Best Employee Monitoring Software

Surveillance is an age-old information technology industry principle. The term refers to the act of tacit observation of an entity and is prevalent in espionage - both physical and digital. Though susceptible to surveillance in multiple areas, businesses often engage in surveillance activities for the betterment of their final product. 

One such form of surveillance is Employee Monitoring. Employee tracking has become an industry standard, and there are multiple means to do it - a popular one being the deployment of an employee monitoring system. 

Through this Buyer’s Guide, GoodFirms highlights what Employee Monitoring software is, an employee monitoring tool’s features and benefits, while also putting forward the practical application of such software. This document will help you analyze the different types of employee tracking software on GoodFirms’ dedicated page, helping you make a trouble-free choice.  

A concept over a century old in its implementation, employee monitoring is referred to as the information-gathering activities conducted by organizations to keep a check on employee activities, their location, access and use of sensitive information, usage of company resources, and other critical factors related to their daily work performance. 

Companies deploy employee tracking tools to hedge against the risk of data and other sensitive information theft while ensuring the company’s protocols on attendance and productivity are being followed diligently by all staff. The purpose of employee tracking is to nip any potential threats in the bud and course-correct employees quickly to better the firm. Surveillance of employees reveals complete transparency in employees’ work and a trace path for understanding professional behavior. 

Recently, a study revealed that 80 percent of all United States firms deployed surveillance of some kind. Employee productivity has also played a vital role in the purpose of employee monitoring, with a particular focus on ensuring the minimization of goldbricking and drop in the final output.   

Employee tracking grew as a concept within organizations with the burst of the industrial revolution and labor distribution. Today employee monitoring has a variety of purposes than just ensuring compliance to regulations - it plays a part in employee well-being, organizational profitability, and business process improvements.   

Tracking employee work hours at granular levels is also possible - who does what work, at what time, and at which place. Based on active observations, decisions regarding task assignment, and employee work hours can be modified to better suit individual needs.  

Is your company worried about employee dedication? Analyzing employee actions using various methods, such as crucial stroking and wiretapping, to find out where they spend most of their productive hours and filter out all non-productive activities.  Even details such as who they send emails to and why they accessed particular resources can prevent unwarranted access and spillage of data. 

Higher employee efficiency links directly to corporate profits. It’s no secret that an organization that keeps churning successful products and services is always green. Legal liabilities that may stem from workforce actions are also actively avoided with reasonable monitoring measures. The prospect of court battles, fees, and reputation damage arising out of employee misdeeds using company assets and resources is enough reason for companies to monitor them. 

Finally, keeping tabs on employees often tends to improve the business processes. Traceability of employee actions during a workday can help single out inefficient mechanisms. It can lead to shortened turnover times for projects, increased operational clarity, and better communications within the organization.

The short, definitive answer - Yes. Employee monitoring services provide sufficient data for organizations to model their ideal employee behavior at a workaround, encompassing all personnel levels.

Employee work hours and tasks can be easily adjusted, leading to better workforce relations and aiding staff to find their comfort zone - crucial at work. With the right impetus, employees could be encouraged to take up responsibilities outside their zones, backed up with continuous tracking. Discussing their professional growth at current performance levels is also an option.  

Similarly, task and time trackers zoom in around what employees do during their work hours and how many tasks get completed per week. It plays a pivotal role in organizational efficiency because it increases employee ownership and transparency. The added responsibility makes employees function diligently, thereby increasing output. 

Furthermore, the consequences of deviation from performance while being tracked keep employees on their toes. It restricts the wastage of time through non-productive work and ushers in tremendous respect for one’s role. 

Legality plays a vital role in the implementation of any kind of employee monitoring solution throughout the world. Even in the US, regulations on employee productivity tracking software vary from state to state. 

Companies are allowed to track official equipment and activities over them country-wide, yet they are bound not to follow personal emails. Different laws apply to different states and, in some, requiring ‘hours on’ sent before an employee tracking tool implementation is mandatory. In others, companies need not have prior employee consent. 

All this leaves gray areas to what employee rights are when faced with impending surveillance at work. Essentially, companies have the right to monitor employees on-premise. Even while working remotely, as long as an employee is on the payrolls, prominent companies will want to protect intellectual property while also ensuring the employee is as productive as possible. 

The Edward Snowden scandal also made companies realize that data loss protection (DLP) was a critical loophole they needed to cover if an employee went rogue. Considering assets such as data are easily replicable, companies formulated policies to protect themselves best as long as employees had access to them. One of the easiest ways was to monitor which employees had access and what they did with it.  

However, it must not extend to personal devices or communication modes. It is also debatable as to which phone calls companies can record in what cases, with permission.  Companies ensure that any data collected on their part is pure for administrative purposes, preventing third-party individuals’ access. 

Now that you know the concept, it’s time to understand the software powering it. Employee monitoring software is a set of digital tools that help companies keep track of employee activities during their hours of work. Employee monitoring software helps organizations collect data to analyze trends and patterns in employee performance during work hours to assess times of productivity and methods of output wastage - such as personal web surfing, games, etc. 

Besides the above, companies used employee tracking software for legal purposes in assessing the extent of usage of soft and hard resources. The analysis then checks for data theft, irregular access to central devices, and other company property problems. 

Employee monitoring solutions provide stakeholders with objectivity in employee work hours reporting and billing of clients and protection (often pre-emptive) of all property under the company banner.  

Another study indicates that over 37 percent of employees surf the web while at work - either on personal or work devices. Also, the report suggests wastage 40 percent of all productivity while surfing the web during office hours. It could also lead to the surreptitious stealing of data by hackers if employees are not careful. 

Now, the proliferation of a WFH atmosphere further strengthens the case for sound employee tracking systems.

Absolutely! With a spurt in remote jobs, employee monitoring services have to be prim to ensure effective enforcement of company regulations among the workforce. WFH employees enjoy the non-rigor of a corporate atmosphere and have unrestricted access to a variety of the firm’s assets. 

Combining these factors makes it essential for companies to monitor their progress at work daily. WFH employees need to be honed into the company’s protocols and regulations - such as time check-ins, task tracking & completion, and reporting.  Even access to actual company databases and proprietary software needs to be regulated and strictly considered their operation outside the company intranet. 

 Effectively WFH employees need to realize that they are working within the limits of a soft organizational boundary, but the principles, protocols, and processes of hard boundary firms will apply.  Hence employee monitoring systems are necessary to manage employee interactions, efficacy, and asset utilization of a remote workforce.

Employee monitoring technology requires a set of features that are considered essential for its best utilization. Some of them are as follows - 

• Time-Tracking Sheet: Considered the basics of all functions, employee time tracking must be able to tell you their log-in and out times, besides their total hours of work clocked on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. 
• Location Tracking: The device’s GPS capabilities must be accessed by the software at all times to give a complete picture of the employee’s movements and location. 
• Real-time Monitoring: Get information firsthand on what tabs the employee has open, what apps he’s accessed, and his/her browser history. The software should be able to gauge the employee’s productivity instantaneously. 
• Task and Project Manager: Keep a check on the progress of individual tasks assigned to employees, updated daily.  
• Alerts and notifications: Employee monitor software must tell authorities within a firm when employees access critical resources or if there is a breach or deviation from standard protocol while using company assets.
• Reporting and Analytics: Analytics within an employee tracking system should tell you various aspects of an employee's functioning, with a visual performance report presentable to him/her.  
• Keystroke Reporting:  Employee monitoring tools should record the various sequences of keys pressed by an employee and send a map of it to the administrator. 
• Stealth Mode: Employee monitoring software should hide and record data about employees’ activities on company systems, without them ever knowing, but within the country’s employee monitoring laws. 
• Third-party integration: Buy an employee monitoring system whose capabilities increase with integrations. 
• Idle Time: The employee tracking system should be able to pinpoint the exact time the screen of a computer lay unused to track productivity timings. 
• Screenshots: The employee monitoring solution should help you take an automatic or manual screenshot of the user’s screen and activities.

Employee monitoring software has been a boon for many organizations, especially in the distributed work era. Some of the most significant advantages of these systems are as follows: 

• Increased employee productivity and evaluation
• Heightened engagement with the workforce 
• Better asset/resource tracking and utilization records. 
• Safeguarding sensitive information from breaches
• Improves business process and decision making
• Real-time analysis is a boon 
• The synchronicity of work across geographies
• Remote Work tracking capability 
• Automation of Administrative responsibilities 
• Reduced resource wastage 
• Cost-Saving implementations

Employee tracking software has various price points depending on the features, several systems it's set to be distributed over, the software version, and support systems. 

If you are looking to employ cost-effective, open API Solutions, then look at our Free and Open Source employee monitoring software. Vendors often provide freemium versions of their software - Network Lookout and Screenshot Monitor are two notable examples. Cloud Desk and TaskEye help users look and feel the software through a free trial before committing to a full version.  

OsMonitor ($99) and Teramind ($175) charge buyers yearly. Check-Time, priced at $105, deploys a one-time payment model. Spyrix Employee Monitoring and Activeye follow a quotation-based model with users being allowed to create models that benefit their business model. 

SurveilStar and MobiStealth are the premium-priced monthly software, coming in at $34.95 and $59.99 per month.  WebWork Time Tracker, Desklog, and DeskTime are the lower-priced ones at $2.99, $4, and $ 7 per month. 

If you are in the market for a sound employee monitoring system, you should consider a few factors before making your choice.  Some of them are as follows - 

• Price - Make sure that the employee tracking tool is affordable and within budgets 
• Features - Ensure that the complete set of features that you need are prevalent in the version you buy. 
• Support - Ensure that customer support and service is available for all purposes with respect.  
• Version - Make sure the employee tracking system you purchase is the right version. Ensure it can run on desktop and, if necessary, mobile too. Pricing-based version decisions are also important. Look at subscription-based or freemium-based models in case of confusion.  
• Security - Make sure the data you amass from employee tracking comes with hacker-proof codes and controls. 
• Cloud - With cloud integrations and systems gaining popularity by the minute, there must be some cloud data integration. The complete software may be cloud-based, or some form of data storage may be available on the cloud.

Thanks to extensive research, GoodFirms’ exhaustive list of free employee monitoring software and paid solutions is unparalleled. The plan covers all considerations prospective buyers will take - software development models (closed vs. open API), features, devices on which the employee monitoring technology will run, and the best employee tracking systems based on business size and cost. Also, check out employee monitoring software reviews online with the click of a button on GoodFirms. 

Need we highlight more? Well, this Buyer’s Guide will help you shift gears quickly in your bid to buy the optimal employee monitoring services. Be sure to check out our software directory for other great software types and solutions.