Staff Monitoring , Mobistealth. Tracking the location of mobile employees whether by vehicle, smart phone, or both has gone way up lately. That applies to companies like Buffer, who give their team members activity trackers. Every Buffer hire receives a Jawbone UP wristband. This counts as employee monitoring. Deloitte, the famous consulting firm, recently conducted a pilot program in which each employee got a "smart" ID badge.
These badges tracked how often they spoke in meetings, left their desks, and used effective body language. Japanese tech company Hitachi developed a similar badge-like device for tracking employee happiness , based on "distinct physical movements. Entrepreneurs, executives, and team leaders can reap a lot of rewards from employee monitoring software.
The typical full-timer is paid for 8 hours of work each day—but he or she is wasting between 90 to minutes. Suppose you only have two employees. Every day, they together waste four hours: With employee monitoring apps , you can completely eliminate this cash leak. As this Chron article points out , having more insight into what your team members are doing lets you catch mistakes before they spiral out of control.
Maybe you notice one of your employees has started working on a low-priority project, but you really need him to focus his efforts on a more timely or important task.
Can you please prioritize Project X over Project Y? However, the data also ended up revealing which waiters were the most productive. One of these waiter, Jim Sullivan, was rewarded with a management position when the chain opened up a new location. To see how employee monitoring makes your workplace safer, go back to the case in which tracking employee emails helped resolve a sexual harassment claim. Every manager struggles to keep their team in-sync; after all, ten heads are only better than two if every head is looking in the same direction. And as remote work becomes more and more common , the challenge of unifying a group of people has taken on a global dimension.
This blog post from Halogen Software really drives home why successful delegation is mission-critical: When you know who struggles with what and conversely, who shines at what , you can hand out tasks appropriately. Administrative work is the bane of your existence, right? With the right employee monitoring app, however, you can automate a large portion of your administrative duties.
Just set up automatic payments. Corey Ciocchetti, Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Legal Studies at the University of Denver, writes , "It is more efficient to monitor employee hours via software as opposed to on paper as it reduces hours inflation and human errors. Finally, apps like Hubstaff offer flexible reporting options. When you need to pay taxes or invoice a client, you can generate the right report instantly—no more hunting down random files or spending hours in Excel.
Despite the many advantages, there are drawbacks to employee monitoring as well—many of which you can probably anticipate. Unsurprisingly, this feeling of distrust and suspicion can harm the relationship between manager and their workers. The same employee also said being monitored was incredibly stressful. Unfortunately, many others have said the same. As this article in the Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management points out , "People, the employees, by nature generally tend to desire more freedom and less monitoring.
Many people and organizations are against monitoring the activities of people in the workplace. Ending up in hot water with the law is never good for business.
But before you learn how to design an employee monitoring system that your employees will actually like, you need to learn how to design a legal one. Also, despite the lack of federal laws, many states have established their own laws. On employer-owned phones, you can listen to what your employees are saying. Also, none of these rules apply to personal calls. Provide the tracking equipment. To learn more, take a look at this ebook covering the legal ins and outs of using employee monitoring software.
To determine the best strategy for your business, there are multiple factors to consider. Sarah is the CEO of a design agency. Sarah also regularly hires freelancers for one-time assignments. So, Sarah starts looking at employee monitoring systems. Will it help me avoid liabilities? Hubstaff makes payment accurate down to the second, so it helps you avoid financial battles. Will it help with internal investigations or issue prevention? Yes, because if a problem crops up with an employee, whoever manages that person will know immediately.
As you can tell, this three-question framework will transform a seemingly tricky decision into a simple one. If your employees are constantly traveling to meet clients, using a GPS tracking system is probably the best choice. The same goes for email, phone, and voicemail tracking. Basecamp also integrates with Hubstaff, which lets your employees track time to their Basecamp to-dos from within Hubstaff. In other words, integrations let you effortlessly move data from one app to another—so time-consuming, repetitive tasks are automated, and none of your information gets stuck in one place.
Integrations are extremely powerful. Like we said, employee monitoring comes with its fair share of risks. Fortunately, following a couple of general guidelines will help you avoid every single one. In fact, you can even get your employees enthusiastic about using one of these systems. But getting it will make your life way easier: So, how do you get buy-in?
First, prepare a presentation for your workers. In any case, you should have a detailed explanation of how this system will improve the business , and more importantly, how it will help your workers. Nathan Watson of the Indiana University School of Law says the vast majority of businesses that monitor employees provide notice to those employees.
The first feature—plain language—is especially important. If you find yourself using unnecessarily abstract or vague terms, rewrite the policy to make it more human. The Company has the capability to access, review, copy and delete any messages sent, received or stored on the email system.
The Company reserves the right to access, review, copy D- 10 or delete all such messages for any purpose and to disclose them to any party inside or outside the Company it deems appropriate. To make sure nothing sketchy is happening via email which unfortunately is something we have to worry about , our company uses software that lets us open, read, copy, and delete any message that goes through the email system.
That means any message that an employee has sent, received, or saved on the system. We can also share these emails with anyone whether they work at this company or not. Anything you can do to facilitate the transition is worth doing. Are you using new software? Train your employees how to use it.
Try to make the sessions fun and engaging. It tracks location only when your team are working and does not track location for the entire day. This gives you the freedom to manipulate the data from your Time Doctor account in almost any way you want. The API allows you to read detailed work data from your company's account. Learn more about the API here. Time Doctor has a range of configurable options although most Administrators will never need to adjust many of these settings after the initial set up.
Some of the many customizations available include:. All information, including screen captures, is encrypted when sent to the Time Doctor servers. We use world class encryption methods on world class servers to ensure that your information is safe and secure. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy. We make Time Doctor 'just work' so you can concentrate on building your business. Signup, installation, and setting up multiple users takes less than 5 minutes.
Any employee or co-worker you invite to Time Doctor will receive an email showing them how to set up the software quickly and easily. Submit questions directly through our support ticket system for fast and friendly customer support. We also have a Knowledge Base with video tutorials to help get you started. Time tracking for agencies. Time Doctor Features for Teams Time tracking with screenshots, web and app usage monitoring, integrations and more. Website and Application Monitoring. Time Tracking Staying productive at work is about getting more done in less time. Try Time Doctor Now.
Avoid Distractions We all get distracted no matter how efficient we are. Website and Application Monitoring Time Doctor gives you detailed insights on how you spend your time so you know where your weaknesses are and can improve them. Integrations Time Doctor is an incredibly powerful tool on its own, but when you integrate it with other software it becomes even more powerful. Screen Monitoring optional feature Time Doctor has the ability to take screenshots of the computer screen every few minutes. Client Login Give your clients access to Time Doctor at no extra cost.
Payroll optional Easily pay your employees based on either hours tracked or fixed salaries with Time Doctor.
Flexible Configurations Because every company is different, Time Doctor can adapt to your needs. Some of the many customizations available include: User and Team Settings: Company or Account Settings: Private and Secure Your information is safe with Time Doctor. When Time Doctor is turned off or you are on a break, none of your activities are tracked, so you can feel secure in knowing that data will only be collected when you want it to be.