Today is the time when leaving employee monitoring unattended can be devastating for your business. The reason is the statistics, which tell that more than 70% of the companies had already started using employee monitoring before the Covid-19 pandemic. During this tenure, monitoring computer activities via software became necessary due to remote working and freelancing. So, the percentage of those who use the best free EMS software may increase tremendously. In this situation, you may lose the competitive edge due to a lack of technology.

When you try to find out the answer to the question related to the need for productivity monitoring software, all try to tell you about tangible benefits like easy tracking of remote workers, reduced office expenses, and improved employee performance. Only a few individuals tell you how you can improve your business operations and processes with the help of employee activity monitoring software. In the following article, we will try to explain the top features that make employee monitoring software the best for an organization.

Why do we need employee monitoring software?

• Businesses have been suffering since the pandemic, and business owners have been exploring new ways of monitoring their employees to improve their productivity. Here, using productivity monitoring software is essential due to some most wanted features. All these features use artificial intelligence, which is the latest technology in the market and has been proliferating in businesses. The experts think that AI will start working as a source for most emerging technologies in which monitoring computer activities is also included.
• So, if you want to be successful as a business, you need to be informed about the most advanced features offered by these monitoring tools. Here, we will discuss some of the top-notch features which are necessary to incorporate in the company via employee activity monitoring software:

1. Time management

• Tracking the timings of all employees is a must to extract the maximum out of their performance. When you incorporate monitoring tools in the organization, you need to define a working day. It means that we should have the information of employees’ log-in and log-out timings. We also need to have the knowledge of remote workers and their timings. In some organizations, the management asks the employees to manually enter the timings spent on offline work-related tasks like meeting with a customer, calling a colleague to resolve issues, and discussing critical points with the managers.
• You can find numerous monitoring tools that allow you to track your employees and their timings manually or automatically. So, if you want time management with the full features, you need to start using the best free EMS software. And with time, you can go for paid monitoring tools.

2. User behaviour monitoring

• Monitoring all computer activities like sending emails, calling, discussing issues with managers, recording meetings and other necessary assignments, and calculating time spent on specific actions are the everyday tasks that an employee monitoring software can perform. However, these are not all the requirements that a company expects. While using productivity monitoring software, determining behavioral changes should also be available to you.
• Why is monitoring behavioral changes necessary? Well, these patterns affect productivity and performance. And more importantly, the impact can be damaging in many cases. Many employees spend hours in unproductive tasks like scrolling social media posts, reading online newspapers, exploring sports websites, and checking personal emails. The experts consider these activities disastrous for the overall performance. According to the studies, companies face about 40% less productivity every year due to unproductive behavior.
• Therefore, the experts recommend monitoring computer activities via software. An employee activity monitoring software tells you about the internet use on a specific machine with a total duration spent on social media pages, news websites, and other entertaining content. These monitoring solutions allow you to block all these websites or minimize usage through restrictions.
• Many monitoring software also offers an additional feature. In its presence, you can count keystrokes during office hours, apps that an employee uses in his 8-hour shift, and record other necessary information. The best EMS software also takes screenshots after regular intervals to calculate employee productivity and make essential decisions.

3. Project and task management

• All productivity monitoring software solutions should have the feature of project management. It means that the monitoring tools should allow the administration to mention all the projects, their timelines, breakdown steps of the project, deadline, assigned tasks to assigned employees, and all other necessary activities to record.
• In the presence of this feature, the employers can foresee the completion date and identify the issues faced during workflow monitoring. While talking about the benefits of project management for the employees, they can track their performances, take necessary measures to improve their productivity, and produce results that the administration expects from them.

4. Analytics and reporting

• Many think collecting various metrics is the only task that an employee monitoring software performs. However, record analysis also plays a significant role in improving the organization’s overall performance. It helps measure employee productivity and identify the areas where an organization needs to improve.
• For example, each employee has different assignments to complete, and he prioritizes the tasks to complete the project in time. A productivity monitoring software should help the management collect all the relevant collected metrics and analyze the numbers to identify the performance of each employee. Some tools collect metrics that identify their decision-making skills to complete the task. It helps the management appreciate or depreciate their position in the organization financially.

5. Employee privacy considerations

Many organizations face the issue of reluctance from the end of the employees. The reason is that they think that their privacy can be compromised in the presence of employee activity monitoring software. Here, the companies need to implement compliance regulations to secure the employees’ sensitive data. Mainly, HIPAA, GDPR, or some other regulations are preferred to develop confidence among employees that their data will not be used without their permission.

Here are some instructions for the management to protect the private data of all the employees:

• The monitoring should be conducted only when the employees are in the office or completing their office hours.
• Only the blurred screenshots will be taken to observe whether the employees are involved in official activities or spending their time in unproductive activities.
• The best EMS software will not record any sensitive information of the employees. For example, their bank account details, passwords, and credit card information will not be recorded.
• Employee Monitor System recommend only paid employee activity monitoring software because these solutions use authentic and approved processes to monitor employees.

Concluding remarks

• Finding the most suitable employee monitoring software is an uphill task. However, if you know the most significant features that an organization needs, decision-making becomes convenient. Many people think that monitoring computer activities through AI features can be expensive. However, we want to mention that it is only a myth, and many solutions can be cheaper than your expectations. However, some small organizations may face difficulties. But when they know the benefits that they can while using these tools, they can also be convinced.
• Every company has its requirements. First of all, the managers need to identify them. When you have completed your analysis, you can start exploring the market. The reality is that many solutions are available in the market. Initially, you may have issues in finalizing the product. However, you can understand your requirements after a few months. So, at this point, you can replace the solution, and after the experience, you exactly understand which solution can be the best for you. 

Author Bio

Sarah Noah Liam is a 28-year-old Software Management person who enjoys programming, employees monitoring system, and screen recording. She has a post-graduate degree in Computer science. She was raised in a happy family home with two loving parents.