7 Reasons Why You Need an Employee Tracker
Your employees are what keep your company running. But sometimes a rogue employee, or even a lazy one, can steal time and money from your business. To avoid losing money to employees who are wasting time during work hours, and to limit the chance of an insider threat, your company should make use of an employee time tracker.
Employee tracking can be anything from an app or software that monitors employees’ computers to one that tracks phones via GPS. The features that you are looking for in an employee tracking app will depend on your reasons for needing one.
If you’re not sure where to start, understand that employee tracking software can be valuable in increasing employee productivity, minimizing time theft, and finding hidden insider threats.
Before we dive into our reasons why you need an employee time tracker, here is a breakdown of the features typically included with this type of software.
Features Included in Employee Tracking Software
Employee tracking software can monitor the amount of time that an employee spends on a given task or project, track employee attendance, monitor the apps and websites most used by the employee, and track the sites that the employee visits.
Depending on the app settings and the type of software company you choose, the employee tracking software might also be able to track the GPS location of any mobile device that has the app installed. This type of tracking is useful for an organization that has company vehicles on the road and it can assist in locating your drivers, employees, and vehicles.
Other features you may find in employee tracking software include the ability to monitor and log keystrokes and employee communications. This feature is valuable if you are worried about insider threats or employees who are lacking significant productivity gains.
Employee monitoring software might also be able to take a screenshot when the tracker is active or record the employee through the webcam.
Why You Need an Employee Time Tracker
Here are our 7 reasons why your company should be investing in an employee time tracking tool.
1. Stay on top of employee attendance
No matter what type of workforce you employ, your payroll team needs to know when employees are showing up. If they aren’t showing up, it could signal that something is amiss.
Monitoring employee attendance is vital for every salaried employee and contract worker and is critical when running a team of remote workers. With attendance tracking, you can know when an employee is working or when there is an employee absence.
2. Monitor task and project timelines (and adjust when necessary)
Employee tracking software allows employees to record when they are working on a specific task or project. With this information, the business owner(s) and project manager(s) can look at the estimated timelines provided for projects and see if they are feasible and working.
If a project is taking too long, team managers can adjust things on the fly. Making these sorts of adjustments is much better than continually promising that a project will be completed when it is not close to being done.
3. Properly budget and submit an accurate timesheet
When you run a business, every penny counts. When doing accounting for your daily operating expenses and calculating payroll, you need to be sure that your money is not wasted. Accurate accounting and reporting are especially important when hiring contract workers.
If a contract worker is paid by the hour and you do not use any type of employee monitoring, then you will never truly know if the times that the contract worker submits are accurate. With a tracking tool, the employer receives official timesheets that the employee cannot fake.
4. Eliminate time theft and boost employee productivity
While you may love your employees and are grateful for them, they sometimes might skimp on work from time to time. If you ask if your employees get something done, they might say yes. But were they working the entirety of their shifts? Or were they skimming social media? Answering these questions can be especially challenging to monitor when working with remote employees.
With a tracking system in place, you can monitor employee activity during work hours. Employee time tracking won’t just alert you to underperforming employees; it will help to identify those that are hyper-productive as well so you can recognize and reward them with a promotion or a raise.
Employee monitoring software opens the lines of communication so you and your employees can work together towards increased productivity rates with fewer incidents of time theft.
5. Quantitatively measure employee performance
If you want to optimize every dollar spent, you need to know where your money is going.
If it feels like your money is going down the drain, it could be because of wasted time from your employees.
Employee performance can be difficult to broach this subject, especially since employees may feel attacked and respond defensively. However, when an employer uses monitoring software, the analysis of employees’ performances can be backed up by hard data and evaluated objectively. This data allows you to have an open conversation about productivity levels.
6. Implement employee accountability
No matter the size of your workforce, keeping tabs on all employees can be challenging.
Implementing a productivity plan or seeking employee accountability can be impossible to manage without a little help.
If you have an employee tracking software in place, that software can assist you with keeping employees accountable and help monitor working hours. That software will be a motivating tool for those employees who just can’t seem to get work done. You can then use the data from the monitoring tool to inform your employees that they need to do better. Accountability backed up with hard data!
7. Monitor employees for insider threat activity
Insider threats come from within your organization. The “insider” could be employees, third-party contractors, and business partners that threaten your company by exposing vulnerabilities and risking your company’s financial status.
Insider threats make your company particularly vulnerable because they know the ins-and-outs of the business operations and network. Some employees, through negligence or laziness, can also open up opportunities for outsider threats to attack your business. With employee tracking software, you can monitor your employees’ behaviors more closely and stop an attack before it happens.
Purchase Time Tracking Software
Employee time tracking can monitor task and project timelines, improve productivity, and minimize employee insider threats. Depending on the software that you go with, employee tracking can help you to monitor your employees’ behavior remotely.
Monitor terminal servers or individual workstations without your employees’ knowledge. Or work with your team to develop better work habits.
If you are looking to purchase employee tracker software, consider SoftActivity, a leading employee monitoring software that records all user activity in a given session. Use screenshots, website monitoring, file monitoring, and application monitoring to protect your business better!