As a result, you can see the full context of what employees were doing, when they were doing it, and a good indication as to why they were doing it.
Newer tools like Controlio can aggregate keystrokes and sync them to video recordings to form a more accurate picture of employee activity.
Some of the most powerful monitoring software we've tested can intake raw keystroke data-meaning, a timestamped mapping of what system keys users pressed at any given time-and cross-reference that against any of the other metrics or captured activity data collected. Once you have granular data on how often employees are typing or interacting with their machine, it can be mapped against corresponding screenshots, activity logs, audit trails, and all of the deeper monitoring vectors we get into later to fill out a complete profile of employees' online activity.
Logging keystrokes is essentially a baseline for employee activity. Many workers would consider this invasive surveillance, but it's an effective tool if you're looking for numerical productivity data. The other side of activity tracking is monitoring keystrokes.
That lets you know which tools and subscriptions aren't being used so you can stop paying for them and free up your budget for more useful resources. Many of the solutions we tested track and log which websites or services employees spend the most time on and which ones are underutilized. Often, employee monitoring tools will give you at-a-glance data visualizations such as a productivity bar that breaks down productive and unproductive app percentages, or lists and leader boards that show active or inactive users or the most often used apps. You can drill down into the data using factors such as the most productive or unproductive employees, or compare team or departmental efficiency or productivity on specific projects. You should also be able to construct detailed reports to slice and dice your various productivity metrics. This activity data can also be aggregated on a macro level in real-time admin and manager dashboards. Automation and the ability to set alerts by way of email reminders and warnings are also effective ways to manage a large, distributed workforce. For instance, social media managers spend much of their time on Facebook and Twitter because that's core to their role whereas a sales manager spending many hours a day on LinkedIn or other social sites should throw up a red flag. It's important to have customization and user grouping here because an app that's deemed productive for one job function may be considered unproductive for another. This data is less about disciplining employees and more about helping teams course-correct and stay productive. Productivity scoring algorithms make it possible to measure individuals against their past performance as well as against that of their peers. Working from home challenges the pre-existing structure for productivity tracking, which means monitoring tools need to pivot, too.Ī good place to start is to sort applications into productive and unproductive app groups so you can break down how productive each team, department, or individual employee is expected to be. A task that's now more challenging than ever since remote workers are juggling their nine-to-five jobs with half a dozen other personal tasks, like minding children or cooking family meals. On the lighter, less dystopian end of the spectrum, many employee monitoring tools are focused on tracking productivity. Still, many employees feel that using these tools is a heavy-handed measure by management, so implementing them can require some delicate diplomacy. These services are designed to manage a large workforce, so some focus more on tracking activity rather than on specific individuals. But we also range all the way up to deep monitoring platforms that track all employee activity. Sure, the software reviewed in this roundup starts with tracking players that add nifty monitoring features such as keystroke logging, location tracking, and screenshots. If you're considering software like this, remember that employee monitoring goes beyond the core time tracking functionality of clock-ins and clock–outs or managing schedules and workloads.
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