7 tools for employee monitoring to increase the productivity of remote teams

some sectors, such as travel and tourism, are slowly returning to what they were before the pandemic. Other sectors, such as economy and technology, are being redefined forever, and companies must adapt accordingly, or risk being pushed out of the market. The most important of these adjustments is to do things more digitally and less physically. Companies must say goodbye to the traditional office environment and shift to working in remote offices.

It is evident that many of these companies are struggling to cope with this paradigm shift. Among the main problems are, among other things, tracking progress and monitoring employees' work pace. To solve this problem, tools for remote monitoring of employees were introduced. These tools are software used by employers to collect their employees' work data, such as the time spent and the tasks performed. They are generally categorized based on whether they specialize in time tracking, task tracking, or activity tracking.

Advantages of Employee Monitoring Tools

1. Increased productivity: A major problem during the transition to remote work is the decline in productivity. In a conventional environment, employers tracked their employees' progress and monitored their activities. In this way, they could ensure that the goals were achieved, and productivity was maximized. In a telework setting, however, this regulation is no longer possible. Without proper monitoring, it becomes tedious, and in extreme cases even impossible, to get employees to perform at their best. Remote monitoring software for employees solves this problem by ensuring that supervisors and employers can closely monitor employees' work, thereby improving employee productivity.

2. Team building: An important way to ensure that employees perform optimally is to maintain high team morale, and one of the best steps to achieve this is to ensure a strong team spirit within the workforce. Building a friendly relationship between employer and employee is important to ensure that everyone can work as a cohesive unit. Usually, the lack of personal conversations has severely limited the opportunities to build good interpersonal relationships in the workplace, especially between supervisors and subordinates. However, a remote monitoring tool for employees facilitates communication while a supervisor can track the strengths and challenges of their employees to improve the work experience.

3. Evaluation purposes: This is about using real numbers to make a fair assessment of employee performance and effectively determine what each individual deserves. This is better than a conventional workplace where an employee can hide behind team performance without making an individual effort, or appeal to the supervisor's aesthetic sense without delivering results in real-time. However, with a remote monitoring tool, employee data can be monitored with microscopic precision, making it clear exactly how much an employee is contributing.

4. Project Management: This involves assisting a supervisor in analyzing and dividing tasks into manageable units that each individual and team can take on.  Due to the spatial conditions in companies and businesses, however, this had to be done in a different way. A tool for remotely monitoring employees makes this easier, as each employee's work is clearly and distinctly outlined. The automated process makes it even easier for supervisors to analyze the data and from there delineate tasks for the employees.

5. Resource allocation: Data on resource allocation is another advantage of a remote monitoring tool for companies. Normally, different offices, departments, teams, and individuals require different resources in varying amounts to properly fulfill their tasks. These could be managed manually at a physical workplace, but this would be nearly impossible in a company with remote access. The inclusion of remote employee monitoring software services allows employers to do this much better than it would be possible manually. The figures determined by the tools show in real-time how many personnel and material resources are needed for each quarter, and supervisors can allocate the corresponding funds.

7 Tools for Monitoring Remote Employees to Increase the Productivity of Remote Teams

1. Clockly: Clockly can be correctly classified as time tracking software, but it would be inappropriate to say that it is only that. Apart from time tracking, it can manage projects with the integrated Projectsly plugin, conduct screen recordings and location tracking, as well as create timesheets. And all of this, despite supporting multiple integrations, most of which can be found in the same 500apps area. Pricing: Clockly is offered at a one-time price of $14.99, which also guarantees access to 37+ other programs in the 500apps suite.

2. Hubstaff: Hubstaff is primarily a tool for monitoring employee activities. It collects reports on how much time remote employees spend at their workstation, as well as keyboard and mouse activities to measure additional parameters, and sends detailed automatic reports to the supervisor. Pricing: Hubstaff offers a 14-day free trial. The Desk Free Plan is free, the Desk Starter Plan costs $5.83 per month, and the Desk Pro Plan costs $8.33 per month. There is also an Enterprise plan that can be customized according to user preferences.

3. Click Time: Click Time is a tool for time tracking and employee monitoring. It collects data on how much time employees spend on their remote jobs, creates and sends timesheets, and calculates time and resource forecasts based on the collected data. Pricing: The Click Time Starter Plan costs $10 per month, the Team Plan costs $13, while the Premier Plan costs $24. A customizable Enterprise Plan is also available, subject to consultations with the Click Time team.

4. T Sheets: T Sheets, now called QuickBooks Time, is a project and time tracking tool for monitoring employees. It collects time data, schedules tasks, facilitates team management, and provides reports. Additionally, it supports integrations as needed. Pricing: The smallest plan, called the Simple Plan, costs $25 per month, the Essentials Plan $50 per month, the Plus Plan $80 per month, and the Advanced Plan $180 per month.

5. Everhour: Everhour serves as a time and project tracking tool for monitoring employees. Like any other tracking tool, it accurately monitors the time spent on tasks and helps in planning future tasks. Furthermore, it works well in conjunction with other applications to automate documents such as invoices and budgets. Pricing: The price for Ever hour is $10 per month and $8.50 per month for the annual plan.

6. Clocklify: Clocklify is a remote employee monitoring tool that allows you to track applications and websites with a timer to determine and create timesheets. These can also be managed in a calendar to create schedules and timelines. Pricing: The price for the Basic Plan is $3.99 per month, Standard costs $5.59, Pro costs $7.99, and the Enterprise Plan is $11.99 per month.

7. Desktime: Desktime is a remote employee monitoring tool that records employee activities by tracking the time spent on websites and applications on the employee's PC and generates reports on which of these websites it considers useful or not useful. Additionally, it automatically takes screenshots and maintains an absence calendar.

Pricing: The Desktime Lite plan is free, the Pro plan costs $7, the Premium plan costs $10, and the Enterprise plan costs $20. Conclusion It can be said with certainty that many companies are still trying to find their footing after the events of 2020 have cornered them.

To adapt to these current circumstances, SaaS providers have elevated their services to a new level. With employee monitoring tools of unprecedented quality like Clockly, companies will soon recover and become even better than they had previously imagined.