Monitor Employee Computer Activity

As lovely as your employees are, it’s impossible to completely trust them with your business assets. Your employees are complex individuals, and some days they aren’t as productive as others. This isn’t necessarily their fault; they should be working hard for you… and they might be! But without verifying that this is the case, you are trusting the word of your workers.

Employee activity can be monitored with computer monitoring software. See what your employees are doing during work hours, confirm that they aren’t talking to their friends on social media, and verify that your assets are protected from malicious insiders. 

If you’re not sure if a computer monitoring software is right for you, read on. We’re convinced that our product will help your business improve employee productivity and keep an eye on dangerous insider threats. 

Monitoring Employee Computer Activity

At the outset, it might seem odd to monitor your employees. After all, isn’t that kind of like spying? Employee monitoring is not taking away their privacy. Instead, it is allowing business owners to ensure that the employee-employer contract is being adequately fulfilled. 

Employee monitoring is also crucial with a remote workforce. Remote and large workforces can be difficult to keep track of, and you can’t walk around and watch your employees work all day. And even if you do this, employees will still find ways to sneak Facebook when you are not looking. 

Employee monitoring should be deployed in conjunction with physical, workplace surveillance if your business operates out of a business location. You should keep an eye on the identities of individuals coming and going through your business and your networks. 

Secure computer monitoring will provide detailed insight into a worker’s day-to-day activities. Were your employees actually working on that report, or were they buying clothing online? Activity monitoring will be able to track the time spent on computer applications, the individual websites that were visited, and the time spent on each website. Even if your employee decides to wipe their web browser, an unedited copy will be sent for the admin to review. 

Stay one step ahead of your employees with computer monitoring software!

Employee Monitoring Software

Employee monitoring software is also known as computer monitoring software, internet monitoring software, and activity monitoring software. In each of these uses, the employee monitoring tool will track the events or activities on a monitored computer, usually only when the computer is on. Tracking can identify when users log on, the applications they open, and even back-end movement like kernel activities. 

Employee monitoring software is operated through a main admin web console. Whoever is in charge of the monitoring software would first install the employee monitoring software on one computer. Then, the software will be able to attach to computers on the network and an admin can remotely install the software on each device. Simple!

The software needs to be configured to what the business wants to track. But in general, the software will stealthily track computer activity to 1) ensure that employees are contributing to work and 2) not trying to steal company information. 

One of the biggest reasons to get an employee monitoring solution is to monitor against insider threats or malicious threats that attempt to take over an employee’s computer or the company network. 

Benefits of Monitoring Software

Employee monitoring software uses sophisticated technology so that an organization can track employee productivity and monitor insider threats. In order to do this, the monitoring software uses the following features: 

• Webcam recording
• Keystroke logger
• Network packet inspection
• Activity log monitoring
• Application usage
• Website usage
• Time tracking on applications
• Time tracking on internet usage
• User session screenshots
• And kernel monitoring, for more sophisticated software

These unique employee tracking features help businesses to stay on top of their employees. No more rogue behavior, lazy attitudes, or slow workspaces. 

Importance of Monitoring Employee Computer Activity

Remote Workforces

Remote workforces are becoming ever more prevalent. With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the rise of virtual office spaces and the nomad lifestyle, your business might find it succeeds with a remote team. 

Remote workforces still need policies and people to implement them. While there are many benefits to remote work, like flexibility, greater job diversity, and greater team diversity, a remote workforce can be highly vulnerable to malicious attacks. 

You’ll need to implement accountability technologies, such as remote monitoring software, video conferencing, and cloud file shares. 

If you don’t have complete control over your company’s network or assets, you should. Use cloud-based file storage or allow employees access to your company’s files through a cloud entry point or network entry point. Be careful about how you share files, communicate internally and with clients, and what information your employees have access to. 

Use remote employee monitoring software and encourage all your employees to download antivirus software. You can issue work computers so you can more effectively keep tabs on your workforce. 

Cost of an Insider Threat

Insider threat attacks occur when someone internal to the company either intentionally or unintentionally allows sensitive company data to be used for malicious gain. According to IBM’s data breach report, insider threats cost businesses $11.45 million, with 63% of the time, the threat occurred due to employee negligence. Fourteen percent of the time a “malicious insider” had it out for the company. 

Insider threats can wreak havoc on a company, but it can be stopped with monitoring software. Whether this software is used for a large company or a remote one, employee computer monitoring can identify errant behaviors and alert team members to these behaviors rapidly. 

Features like keystroke logging will allow admin to detect when employees are going rogue, collaborating with malicious actors, or sending sensitive data where they shouldn’t.  

User Behavior Analytics

One of the main ways that computer monitoring software can effectively target insider threat behavior is through user behavior analytics (UBA). UBAs is a type of cybersecurity processes that track behavior with algorithms and big data. Looking at past security events and user trends, UBA software is able to alert management when a user does some type of behavior that is abnormal. It can also be applied to company networks (called entity behavior analytics). 

UBAs might track data associated with app usage, file access, emails, and communications, and network activity. Data is collected on a per-use basis, so you’ll know exactly which user is deviating from the normal. 

UBA is one of many tools every security team can have. Use it to deploy insider threat detection, stop a targeted insider attack, and to mitigate company fraud. 

Low Employee Productivity and Time Theft

Poor employee productivity costs companies billions in time theft. 

On average, employees waste around 5 hours a week, all on company time. Based on this average, you can estimate that 12.5% of your employees’ salaries are contributing to wasted time. 

While some time theft is due to procrastination, other employees may be unhappy working for you. Unhappy workers cost the USD 450 to 550 billion annually to lost productivity, with 70% of employees disengaged at work and 80% disengaged as a result of a poor manager. 

Time theft is very real. Employees are allowed breaks, but they should not be on the company dollar. Put an end to time theft with employee monitoring. Monitoring computer activity can provide an employer with performance metrics so that employee performance is improved over time and their employee engagement can return. 

SoftActivity’s Computer Monitor

Get an inside look into employee computer use with SoftActivity Monitor. This sophisticated monitoring software allows you insight into what your employees do all day! And, you can also keep tabs on your assets and make sure that your business is not taken advantage of. 
Compatible with both workstations and terminal servers, SoftActivity is an added layer of protection that every business owner needs in their arsenal. Improve employee productivity and protect against malicious attacks with SoftActivity!