15 Benefits of Employee Monitoring and How You Can Use It

Attaining complete transparency between employees and employers is a necessity for a harmonious work environment. As such, companies have attempted to track their employees' activities, especially during work hours to ensure that employees are doing the right thing at the right time. Read on to understand why every business needs this time-saving tool.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted virtually all aspects of our lives. One of the new formals is remote working as companies and businesses alike join in the fervent efforts of flattening the stubborn COVID-19 curve. The pandemic caught all of us off-guard and so companies had not envisioned their employees working from home. Even when working from the office, employee monitoring can be such a chore. Working remotely has definitely worsened the situation.

However, you need not fret if you are a business, employer or supervisor who has found himself/herself in such a situation because, with a good employee tracking system, you are able to track your teams' productivity from wherever they are. As the pandemic relents, we are seeing more and more companies adopting employee monitoring software for output.

A survey done by staffing firm Robert Half reported that 60% of office professionals who transition to a remote setup say they have better work-life balance without the commute, which in turn is leading to an increase in the adoption of employee monitoring software.

It is imperative to note that companies want to exert the same control they had over their workforce before the pandemic struck.

If you choose to go this route, and we advise that you do, then opt for a tracking tool that boasts of the following features.

Activity Analysis: The app should classify certain websites and applications as productive or unproductive in order to analyze, use and track active time against idle time.

Smart Rules and Alerts: Should configure rules and alerts to notify, block, redirect, log out, or lock out a user depending on the severity of the action.

Live Views: This should enable an employer to see in real-time view the activity on a user’s desktop.

Keystroke Logging: The employee monitoring tool should allow the employer to track, capture, record and log all keyboard activity by a user.

File Transfer Tracking: The app should also send file upload notifications to cloud storage or downloads to mobile storage devices.

Remote Control: A good employee monitoring tracker should enable employers to override manual inputs by a user to prevent sensitive data from being altered and data breaches from occurring; use the remote control as a training aid between dispersed offices.

Monitoring: It should also track actions across email, websites, applications (whitelist and blacklist applications) and text/instant messaging.

Here's Why Employee Monitoring Tools are Must-Haves for Any Company

1. It Increases Employee Productivity - Perhaps the biggest advantage of employee monitoring is that it boosts productivity. Ideally, employees should be self-driven and disciplined to focus on what they were hired to do and while a little break here and there doesn’t harm if gone unchecked, it could amount to hours spent on unproductive activities to the detriment of the business.

Employers, on the other hand, feel helpless when they are in the dark regarding a worker’s activity during the day. It’s even more frustrating when the employee in question does not meet targets yet he/she swears that they have been giving the task at hand their all. In such scenarios, tracking one’s employees could be the antidote to the discrepancies between the time spent on a task and the output.

2. Picks Out the Problematic Areas - An employee monitoring software not only focuses on unproductivity but also reveals the time an employee spends to complete a given task. This way, it becomes easy for the employer or supervisor to pick out areas that the employee is struggling with and thereby offer assistance thus saving time. There are employees who would rather die trying rather than ask for help. An employee monitoring tracking tool thus comes in handy in such instances.

3. Helps with the Reallocation of Resources - We cannot underscore the importance of data when it comes to decision-making. One thing that technology has helped companies with is the ability to collect and analyze data, which plays a crucial role when it comes to running a business. The same concept applies to an employee monitoring tracking tool as they collect data that will guide in making decisions. For example, one can find data on where time and resources are being spent on an average workday. With such data, an employer can redirect or reallocate resources to ensure they are used efficiently and effectively.

4. Can Detect Hacking - Websites play a significant role in many businesses and as such, it has become a part and parcel of the business entity. Businesses with physical locations go to great lengths to protect their buildings and the contents therein. The same should apply to websites, especially in this era of hackers, who want to reap where they did not sow. Hackers use various means to hack websites and being aware of how website hacking techniques work is the first line of defense ‘to protect yourself and your business against cyber criminals. Employers can identify a hacking attempt from vulnerability – such as when an employee clicks on a suspicious link – using the employee monitoring tracking tool. And since the threat is sometimes from internal sources including one’s employees, the organization is able to identify the entry point of the hacking.

5. Monitor Attendance - While there are many ways of tracking an employee’s attendance, very few come with the aforementioned benefits that are associated with employee monitoring tools. Since time immemorial, companies have been grappling with employee attendance and with no proper record, it is very difficult to argue a case against an employee. It doesn’t help that there are so many aspects of attendance that need to be taken care of including off-time schedule, start time schedule, arrival time, leaves, break times and so on all of which impact the performance of not just that particular employee, but also for the entire workforce.

The Nest explains that employees will resent a colleague who is consistently absent because the ones in attendance will have to cover that person's work. Additionally, some staff members will have to delay their own projects in order to ensure the affected assignments are handled on time. The news source goes on to note that continuous absences will hurt morale because employees will feel that the management isn't taking the necessary steps to prevent a growing problem. This means that workers will become disengaged with their work and may start missing work because they don't believe there are any repercussions. With an employee monitoring tracking tool, employees will be kept on their toes and therefore adhere to the agreed timings.

6. Prevents Unauthorized Access - Another way that employee monitoring can help tighten up security is by keeping an eye on who accesses what. Whether it’s done maliciously or by accident, an employee monitoring software will alert employers when a user accesses data that they are not supposed to. This information allows employers to investigate a potential breach or behavior that is overall suspicious and find out if it was done with malicious intent or not. Through this, employers can help safeguard sensitive data against insider threats.

7. Helps with Project Management - Employee monitoring Tracking software will enable project managers to stay on top of projects as they get to receive continuous reports on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis. With such a report, project managers are best placed to make follow-ups or readjust schedules to ensure deadlines are met.

8. Enables Prompt Response to Requests - An important aspect of maintaining a satisfying workplace is attending to employees’ requests promptly. If an employee has an emergency at home and he/she has to immediately leave the office, they would appreciate a quick turnaround to their request. With an employee monitoring tracking tool, employers are able to see such requests as soon as they are posted and act on them accordingly.

9. Helps Supervisors to Generate Objective, Accurate Feedback - The feedback that is constructive is vital to employees’ ongoing development. Feedback clarifies expectations, helps people learn from their mistakes and builds confidence. With the employee location tracking system, managers can provide real, tangible and correct performance analysis to the employees. The feedback will be more meaningful and accurate when armed with real-time statistics related to the employee's attendance, project status and so on. According to Harvard Business Review recognizing employees is the easiest way of boosting their morale; “Make it timely. Don’t wait for monthly meetings or annual performance reviews. The OGO survey respondents reported an average of 50 days since they last felt recognized in any way at work. That’s way too long. Good things are happening all around you; notice them and seize any opportunity to acknowledge them.

Some of the feedback, especially if negative, will require proof to back it up, proof that you can obtain from data retrieved from the employee monitoring tracking app. Such data also makes the feedback objective and the employee will have no reason to say they are being picked on and such excuses to justify the negative report.

10. A Saving Grace for Working Remotely - If you are reluctant to embrace remote work culture in your organization, then some pros of employee monitoring tracking software can help you here. Establishing a proper workflow without direct supervision can be tricky, but it is not impossible as time tracking software including IceHrm have shown us. Employers will feel more at ease when they are able to monitor the activities of their employees who are working remotely.

11. Saves You Time and Money - As mentioned earlier, employee surveillance tools increase employee productivity. With a productive workforce, you are likely to have higher returns on investments. And since you can track productivity metrics including hours worked, you can use this data when it comes to payment especially if your company has shifts and overtime.

12. Builds Trust - The mistrust that exists between employers and employees doubles when the employer is unable to account for an employee’s time. With an employee monitoring tool, trust will slowly but surely be rebuilt as the employer is assured that the employee is using company time well. And, knowing that their employer is watching, an employee is better placed to make the right decisions. Hence, it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved. The key is for each party to understand that the monitoring tool is meant to improve productivity.

13. Help You Manage Payroll - Isn’t just amazing how much you can do with just one tool? Employee monitoring tools such as IceHrm come with a payroll management system that helps you to streamline your payroll process. All you need to do is to integrate it with a third-party payment delivery service and clear payments at the touch of a button. The employee monitoring tool also allows you to create and share invoices to enable you to make payments.

14. Can Pick Out Hazards - Whether voluntarily or involuntarily, employees may break safety regulations, which may lead to them getting seriously injured. By having an employee monitoring system in place, you can monitor any safety issues that occur, including little safety hazards on the floor or overhead, especially for work environments prone to safety hazards, such as warehouses and construction sites.

15. Good for Record-Keeping - This is primarily achieved by tracking employee time and other performance metrics. Good record keeping is vital for any business. A proper tool should be able to keep records of all your transactions, timestamps and schedules efficiently without you having the need to bat an eyelid.

Most of the methods used to create friction between the two parties, ultimately interfering with productivity, but with monitoring tools such as IceHrm, employers can now follow what the employee is doing at the click of a button.