How Monitoring Remote Workers Helps Your Company
The COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns and proposed health guidelines transformed the way we work, possibly irreversibly. Both large and small companies were forced to switch to remote work, and it seems that even when the pandemic subsides, a significant portion of employees wants to stay remote.
Computer monitoring software isn’t a recent discovery. Believe it or not, employee computer monitoring software has been around ever since there were computers. Back then, there weren’t many people working with computer monitoring software since there weren’t many professions that required a PC. All of that changed with the arrival of the internet.
Internet usage monitoring as we know it today made its “boom” in the 21st century as internet usage spiked. Some may even say that it made its second big “boom” in 2020, as the pandemic hit and the number of workers that needed to be monitored went drastically up.
These tools allow you to keep tabs on how your workers spend their company time. Computer monitoring software provides answers to questions such as “Are they working hard to make project deadlines and quotas?” or “Are they spending their time on social media and in other productivity killers?”.
Here, we’ll go through the perks of monitoring remote workers and how it can help your company.
It Keeps Productivity High
One of the core obstacles business owners face, especially in a remote setting, is how to keep productivity at an acceptable level. Employee productivity is notoriously difficult to maintain, as employees can become less effective for various reasons.
They might be facing burnout, lack of interest, suffer from boredom, or simply want to slack away at the job. Additionally, when workers are at home, they might be sidetracked by obligations at home or feel more at liberty to work at a reduced capacity.
Whatever the reason, team leaders, HR departments, and project managers need to have as much data as possible on how productive employees are. Productivity directly impacts a company’s revenue and growth, which is why it’s so important to have a clear overview. Monitoring software is just the right tool for getting this type of in-depth insight.
In an office setting, managers could see whether everyone is working just by walking through the workplace. However, since remote workers are remote, you need monitoring applications to get this kind of information. The way they do so is by keeping an eye on several crucial metrics.
Application Use
One of the easiest ways to measure the productivity of your teams is by looking at application usage data. This information reveals whether the workers are spending time in work-related applications and platforms or wasting valuable time by watching YouTube clips, playing video games, or browsing Facebook.
Application usage data is presented contextually, meaning you’ll be able to see exactly what portion of the employee’s time was spent in each app. This way, you’ll be able to separate team members that use non-work-related software only rarely from those that abuse their use. Additionally, this type of monitoring can reveal exactly which apps seem to draw the employees’ attention away from work, allowing you to block or restrict access to the applications in question.
How Much Work Is Being Done?
Looking at which apps employees spend time in is only one part of the equation. You can potentially see that a person is using the application they’re supposed to, but are they actually getting anything done? Active time monitoring does exactly that, telling you what portion of the time spent in an app was spent performing activities and how much of it went to inactivity or low activity.
Screenshot capturing also plays an important role here has; captured images of the employee’s screen can tell you whether anything was being done at the moment and if there is visible progress being made.
It Helps Steer Employees Away from Risky Websites
When it comes to internet activity specifically, you’ll want to know if anyone in your company is visiting inappropriate or potentially risky websites. Besides social media, which we already mentioned, sites that shouldn’t be visited at work are pornographic, torrent, and file-sharing sites.
Through browsing control capabilities, you can detect if workers access these websites and block them if needed. Now, let’s look at why browsing monitoring is important and how the lack of monitoring could negatively impact your company.
Maintain Tight Security
Practically all of the website types mentioned above are often a hotbed for malicious internet activity. Employees visiting those websites could catch viruses, adware, trackers, ransomware, or other malware by visiting or downloading data from them. Torrent and file sharing sites are rife with infected files, which could cause the employees’ devices to slow down or stop working and endanger sensitive company and customer data.
Sites with pornographic content are also rife with all kinds of viruses and trackers. On top of that, all these sites keep employees away from work and could lead to even more procrastination by allowing them to download games or TV shows.
Monitoring Remote Workers: Avoid Legal Troubles
Another reason to use computer monitoring applications is to prevent employees from accessing or downloading illegal content. Even if your employees are remote and not connected to a company network, you still want to avoid your workers taking part in activities that could cause legal trouble.
Prevent the Leaking of Valuable Company Data
Practically every business handles some sensitive data. Any leaked or sold information could have catastrophic consequences, including internal documents, memos, trade secrets, or personal customer data. Business data could end up with your competitors, causing you to lose your edge in the market, while the leaking of user information could cause great harm to your clients, as well as get you into legal problems.
As you have a lesser degree of control over remote workers, it’s paramount that you employ safeguards through monitoring. Features present with monitoring software such as screenshotting, browning controls, and application usage can warn you if any team member is potentially taking part in the leaking or selling of data.
The Benefits of Computer Monitoring Software Are Manifold
The benefits of using computer monitoring are obvious. If you want to ensure that you have a productive and effective team of remote or not, computer monitoring software is invaluable. Even as an employer or manager, it eases up your workload and your levels of stress.
By doing something as simple as looking at keyboard/mouse usage, browsing history, screenshots, as well as providing internet usage monitoring capabilities, you are keeping your company, employees, and data safe. Computer monitoring software might sound scary and complicated at first glance.
It would help if you weren’t discouraged since many computer monitoring software companies offer testing or trial periods before you have to start paying for the usage of this software. When choosing which computer monitoring software is right for your company, keep in mind your needs and your business.
