Productivity

Top 11 Benefits of Employee Monitoring

• 7 min read
benefits of employee monitoring

'Employee Monitoring' is a holy grail for employers, while employees may find it a trivial pursuit. But is that so?

For ages, business leaders and employers have been trying to implement many tactics to oversee and control the activities of their subordinates for an efficient optimization of their workforce.

On the other hand, monitoring methods have always been negative for some employees. Some may feel okay, but very few of them understand the advantages for their own sake.

One benefit of employee monitoring is the changes in the job trend by introducing the remote and hybrid work culture. What's next?

To learn more details, stay on to the rest of the article.

Benefits of employee monitoring

1. Increase in employee productivity

The first and quickest advantage of monitoring is the rise in employee productivity. It's reported that 77% of businesses experienced productivity improvement after introducing employee monitoring software.

If your employee can put maximum effort into a task with zero time waste and bring the expected result, you can consider him the most productive one. But you can’t deny the time-wasting activities. Social media, Netflix, or other interference may hamper employees’ work time.

Employee monitoring should be implemented to shed light on employees' activities and alert them to be monitored to minimize time waste. Thus, it can resolve discrepancies between time spent on tasks and actual output to improve overall productivity.

2. Optimize operation

Operational optimization includes efficiently utilizing resources, manpower, money, and time. It involves advanced technology to observe, analyze, and enhance workforce performance.

According to Zapier, 29% of workers pass only four to five hours on their core jobs, and 81% of workers perform some impactful work only for three hours. The monitoring system provides exact data on how to properly utilize your workforce within the given time.

To control your employees, you can practice clear communication, transparency, accountability, and decision-making.

3. Improved Employee Engagement

Higher employee engagement needs some practical and achievable actions. These include measuring the quality of work, not quantity, finding the gaps, providing feedback,  recognizing achievements, ensuring a positive work environment, nurturing mental health, and scope of work-life balance.

Employee monitoring delivers valuable insights to identify areas of improvement, key performance indicators (KPIs), interferences with productivity, etc. It also creates an inclusive environment where employees feel valued and supported.

So, employee monitoring ensures consistent engagement, less turnover, enhanced innovation, and morale.

4. Better time management

Every organization faces the challenge of supervising time management. The US economy loses 50 million productivity hours per day due to unrecorded activities. Employee monitoring services can help prevent time waste.

The advanced monitoring records employee activities, identifies bottlenecks, blocks distracting websites, and enhances accountability. When employees know their work is being monitored, it naturally encourages a more disciplined approach to managing their time.

It also automates many important official tasks, such as attendance tracking, reports, invoices, and payrolls. Thus, managers and higher officials can focus on other vital tasks, and employees can gain insights for self-improvement.

5. Enhanced Decision Making

The right decision at the right time has both short and long-term benefits for organizations. Employee monitoring systems record large amounts of real-time data about employee activities, time spent on tasks, productivity, and work patterns.

This data can be the game changer for establishing a business strategy, planning, and evaluation. Employers can make data-driven decisions to identify trends, areas for improvement, workflow optimization, enhancing security, performance evaluation, skill identification, and training.

Data can benefit both employers and employees. When employees understand their work patterns and have the data to back their decisions, they feel more empowered to innovate and contribute meaningfully to the organization.

6. Streamlined Project and Resource Management

Thanks to detailed insights gleaned from monitoring, managers can divide projects into more manageable tasks, allocate them more effectively, and track progress. They can also make better decisions about resource allocation if they monitor employee workloads and performance.

This helps balance workloads and prevent burnout. Project and staff performance can be monitored in real-time. Managers can keep projects on schedule and make optimal use of resources. Historical data collected by monitoring systems can help improve project planning in the future.

7. Enhanced Data Security

Employee monitoring software can detect and prevent sensitive data from being transferred outside the organization via email, USB drives, or cloud storage. It can also monitor when employees access private systems and data.

Logging access attempts can detect security breaches, which managers can use to identify unauthorized access or strange patterns of behavior. Monitoring helps guarantee compliance, prevent insider threats, and provide a transparent audit trail by monitoring and documenting staff actions related to data management.

Many monitoring systems provide real-time alerts for suspicious activities. These alerts enable security teams to address potential threats immediately.

8. Remote work management

Employee monitoring helps remote workers better manage their workloads, stay safe online, communicate and collaborate more effectively, assess productivity more accurately, and receive feedback in real time.

When remote workers are aware their actions are being monitored, they are more likely to remain focused and complete their tasks by the due date. Despite physical separation, monitoring systems give comprehensive performance indicators like task completion rate, average work duration, and overall efficiency. Managers can use these measures to set attainable goals, conduct fair evaluations of employee performance, and offer positive feedback. It ensures that remote employees maintain security protocols to protect organizational data and resources.

9. Reduction in Operational Costs

Operational costs highly depend on labor costs, resources, utilities, inventory, research and development, training, and administrative costs. With the data from monitoring, you can pay an exact amount of wages.

Companies can monitor employees' actions, such as taking unnecessary breaks or using personal internet during working hours, to identify and stop time theft. This helps companies prevent wasteful spending by allowing them to make well-informed decisions regarding resource allocation and purchase.

You can also identify the underutilized resources that make you utilize your resources and reconsider things to avoid unnecessary expenditures.

10. Objective Performance Evaluation

Employee monitoring is a must to get accurate data for a fair performance evaluation. Monitoring software can track metrics like keystrokes, emails, and job time, which is super useful for employee assessment.

As a guaranteed timekeeper, monitoring tools provide you with the right information about clock-in and out, productive and non-productive time, task time, milestones, and deadlines.

It enables you to set realistic goals, self-evaluate, receive positive feedback, and improve performance. You can also notify when performance levels deviate, allowing for prompt interventions.

11. Balance in work-life

Monitoring technologies can help remote workers maintain a healthy work-life balance in many ways. They facilitate adaptable work schedules and ensure employee flexibility by offering structure without being invasive.

Instead of feeling obligated to stay late only to look busy, this motivates people to work more effectively and leave on time. Monitoring data can be used to support health and well-being programs by identifying patterns of overwork and stress.

Also, they can improve efficiency, allowing them to achieve their work goals without extending their work hours. Overall, it promotes a positive work environment that values and encourages employees to have a better work-life balance.

Challenges of employee monitoring

Monitoring employees has numerous advantages, but the outcomes depend on how well you handle the challenges. So, let's meet the challenges of monitoring employees.

1. Misinterpretation of Data

You can't unquestioningly trust the activity data to find the most productive employee. Frequent keystrokes or mouse movements translate to a high activity level, but the result may need improvement.

On the other hand, an employee with low activity might be in a state of deep focus or brainstorming creative solutions. As activity data can't capture productive thinking, this activity remains countless.

2. Emphasis on Quantity rather than Quality

If you rely too heavily on time spent or keystroke data, employees likely compromise on quality or critical thinking in their haste to achieve deadlines. This can decrease the quality of work. Also, chances are high that employees will not develop their efficiency, as they might go with the flow to deliver substandard work.

3. Anxieties and Stress

Employees may experience distress in job satisfaction due to the perception of a limitation on their autonomy and freedom caused by constant monitoring. Continuous monitoring can cause a high-pressure atmosphere that elevates the level of stress and anxiety.

4. Personal Data Security

Employees may feel that their personal space and privacy are being invaded by monitoring after hours. Low morale and disengagement in the workplace may emerge from the breakdown of trust between supervisors and employees.

5. Implementation Considerations

To avoid the challenges, you should look at some important factors.

  • You need to ensure that all your employees have clear acknowledgment about monitoring.
  • You have clear and definite goals, and your employees are well aware of them.
  • Understanding and complying with laws, including those related to data protection (like GDPR in Europe or CCPA in California), is crucial.
  • Document a clear monitoring policy that outlines what will be monitored, how data will be used, and who will have access to it. It should directly relate to the objectives.

Case Studies of Employee Monitoring

Thousands of companies are already connected to employee monitoring tools that benefit their businesses, and millions of businesses are interested in applying them. The proof for this statement is the statistics of the Global Employee Monitoring Software Market, which is expected to increase in size to USD 2.10 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 7.2%.

For example, industry leaders like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Walmart, Accenture, etc. use monitoring methods.

FAQ

What is employee monitoring?

Employee monitoring includes using different methods and tools to observe employee activities and behaviors in the office, remote places, and work locations. Modern monitoring systems combine methods and tools to provide robust and powerful service and ensure accurate data and compliance.

What methods are used to monitor employees?

The specific methods will depend on the industry, company culture, and the nature of the work being performed. In general, we're covering all the methods of monitoring employees.

Digital Monitoring:

  • Computer Activity Tracking
  • Internet Usage Tracking
  • Work Time Tracking
  • Work Communication Monitoring

Physical Monitoring:

  • Video Surveillance
  • GPS Tracking
  • Keycard Access

Other Methods:

  • Project Management Apps
  • Self-Monitoring Tools

Legality implies various factors, such as jurisdiction, local laws and regulations, employee acknowledgment, privacy considerations, and data protection regulations.

Ultimately, it is important to note that employee monitoring can be legal in certain jurisdictions, but it is crucial to adhere to all applicable rules and regulations while honoring employees' privacy and rights.

Final Words

Fostering a work environment where employees feel appreciated, engaged, and motivated requires organizations to strike a delicate balance between utilizing employee monitoring for its benefits and respecting employees' privacy rights.

Monitoring can help businesses enhance processes and cultivate a trusting and healthy work environment for their employees.