errors can also be circumvented through this process.
Performance metrics should not only be taken at the end of a project but during its implementation as well. This way, project leaders can provide guidance and give feedback, which ensures the successful completion of it.
Employers can see if their workers are reaching expected quality goals and set up action plans for those who are underperforming. Employees will then be able to see where they need to improve and work towards becoming well-rounded assets to their organization.
Protecting Company Data
Workplace data breaches have a serious impact. Companies not only lose the data and projects they have worked so hard to collect and complete but key information they need to run.
A study conducted by Verizon found that 82% of data breaches were caused by human mistakes. This could be either making a mistake or forgetting to do something, Dealing with data breaches costs organizations time and money.
Monitoring software like Wolfeye can help keep data from being stolen. It can look out for threats and alert the right people if there is the possibility of a breach. There are also data protection features that can be activated to suit a company’s unique needs.
Lessening Incidence of Burnout and Its Effects
Workplace burnout remains a major problem across the country. According to Deloitte, 77% of respondents in a 1,000-person survey experienced burnout at least once. Burnout involves mental and physical exhaustion, extreme dissatisfaction with work, and overall declines in mental health.
Common symptoms of burnout include insomnia, fatigue, irritability, and depression. The best way to prevent employee burnout is to create a culture that understands the importance of and respects a healthy work-life balance.
Monitoring software can assist employers with maintaining a proper balance between work and home for everyone in their organization by tracking overall employee engagement. Anyone with access can see how an employee focuses and productivity ebbs and flows throughout the day.
If the tracking data indicates short sessions of high productivity immediately followed by long periods of little to no work accomplished, that employee is likely to be experiencing burnout.
Lowering An Organization’s Software Budget
Using a program like Wolfeye helps companies spend less on software. Instead of having multiple pieces of software to monitor different things or generate data, they can have one software that is comprehensive and gets more done at once.
The software can also help companies identify what software has little to no usage by tracking employee activity. Underused software can either be removed to reduce the budget or replaced with something that better suits company needs.
What Are The Types of Employee Monitoring Tools?
Computer software is not the only way companies can monitor their employees, although it has gained a large amount of popularity recently. Other tools used to monitor employees include:
- Video monitoring: tracking employee productivity and other metrics through live surveillance. Also used for security and legal purposes as footage can be reviewed at any time
- Keycards: these are used most often to gain access to areas and to clock into shifts Keycards also have a chip that details location for attendance purposes.
- Network monitoring: all companies track the activity on their wifi networks to an extent. It helps them protect against online threats by keeping track of network traffic, what websites are visited, files opened and stored, and time spent online among other things
- Email monitoring: email tracking helps prevent phishing and other cyberattacks. The It department has complete access to all of the activity on work emails
- GPS tracking: all company vehicles have GPS tracking for making deliveries and traveling between locations or doing fieldwork. Tracking this data helps companies understand how much work is done at different sites
- Keylogging: tracking everything typed on the computer while working to see if employees are meeting ethical
Monitoring takes place within the workplace in all kinds of ways. If you work in healthcare or another industry with a lot of personal and protected information, keycards are used every day, but you were probably unaware they are part of monitoring.
How To Choose an Employee Monitoring Software
A large number of employee monitoring software have been created to meet the increased demand. Because of this, it can be difficult to choose the software that best meets organizational needs. Here are some factors to consider when browsing monitoring software to help you make that choice.
Features Needed
The most important thing to consider is the features you want the software to include. After all, the software will be useless if it does not have the functionality you need. If you need ideas, some of the most popular features used in monitoring software are:
- Webpage monitoring: a real-time log of the web pages employees visit, including the date and time of each visit
- Application monitoring: a real-time log of the software employees use on their computers, including the date and time of use
- Live chat monitoring: tracks conversation data on apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack, Timestamps show the date and time, where the conversation happened, who participated, and what was said
- Email monitoring: application monitoring but for email accounts
- Removable device monitoring: tracking for flash drives and other pieces of equipment that can be removed from a computer. Shows if these devices were used and what files were uploaded to the computer or downloaded from it
- Screenshots: random screenshots are taken of an employee’s screen so managers can see the activity.
- Webcam monitoring: allows managers to turn on webcams to see if employees are at their desks or not
- Hardware blocking: prevents employees from downloading hardware that the company does not want them to use
All of these features monitor activity and give managers an idea of what their employees are doing at all times if they are following company procedures, and if time is being used well. However, some features like webcam tracking are questionable in terms of workplace ethics and legality, so you may want to consider that as well.
Software Cost
It is no secret that software of any kind carries a hefty price tag. Keep the budget you have for employee monitoring software as you are shopping around. The price of these monitoring is based on how many users are going to be on it per month, Most software has a minimum user count of five users to qualify for business rates.
The software is either run on-site using a physical setup or digitally through the cloud. The former has a bigger upfront cost because of the labor required for setup. A group of IT professionals also has to keep the server running. Cloud software comes without these costs, but is run by a third-party, so you entrust your data to them.
The average cost for software is anywhere from $40-60 per user per year. The minimum cost is $20 per user per year, and the most expensive is around $150 per user per year. The cost differs depending on how many users there are and how many features the software includes.
User Friendliness of Software
Not only does the software need the right features, but it also needs to be user-friendly. This way, the majority of people can use or learn how to use it even if they do not consider themselves tech-savvy. The user-friendliness of software has a direct impact on productivity. The more time users spend confused about software, the less time they have for assigned tasks
Every software should have a way of reaching out for support to help so that issues can be resolved as they arise.
What Makes a Software User-Friendly?
The best software is those that anyone with a basic knowledge of computers can use correctly. Here are some of the features that define user-friendly software:
- Simple installation and update process
- A streamlined and colorful interface to minimize overwhelm
- Navigation through the software to access information is easy to grasp
- Quick operation processes
- There is no need for extra software to access essential functions
- Integrated industry standard-security
If the software you choose meets all or most of these criteria, your team should have no trouble using it to get their work done. An accessible software means less time and money is used on training, and less frustration there is among employees. It is a positive thing for all parties involved.
Conclusion
The reasons for purchasing employee monitoring software include increasing productivity, understanding how time is spent, assessing performance, minimizing distractions, protecting data, preventing burnout, and decreasing the software budget. There are many types of monitoring software and it is key that the chosen one has the right features, fits the budget, and is user-friendly.
