Employee monitoring can be debated for weeks! You either love it or hate it, think it’s ethical or unethical, maybe even illegal. Whichever side you’re on, there’s undeniable proof that employee monitoring improved HR management, employee and client relations, as well as general organizational workflow thanks to these tools.

But, given that employee tracking is a way of employee control, there are many myths circling around, and we’re here to debunk them. 

Myth 1 – Employee Monitoring Means You Don’t Trust Your Employees

Large corporations usually have rigid procedures and go through extensive security audits, so their rules when it comes to monitoring are a bit different. Malicious attacks and information leaks are their biggest enemies, so they’re using monitoring to prevent such issues. This might seem like a sign of distrust, but they’re using one of the top 10 computer monitoring software to protect their own assets and their own best interests.

On the other hand, in most companies implementation of work tracking software free or paid doesn’t come from the lack of trust in employees, but from the need to organize the workflow in accordance with their capacity. Additionally, such tools are a great way to gain insight into each team’s actions, habits and needs. 

You can easily see the peak hours, and organize workload, time for work, as well as the time for breaks, meetings, etc. At any point, you can see if your employees need additional training, and provide them with it.

Furthermore, you can go on a vacation or a business trip, and still be certain your employees aren’t goofing around.

It’s so much more than a computer spy app. Basically, you could say that it’s used to close the information gap and inform management with insights that would otherwise be complicated to obtain, whether they trust their employees or not.

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Myth 2 – Employee Tracking Software Invades Privacy

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Many employees, whether they work in the office or remotely, are almost offended by the thought of using employee computer monitoring software, because they feel “watched”, and like the employer isn’t respecting their privacy. 

Employees seem to mind being tracked by their employers, but what they actually don’t want is their actions being documented. They see this as an invitation for criticism on their work methods, and it’s employer’s or manager's job to prove them otherwise.

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However, employees shouldn’t expect total privacy in the workplace, especially if they’re working on company issued equipment. Laws in many countries are on the employer’s side on this one - you have the right to know what your employees are doing. 

Now, nobody can be 100% productive 8 hours per day, and it’s normal that employees will snoop in onto their Facebook feeds from time to time, you shouldn’t give them a hard time about it. You should also turn off screenshot option, or allow your employees to pause the tracking while they’re attending private matters.

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Employee tracking software isn’t a computer bugging software, unless you make it one.

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Myth 3 – Computer Monitoring Software Only Benefits Employers

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Now, the same as with the myth number 2 - it will only benefit you if you use it in such a way. Many tools allow you to give employees access to their tracking data.

This means they’ll be able to see how much time they spend in each app, on every website, and on each task and project that they have. Once they have access to their data, employees can easily pop up the analytics dashboard and see what are their biggest distractions, and what times of the day are the most productive for them. It’s also very valuable for them to know how long it takes to finish a certain task, so they can estimate future tasks more accurately.

Besides, once you have the tracking data, you can use it to deliver proper, data driven evaluations, find out what your employees are doing well, but also what are the areas for improvement. This way, you’ll know who needs additional training.

So, in the long run, employee tracking software really benefits the employees.

Wrap Up

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Like any other piece of tech, employee monitoring has its pros and cons. Yet, it’s easy to misuse it and create a completely counterproductive tool out of it. 

This is why the process of preparing your staff for tracking, buying the tracker, implementing it and taking actions based on insights you receive, must be carefully planned. You should avoid making common mistakes, such as implementing the software without notifying your employees, nitpicking them for every second they spend on Facebook, and so on.

If you carefully plan and implement the windows user monitoring software, you’ll debunk these myths yourself.

And the best thing, you can use this software as in-office and remote employee monitoring tool.

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This article was originally written on October 5th, 2016 by Gina Ora. It was updated on September 30th, 2019 by Bojana Djordjevic.

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