7 Reasons Why You Need Employee Monitoring Software for Your Remote Team

You rely on your employees to complete the day-to-day tasks that keep your company afloat. Unfortunately, you cannot always trust each employee to take work as seriously as you do. 

As an employer, managing the employee performance of a remote workforce is especially difficult. This is because you cannot monitor the productivity of a remote workforce in person. 

Additionally, remote workforces have other distractions that could limit their productivity. They will also typically work off of a weaker network so your sensitive data could be more vulnerable to malicious attacks.

If you have a remote workforce but you’d like to stay on top of productivity and your company’s security, then you need an employee monitoring software for remote teams. 

Here are 7 reasons why you need employee monitoring software for your remote workforce:

1. Monitor Money Spent on Wasted Time

Even the most hard-working employee cannot work a full eight-hour day without some distractions. And, taking a break on a busy workday allows employees to unload a bit so that they can re-focus their energies back on work. 

Unfortunately, distractions can add up to about an hour a day, or five hours a week, and cut into worker productivity. Unfortunately, actively tracking productivity levels with a remote employee can be even more difficult.

It is in your company’s best interest to minimize distractions with employee tracking. Time tracking software can monitor employee productivity, so you can determine if the remote work is being completed effectively. With app and web monitoring features, monitoring software can tell you if your remote employee was completing the task during working hours. 

This software also provides a timesheet so that the work examiner has clear tracking of individual employee productivity levels and overall team productivity levels.

2. Create Clear Productivity Directives for a Virtual Team

Managing a project with an employee who is remote working can be extremely difficult. With any remote worker, you are vying for the time that they could spend doing something else, like watching TV or doing chores. 

Set clear goals for employee-based productivity levels and team-wide productivity levels. This way, each remote employee is aware of what needs to be accomplished in an hour, in a day, and in a week. Additionally, by putting timelines and time stamps on specific tasks, you can ensure that your workers are prioritizing certain tasks when you want them to. 

Employee monitoring software can help you do this. This software can be used as a tracking tool so you can monitor how long it takes for a certain task to be completed. Tracking the average amount of time that a task takes can allow you to slowly cut back on the excessive app usage and wasted time. Share this information with your team so that they are aware of productivity expectations.

3. Add An Extra Layer of Security for Weak Remote Employee Networks

Your remote team will most likely be using a personal internet connection for work, which is not optimized for high-level internet security. This means that your company’s data and sensitive information is potentially vulnerable to malicious attackers. 

By using computer monitoring software, you are adding an extra layer of security to protect against those threats. Computer monitoring software can offer remote monitoring that can be remotely downloaded onto employee devices. 

A monitoring software gives you remote access to the apps, files, and websites that your employee accesses during working hours. Therefore, with software like SoftActivity, you can monitor user activity to see when suspicious activity is happening, if your employee fell victim to a phishing scam, or to detect malware. 

4. Necessary Surveillance for Insider Threats

Around 50% of all data breaches come from an insider threat. An insider threat is someone who is involved in your company, such as an employee or third-party, who has access to the company platform and private data, and can use that information against your company.

Insider threats are extremely costly and also harder to protect against. Since you are literally the access point to company information, you could be giving direct access to a potential malicious insider. 

Adopt employee monitoring tools as added surveillance software. Remote employee monitoring software can allow you to observe employee activity, to detect unusual behaviors, and to protect your sensitive company information. 

5. Project Management Tracking

Managing remote employees can be time-consuming, especially if you want to understand employee engagement and employee productivity. 

Remote employee monitoring software will be able to track employee progress on a specific task, as well as track the time spent on a given app or webpage. This software is a powerful tool for project tracking and task estimation. 

Additionally, if one worker is overloaded, tracking workloads with monitoring software can identify when work needs to be re-allocated to another team member. Or, if the employee is experiencing issues with productivity, this software can give you a glimpse into what the employee is struggling with (like spending too much time on social media).

6. Encourage a Culture of Accountability

Sometimes it can be more difficult to engage in work. In addition to activity monitoring, it is useful to have a colleague or fellow worker who understands that some days work does not move as smoothly as others.

While accountability is useful in the workplace, it’s better to focus on a positive culture that encourages accountability. This means that each worker is given the space to openly talk about the tasks that they struggle with, brainstorm ideas to get through tasks, and are openly motivated to complete tasks. 

A culture of accountability can allow workers to coach, support, and motivate each other without a lot of employee monitoring from upper-level management.

7. Monitoring for Employees in Varied Time Zones

Your remote workforce might be dispersed all over the globe. And when this happens, you have work happening at all hours. Time tracking for an employee that is working on a twelve-hour difference can be nearly impossible without a remote employee monitoring tool. 

A monitoring tool will be able to track the employee during their work hours. This way, you won’t have to monitor when they appear online. Instead, you make time tracking a requirement, and then you can easily see the hours that they spent working for you, even if they are on the other side of the globe.

The Right Software for Employee Monitoring

Remote employee monitoring can be difficult, but with the right software, you can see increased productivity. You can also sleep easier at night knowing that your monitoring software is keeping your company data safe. 

When adopting employee monitoring, make sure that you work with your employees to find monitoring software that works best for your whole team. 

The software should be able to provide:

• Time tracking
• Time wasted reports
• Clear timesheets
• Activity monitoring
• Remote access
• Improved productivity
• Improved employee engagement
• Task tracking

With easy-to-use monitoring software, you’ll find remote employee monitoring to be simple, clear, and not invasive. Go with a trusted company so that you know your data is in good hands. 

By SoftActivity Team