Software monitoring computer activities has become a common occurrence in today’s business world. Its use in the workplace has been growing at a bewildering rate over the past couple of years. And according to many projections, this trend isn’t likely to stop any time soon.

So, the question emerges: Why is employee tracking software so popular, what benefits can it bring to your company and should you also implement it?

Aside from the fact that jumping on the bandwagon and doing it just because everyone else does is a prime example of employee monitoring gone wrong before it even started, this system can actually bring a lot of benefits to a business if you know how to use it well.

In this article, we’ll go over some of the most significant reasons why implementing computer tracking software is generally a good idea if you want your company to move forward, including:

• Tracking employee performance and productivity
• Providing accountability with clients
• Workload optimization
• Ensuring proof of work and fair payroll

But before we start…

A Couple of Considerations Before You Dig In

If you decide to go ahead and implement the tracking software in order to improve your business and employees’ performance, you’ll have to ensure two things - that implementation and use of the software are compliant with the law in your country, and that you find the best solution for your business needs.

First things first, check if what you’re about to do is completely legal. In most cases, it will be, but you need to make absolutely sure that you understand your legal liabilities. And there’s another slight complication. Say you’re based in Great Britain. You’ve checked the employee time tracking software UK regulations and you’re good to go. However, say also that you’ve got a couple of remote workers from Canada. In this case, ensuring you’re obeying your country’s laws won’t be enough - you’ll have to check the regulations regarding the implementation of time tracking software in Canada.

Sounds complex, but once you get through this, all that’s left to do is choosing the right tracking solution. This is really all about the research - read through the various ‘top 10 PC monitoring software’ reviews, sign up for free trials, go to forums and read user reviews, consider what your goals are and how the software could help you achieve them, and so on. After a thorough research process, you’ll end up with the best app for logging work hours and tracking computer activity.

And now, on to why businesses might need this system in the first place:

Tracking Employee Performance and Productivity

The first major reason why you might need a computer activity tracker is to accurately and easily measure your employees’ performance and productivity. Any good software will offer you at least a couple of very useful features for doing this. Which of these you’ll end up actually using depends on your goals and the job roles and requirements of your workforce.

For example, if you have an accounting firm, you might want to track workers’ attendance and productivity. Therefore, the best time tracking software for accountants might be the one that has clock in and clock out reports or the stats on how much active time was dedicated to work.

On the other hand, a top priority for a team of copywriters could be task completion and meeting deadlines on multiple different projects. That’s why you might find automatic time mapping or project tracking the most indispensable features of a writing time tracker.

Using these features in a smart way will let you gauge each employee’s performance, as well as figure out ways to improve it.

Providing Accountability with Clients

Another reason why business need employee monitoring software has to do with client management. When you’re working with different clients and on different projects, you need an accurate and objective way to ensure accountability of your team. This includes time on projects, access to files and maybe even billable hours.

The good thing about a tracking system is that it offers a gated access that you can give to your clients that will enable them to monitor client PC activities for their specific project. This way, they can see who’s working on their project, what they’re doing, which tools they’re using, how far along they are and whether they’re meeting all the set deadlines.

This client monitoring software option is a great tool for boosting your relationship with clients, but also for making sure that your company gets paid for every hour of work you’ve put into the project.

Workload Optimization

Considering everything we’ve talked about so far, and especially the usefulness of tracking software for measuring performance, it’s easy to see how many companies decide to implement it because it gives them a chance to optimize their business processes.

You can see where your employees waste the most time and then you can try to avoid those pitfalls. Similarly, you can check the reports to figure out the best way to go about doing certain tasks, organizing the workload and even delegating assignments.

The fun part, however, starts when you realize: Hey, I can use this software to monitor activity on my computer, too. This is when you can start doing all of the above for your own performance and learn how you can use your time and finish your tasks most efficiently.

Ensuring Proof of Work and Fair Payroll

Last but not least, a very important reason why you might need monitoring software is to get proof of work and working hours compliance for all of your employees and therefore ensure fair compensation.

A decent, all-encompassing software solution has both of these functionalities built in - attendance and active time tracking, as well as billable hour reports. That way, you can see how much your employees are really working, whether they’re late, and how much they should be paid in case they’re working at an hourly rate.

Conclusion

As we have seen, figuring out how to track user activity on computer devices by using monitoring software can bring your company a lot of tangible benefits. Once you get started on this path, you’ll soon realize why so many businesses nowadays consider it necessary to monitor their employees this way - in other words, the results will speak for themselves.

‍

‍