Does Employee Monitoring Software Increase Productivity?

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Employee monitoring is undoubtedly a crucial component of a successful business. When the employees of an organization are productive, the organization benefits in multiple ways. Today, many businesses have begun to deploy employee monitoring software to keep track of their employees and improve productivity and profitability at the workplace.

Now the question is, does employee monitoring software improve productivity, or does it add discipline?

A clear picture of employee monitoring software will help to get the maximum results. So, here we have described different aspects of employee monitoring software. This blog elaborates on how effective such software is, how to utilize it and what are their results.

Purpose of Employee Monitoring Software

Employee monitoring is an essential part of businesses of all sizes to set objectives and goals for the teams. Regular monitoring is necessary to make sure that all team members are achieving the goals their employers set for them. Today, employee monitoring is the most popular method to improve productivity at workplaces. It helps employers to track teams and employees to stay focussed on the organization’s objectives.

The prominent purposes of using employee monitoring software are:

Improve Productivity at Workplaces

Using the best employee monitoring software in India helps improve workplace productivity and understand employee behavior better. Such software is also helpful in preventing mishaps and unforeseen occurrences that might lead to negative consequences.

Keep Employees Motivated

If employees are regularly tracked with productivity monitoring software, they are more likely to stay motivated and focused on their work. This is because such tools minimize distractions for employees which helps them invest time in productive activities.

Provides Regular Updates on Employees’ Work

Monitoring tools and productivity measuring software are very helpful for employers to get regular reports on what their employees are working on, how much they have worked, where they are lagging, whether they are investing time in useful activities, and many similar updates.

Such updates help employers calculate their employees’ productivity and utilize this data in employee retention, promotions, demotions, and firing.

Assist Managers in Finding and Addressing Employee Issues

Other than just understanding their employees’ work, managers also can find different issues their employees are facing such as struggles in using different apps, finding ways to utilize time, etc. with the help of employee monitoring tools.

Managers can plan accordingly to address these existing issues of their employees.

How #Effective is #EmployeeMonitoring?

1. Increase workflow
2. Improve productivity
3. Reduce errors
4. Provide insights into disengagements

Visit us: https://t.co/UTy9i96P0H#ProductivityTracker #EmployeeMonitoringSoftware #TimeTracker #WorkFromHome #RemoteWork pic.twitter.com/ShUvs3h26y

— DeskTrack (@desk_track) September 27, 2023

What does an Employee Monitoring Software monitor?

If you are also confused about what are the different types of monitoring in employee monitoring software, then we will help you out with this. Here are the major monitorings of different monitoring and time tracking software:

Productivity

An employee monitoring software’s most essential feature is its productivity measurement. This software tracks every single click of your employees which further calculates their work productivity. This is a helpful tool to check if your employees are justifying their everyday activity or if they are merely passing the work hours.

Computer Screen

Almost every monitoring software tracks the computer system activities of people which helps employers and organizations to keep track of their employees’ system activity. This helps them know in advance about suspicious activities at the workplace. If some accidents occur, finding culprits is not a big deal.

Projects and Tasks

When everything is under surveillance, Employers can know the actual work done on different projects. They will know which team member performed which activity. This reduces blame games and trust issues besides promoting trust. The tracking of projects and tasks helps in fast and easy project completion and management.

Applications and URLs

The monitoring tools help managers know what applications their employees are using and for how long they are using them. Also, they can track what employers are surfing, if they are wasting time on unproductive URLs or using useful ones for their work completion.

Attendance

Today, most of the employee monitoring software comes with a feature to record the in and out timings of their employees. This helps record employee attendance. Management, especially the Human Resource Department can relax after using such tools to reduce manual attendance records.

Ways to Conduct Employee Monitoring at the Workplace

For deploying employee monitoring software, it is essential to develop a standard procedure and conduct regular communication and feedback sessions between the management and employees.

Some software comes with regular training options along with measuring the performance of employees. Training is also important to ensure regular compliance with the latest rules, regulations, and the best industry practices.

Some of the essential steps organizations must take before deploying productivity monitoring software are:

Setting Goals and Objectives

Defining goals and objectives for using monitoring tools is judicious. It gives a clear picture of tracking goals for both employees and employers. Setting goals and objectives for utilizing employee monitoring software helps in determining resources and personnel allocation for different projects. For employees, they are helpful by providing them with a pathway to follow.

Draft a Policy and Procedure Manual

Having policies and procedure manuals documenting expectations, job roles and KPIs, and KRAs of all employees ranging from the CEOs to the smallest employees will help in better utilization of monitoring software.

Drafting policies and procedure manuals reduce workplace disputes and improve productivity at workplaces. They also set standards for punctuality, attendance, application usage, attendance, etc.

Communicate Regularly with your Employees

Communication channels between employers and employees are always essential for reducing disputes and maintaining a smooth and healthy work environment at the workplace. There are different methods of communicating with your teammates such as face-to-face discussions, online meetings, chats, or written communication via mail.

Communicating with your employees transparently and honestly about employee monitoring before deploying them helps achieve fruitful results, and provides guidance and support to employees.

Act When Required

While communicating with employees is essential, monitoring with different software also shares details about possible red flags when there is something wrong with the functioning. It helps managers to take situations under control before they turn into blunders.

Pros and Cons of Employee Monitoring

Like every coin has two different sides – positive and negative, employee monitoring is also considered helpful by some and waste for others. Let us discuss the pros and cons of employee monitoring software in detail:

Pros

The prominent advantages of organizations with monitoring software are:

Better Attendance Records

With advanced tools, it is easier to maintain accurate attendance records. Monitoring tools not only record the in and out timings of their employees, but they also track the actual system login and logout times.

Analyzed Employee Behavior

With productivity monitoring software, it is easier to track and analyze user behavior, working styles, problems faced, and strengths and weaknesses of the employees. This helps organizations to understand the problems of their employees and find ways to work on them.

Insights into Workplace Productivity

The most important advantage of employee and productivity monitoring software is that you get the actual picture of workplace productivity. Every employee’s actual productivity is visible with facts and figures. This reduces disputes and blame games in the workplace.

Improved Capacity Planning

Deciding every employee’s capacity, and tracking their growth is difficult to perform manually. Whereas, when employee monitoring software is deployed, managers can easily devote the right amount of work to every individual as per their capacities, detect work completion, and track performance.

Cons

Besides different advantages, employee monitoring software also has a few concerns for the users. Some of the major concerns are mentioned below:

Privacy Alerts

The most popular concern among users of productivity monitoring software is the violation of privacy. When people use such software without the consent of employees, they tend to harm the basic rights of employees by breaching their privacy rights.

Also, people under tracking can become nervous which can lead to reduced productivity and bad results as well.

Psychological Stress Among Employees

One of the negative impacts of monitoring and tracking tools is that they can lead to psychological stress and alienation. Such behaviors can lead to negative results impacting productivity.

The worst situation can be employees leaving in bulk due to hurt morale. So, while using such software, companies must prepare their employees beforehand and provide them ample training and guidance on utilizing these resources.

Why is Productivity Monitoring Software the need of the hour?

Innovative tools like productivity monitoring and employee monitoring software are the need of the hour due to the evolving work environments and the introduction of new work modes.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, nobody hardly knew about remote working, but this became not only the option during that time but has now become the priority of many employees these days. Other than remote working, freelancing, and hybrid work modes are also popular.

These latest working styles need innovative tools for tracking and monitoring employees’ performance and activities, guiding them, and connecting with them when required. This is possible with productivity monitoring software with features like activity tracking, system monitoring, attendance recording, etc.

Also Read: List of Best Project Management Software

Conclusion

However, it is best to monitor employees as no one is 100% trustworthy from wrongdoing. However, the deployment of such monitoring software must be smooth, with prior acknowledgment of the employees. Organizations must set goals and objectives for using this software before introducing them to their teams for better results.

Employee monitoring software can help businesses grow as they have different features that help them not only monitor employees but at the same time improve results and gain business. The present working environment needs such tools and technologies for effective results more than ever before.