Why Would You Use Employee Monitoring Software to Improve or Measure Productivity?

For keeping your business on a winning track, high productivity can be the most vital thing. However, the companies have not been extracting the maximum benefits in this regard. The studies confirm that only 34% of the total employees in the United States work according to their potential. And there are only 13% of employees give their best for the organization. It is also necessary to mention that even these employees do not provide more than the assigned time for official tasks. The companies define metrics generally to address this issue and improve or measure productivity. Mainly the reason behind this low productivity is inconsistent support to the employees. It becomes more critical when your team consists of a combination of in-house and remote employees. In these situations, less coordination among them creates issues.

Using employee monitoring software is the most common solution in this digital era. Previously, user activity monitoring with manual procedures and in-house supervisors was standard. It was helpful to some extent in the past. However, with the involvement of computers in processing and operations, monitoring computer activities has become a necessity for all organizations. In this article, we discuss employee monitoring techniques with the best EMS software, interrogate why employees have become unproductive, and suggest solutions to make them productive once again.

How Do You Measure Productivity? 

First of all, we need to understand what the characteristics are that make an employee productive. In small organizations, your supervisors and managers can estimate productivity because they can monitor their team physically. These managers can also suggest solutions to the employees, communicate tasks in face-to-face meetings, and keep them busy during office hours. However, it is impossible in big organizations because there may be hundreds of employees on office premises. 

• Before understanding and developing awareness about metrics, it is necessary to learn how to measure productivity.
• The most common technique that companies use is to calculate the average hourly labor cost for each employee. When we divide revenues by the working hours that employees give to the company, we understand employee contribution to sales. However, there are some concerns about this method among employees.

Here, we will discuss some most common techniques that help us estimate productivity:

General Tips for Measure Productivity Metrics

Let us measure productivity metrics and common ways to calculate them!

1. Working Hours

You may confuse it with the hours an employee spends on the office premises, but it is not. The studies have confirmed that more than 20% of employees try to procrastinate, which affects their performance. When we use employee monitoring software, we can find the actual hours spent by the specific employee in performing company tasks.

2. Project Tasks Must Be Preferred Over Administrative Tasks

Indeed, presentations, report generations, meetings, and communication through emails are essential. However, it does not mean that your employees compromise project tasks due to administrative tasks. Therefore, the management needs to minimize the number of reports they ask for generation and other less important tasks.

3. Online Distractions Must Be Controlled

Online distractions can be the most devastating issue for management to manage. The employees spend time on social media, chatting, news websites, and many other distracting activities. Therefore, calculating time in beneficial activities is a must, which is possible when we use productivity monitoring software.

4. Result Comparison

It means that you can compare the performance of two or more employees by assigning them the same task. These tasks help estimate the strong and weak sides of all the employees. This activity helps the management classify all employees and assign tasks to each employee according to his skills and expertise.

5. Quality Matters More Than Numbers in Some Areas

When the management assesses employees, they try to quantify everything. It works in many areas, but we do not need it all the time. For example, education, skills, quality, team cooperation, and quality of work cannot be told in numbers. So, we need to keep these things in mind while asking for employee activity monitoring software.

Now, we need to move forward and understand the data that we need to use to measure productivity metrics.

Use Employee Monitoring Software to Measure Productivity

Currently, companies use different monitoring tools to track employees. For example, time tracking, video monitoring, and measure productivity, and telephone recordings have regularly been used in organizations. However, business experts think that these tools are not enough to improve efficiency. It becomes more important after the incorporation of computers into business operations and activities. In some cases, you also remember that video and telephone recordings can create legal issues for the organizations. Therefore, the management must be efficient enough to keep an eye on all these issues.

Monitoring computer activities helps you track all the actions performed by your employees during office hours. Using the best EMS software for monitoring employees increases productivity and improves overall organizational performance. Here, it is essential to understand that the behavior of the employees can be changed due to employee monitoring software. You can manage it by keeping yourself cool, calm, cooperative, and composed as a manager.

Top 6 Features of Productivity Monitoring Software 

You can monitor computer activities and collect data according to your productivity metrics with the help of the following features offered by employee activity monitoring software.

1. Screen Monitoring

The best EMS software can also use a screen monitoring feature even when the computer is offline. This feature helps monitor user activities in real-time. For that, the best EMS software use video and audio recordings conducted after regular intervals. When an employee deviates from the assigned tasks, the monitoring software detects them to help management take necessary actions. The recordings through screen monitoring are generated regularly, and the management can watch these videos to estimate what is going on and how to rectify it.

2. User Activity Tracking

Having this feature means you can get information about specific websites and applications the employee uses over time. Additionally, employee monitoring software uses keystrokes to see if a specific employee resolves his issues during office hours.

3. Internet Monitoring

With the help of internet monitoring, productivity monitoring software identifies web resources that can distract an employee. It means that you can get data on all those websites used by the employees with time duration. You can limit access to some websites with the help of the EMS software. In some cases, you can also decide to restrict some specific websites permanently.

4. USB Device Monitoring

This activity lets you know about the connectivity of a USB device with the computer. One of the most significant aspects of employee activity monitoring software is that you can keep your confidential files and documents away from your employees. This software also helps you identify any security breach from any specific computer. We all know that USB devices can be the best tools to perform such violated tasks. With the help of the best EMS software, you can stop this activity and identify those employees who can be dangerous to the organization.

5. User Behavior Analytics

Although the best free EMS software does not help you achieve the target of observing user behavior, the best employee monitoring software can predict user behavior, analyze it, and take necessary actions. Some techniques to analyze user behavior are deviations from assigned tasks, the percentage of violations, and performance comparison. When it happens, productivity monitoring software identifies it to help the management rectify the issue.

6. Data Collection

The best EMS software collects data, identifies the best and worst employees, and prepares reports for all employees. In this way, you can identify the top performers and appraise them accordingly. You can also issue warnings for bad performers and announce incentives for the next month.

What Are Employee Concerns About the Best EMS Software?

Until now, we have learned that having productivity monitoring software helps the management and cyber-security team monitor employee activities and implement checks and balances. At the same time, these monitoring tools can create concerns and questions in the employee’s minds. When it happens, the results can go in the opposite direction as measured productivity can decrease. Therefore, the management must address this issue, develop confidence in monitoring computer activities among employees, and deploy the monitoring software after taking them on board.

For that, the management needs to take the following actions:

1. Distress Alleviation

First of all, you need to tell your employees about deploying employee monitoring software on all computers. With that, you need to inform them that using EMS software is legal. You also need to guide them about their rights and duties to ensure that no one has the edge over others in the presence of this system. It means that employers and employees can join hands with the help of this software to achieve individual and organizational goals simultaneously.

2. Effective Communication

The management needs to discuss every aspect of productivity monitoring software with their employees. For that, you need to tell them that the only purpose of using monitoring tools is to improve or measure productivity, which is true. You may also use the tactics these monitoring solutions have incorporated to improve the managers’ performance.

3. Employee’s Privacy Will Be Protected.

Employee monitoring software can access the personal data of any employee via a specific computer. However, when you guide that, personal data cannot be accessed because it is illegal. Therefore, the employees do not like it. With that, you should also tell them that you do not need their data and that you will not make this mistake in any case. When employees develop confidence that their data will not be monitored, they feel more comfortable using productivity monitoring software.

How to Improve or Measure Productivity with the Help of Employee Monitoring Software?

As described earlier, an employee productivity monitoring system helps you collect all essential information to identify the issues in measuring productivity and improve it effectively. For that, the management needs to follow some tips given below:

• You can record all the activities performed on a specific computer. You need to differentiate between productive and unproductive activities and develop control over unproductive ones. It will improve overall employee performance.
• It would be best if you decreased online distractions to improve productivity. For that, productivity monitoring software provides you with data on the most visited websites. If there are any websites, which have no relation to tasks assigned to the employees, you need to limit access to those websites.
• With screen monitoring and recordings, you can calculate the time spent by the employees on a specific task. It helps you identify skilled and unskilled employees to perform that particular task. You can smooth out workloads according to the performance and expertise of all the employees.
• Low productivity means a lack of interest, knowledge, and competence. When you identify low performance, you need to train your employees accordingly. It will help rectify the mistakes, fill up the loopholes, and improve results.
• There must be no dispute in the organization to improve or measure productivity. If there are some, solve them immediately.
• Employee monitoring software helps detect risky employees. When you find security violations and breaches, identify the employees involved in them. Try to take them back on track. However, in case of not possibility, try to eliminate them.
• Sometimes, there may be managerial flaws in poor productivity. The top management needs to take responsibility for improving managers. It will help improve overall organizational performance.
• Morale-boosting activities are a must in the organization. For example, you need to appreciate good employees by giving them bonuses and incentives. It will boost the morale of other employees, and they will try to win the next time.

We assure you that these tips will help you improve the overall performance of the organization. However, you need to have employee monitoring software in any case, as without it, all your plans to achieve organizational goals and objectives will remain unfinished.