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Productivity Tracking Software Guide

Productivity Tracking Software

Employee monitoring software is a powerful monitoring tool that companies can use in order to protect their sensitive assets from data breaches. However, this software does so much more than simply protect data. 

Employee monitoring software can also track employee work behaviors to detect periods of unproductivity, which can lead to a major financial deficit

Adopting employee monitoring is crucial for any successful business as it can provide a wide range of benefits. When considering a monitoring software, you’ll want to consider one that can offer a wide range of monitoring tools. 

To help get you started, this guide will break down the following:

  • What productivity tracking software is
  • Features of productivity tracking software
  • How tracking software can improve employee productivity
  • And using tracking software to boost productivity in your company

What is Productivity Tracking Software?

Productivity tracking software is a type of monitoring software that is designed to improve productivity rates for workers. It mainly performs productivity monitoring, which includes a range of time tracking and task tracking features in order to identify if the user is filling their work hours appropriately and with the relevant work. 

Most productivity tracking software is designed to abide by all relevant government regulations concerning privacy. In general, the software monitors what is “rightfully” the employer’s time, since the employer is paying workers to be on the clock. This software does not inherently violate any privacy laws.

This type of software can be remotely installed and accessed through an admin console. Or, it can be downloaded individually on each computer. Often, this software can monitor an entire company network, including all of the individual IP addresses, and the behaviors of the user on each computer. However, more basic productivity monitoring apps will only record the time spent on an app, website, or program to measure if that worker was effectively working on what they said they were working on.

Productivity monitoring software might be a desktop app or web app with a relevant mobile app. This type of monitoring software provides much more complex data compared to basic time tracking apps. 

Features of Productivity Tracking Software

Productivity tracking software is more robust than a time tracking software but its features will range depending on the services that it offers. This software can provide the admin with an easy-to-read productivity dashboard so that employers can monitor individual and wide-spread user activity. 

Productivity tracking software features usually include: 

  • Time tracking for an individual, team, and non-project based tasks
  • Time spent on websites and apps
  • Hours spent working while time is being recorded
  • Tracking remote work hours and productivity measures
  • How effective an employee was at working (productivity tracker), which might include time wasted
  • Employee performance metrics over time, based on the project, and other performance metrics
  • The ability to restrict certain websites so that the user is not easily distracted
  • Easy-to-read dashboard and productivity metrics that report analysis of employees’ performance, productive time, and wasted time measures. 
  • Robust features include behavioral analytics to report on “normal” versus “abnormal” behaviors
  • Robust features include bandwidth measures and keystroke logging

The features of your employee productivity tracking tool will depend on what your team is looking for. If you are tracking more than just productivity and you want insider threat detection in addition to your firewall, then you’ll want to look for security features such as bandwidth controls, security alerts for abnormal behavior, and insider threat detection. Therefore, depending on the tracking traits you need, the features you want will vary.  

For example, if the main purpose of the software is to be a time tracking tool, then the software might lack insight features around poor productivity or wasted time. It might only track time, the task names, and provide estimates of the project length. 

The time tracker might offer insight into billable hours versus working hours, but they will not look into performance measures. Additionally, if you are looking for software that can offer employee monitoring, then it might also offer features such as keystroke logging and cataloging of messages. 

How can an Employee Productivity Tracker Improve Employee Productivity?

Employee tracking software is typically much more effective at measuring and analyzing your employees’ productivity than a basic tracking tool or timesheet because it can measure the working hours of an employee against billable hours. It can also go above and beyond what basic time trackers do by offering alerts to abnormal behaviors and restricting websites. 

Most importantly, employee productivity tracking can provide employers with solid evidence, long-term statistics, and talking points so that they can educate employees on how to improve their productivity rates for future success. 

Monitoring employee productivity is also essential when hiring remote employees. Remote work can mean that your employees are more distracted in the comfort and convenience of their own home or perhaps they are also playing world traveller and working from far-flung exotic locations. Monitoring your remote team with tracking software can minimize these distractions as well as boost team morale and team accountability.

Using Productivity Tracking Software to Boost Productivity in Your Company

Tracking software can improve productivity for each office employee and remote employee while also monitoring the productivity levels of third-party or contract workers. 

A good productivity tracking software will also come with a tracking app so that employees can easily track their progress straight from their mobile device. Be mindful, though, that mobile devices that are being tracked by a tracking app might also be tracked for GPS or other tracking settings. 

Employee tracking is safe and abides by privacy laws in the workplace. With a powerful productivity app, your company can monitor employee time, employee activity, and productivity metrics. Furthermore, if your company has at least one remote worker, then you need a tool to monitor not only their performance but security protocols in place on their network. 

An employee productivity monitoring solution, such as SoftActivity Work cloud-based SaaS, can save your company time in tracking each worker, either remote or office-based. Get your SoftActivity free today to see how our employee monitoring can improve your business performance.

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By SoftActivity Team