What is Employee productivity tracking tool and why you need it
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Because of global pandemic of Covid-19 remote work has become our new reality. And though we are all professionals aware of our duties, the work still requires a little bit of control. Without it, employee productivity can be too low which negatively affects the company. Freelancers and remote workers have a wide range of productivity tools as the internet is now filled with paid and free apps with a huge variety of pricing options, from time tracking software to financial accounting tools. But what is about complex productivity tracking software?
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What is employee productivity monitoring software?
Productivity monitoring software is an app which allows tracking and analyzing employees` activity in order to see the whole picture of the working process and to eliminate potential flaws. Productivity monitoring software keeps track of work hours and leads to overall productivity growth. In case of remote teams productivity tracking is a cure. Procrastination is main ally is the internet. How often do you open messengers, check your email, read news on Facebook during your work? This software is necessary when you cannot see what your people are doing during work hours and how the resources are distributed. Employee productivity monitoring software will collect data of the workflow, like visited websites, start and finish time, etc. It can take screenshots of the desktop and provide them to the employer. Basically, productivity tracking helps to show what your employees are busy with when you cannot see them physically.
Advantages of productivity tracking software and what problems it solves
The most beneficial feature of productivity monitoring software is its ability to reduce amount of working time spent in vain. This is possible thanks to activity monitoring. Remote work gives a chance to work from any place which is awesome, but at the same time it can be extremely hard to stay away from distracting things during the day. Social media checking, TV watching, meetings with friends and other not work-related activities may tempt to postpone important tasks. People tend to be much more focused on work when they know that their actions are monitored. This software may even block undesirable websites during work time.
With productivity tracking company policy becomes more efficient as there is no chance for data leakage. Employers can track electronic communication via e-mails and other channels to avoid confidential data breaches due to co-workers negligence. Managers will be informed about possible security threats by the software. This way, administrators are able to protect any sensitive area of the business.
It is also a powerful tool for monitoring remote employees. When working-from-home can be beneficial for both staff and managers, the last one may face a lack of control on the situation. With the help of productivity monitoring software it is possible to be aware of employees operations by video or pictures of the screen activity recorded or by detailed reports provided by the app.
Nevertheless, productivity tracking has its disadvantages. First of all, it seems like a great threat of workers` privacy which may scary many users. In reality, however, such software will not collect any personal data.
Then your employees may face significant stress due to constant control. And this issue can be solved with the help of communication. Manager should explain the goals of the company and its not hostile intentions that can be fulfilled by such a tool.
Finally, some kind of collisions may appear while productivity monitoring software is used. Make sure that your software meets the requirements of the national legislation.
How to choose your perfect employee productivity monitoring software
While searching for the perfect productivity tracking software, you just need to choose proper features to meet your needs. The most vital ones for employee productivity monitoring are ability to block website and monitor apps, makes screenshots of current activity, logging control, and processes reports, flexible settings. Price policy can be different, from free options to some high-end apps with set of functions covering all possible needs. Here are just a few great apps:
- Timely creates a timeline of work and shows how much time was spent on every task. This allows setting better priorities in job.
- EmailAnalytics is rather focused on e-mail statistics, but is useful for some companies.
- ProofHub is a great productivity tracking tool to collaborate on projects.
- AktivTrak helps to see employees` activity on any device and sends regular reports.
- Everhour is a time-tracker which can calculate profitability of the spent time.
How and why to implement productivity monitoring software in your work
Productivity tracking software can improve organizational structure of the company. It shows what tools you exactly need to perform the work. Such software assists in finding the most productive periods of time and the most effectively collaborating teams. It helps to divide work between teammates rationally without overloading only some employees.
There is a special principle of productivity tracking that affect labor outcomes. When workers are aware of control they will try harder to work not paying attention to distractions. Anyway, before implementing this kind of tool analyze the goals of your company and use it for good reasons (not to fulfill anti-utopic scenarios of total control). Productivity tracking is useful for several purposes, among which cost reduction, time waste decrease, engagement growth, even workload distribution, and business data protection. While choosing the most convenient options pay attention if this software has simple installation and interface, what payment plan is, if it is easy to get support and if you have proper hardware.
When you are sure about necessity of having productivity monitoring software, talk to your staff about it. Explain your team what productivity tracking software is. Tell them why you need it and how you are going to implement it. Clarify the benefits your employees will get from using this software. Discuss any arising questions about privacy.
Conclusions
Remote work is a great thing, especially during lockdown. But it can be challenging to perform your duties without proper control. This issue can be solved by productivity monitoring software. This tool will assist in tracking employee activity during the working hours, show the weak spots in working process and present actual results and resources spent on the project. With the help of this software, your productivity will drastically grow.
