Measure Outcomes, Not Keystrokes in Your Team Monitoring (and why it performs better).

From the beginning of an employee's journey, we provide them with access to time tracking software. The solution gives us access to track employee activity, like how many mouse clicks there are, and how actively they are logged in.

But one thing that really got me is, our employees were not able to deliver that productive outcome anymore. Even after having the most active time on their screen. Their creativity was missing, even though they were struggling to meet deadlines.

That’s when we changed our approach from measuring their active time to focusing on the outcomes!

How’s the result after that? Well, this story is worth a read.

Shifting our focus was the biggest decision

The real magical change we started to notice right after we decided to change our productivity measuring system.

Though it felt a bit odd at the very beginning to let go of that counting clicks system. But the new approach to count the outcomes made everyone curious. All our employees were excited to try that, as if the old system was suppressing their creativity.

Here’s how we shifted our focus to three main things:

1. Quality over Quantity: We started to look into how well an employee is completing a task instead of counting how fast a task is completed. For instance, we were looking for fewer revisions, better client feedback, and smoother delivery.
2. Project outcome: We started to track the outcome we are receiving from each project. We evaluated projects based on which one added more value to the company instead of which one took more hours.
3. Employee Growth Metrics: We encouraged everyone to track their personal development and contributions beyond the number of tasks that were getting done.

Tracking Performance Metrics Like an Expert

After changing the way we measure productivity, I needed a system to track the data. That’s when I found an employee monitoring software that tracks employee productivity. Not only their mouse clicks.

While we were thinking about what and how to operate things, we discovered the Apploye productivity tracking tool. And to our surprise, it was the salvation we needed!

Here’s what we did—

• We used the Project dashboard feature to see which project or task helped the company move forward.
• The Activity reports showed a pattern in where employees were spending most time. For instance, if someone is spending time on communication apps or creative works.
• We could visualize the progress across days and weeks to understand who needs support or who is improving gradually through the Performance timeline feature.
• We could easily measure how each project aligned with its allocated budget using the Project budget feature. It helped us identify which projects had the most direct impact on overall profitability and where we needed to adjust our resource planning.

This shift completely changed the purpose of our employee monitoring. Instead of being something that made employees nervous, it became something that helped them grow.

They could see their own progress, track their focus hours, and even identify what was blocking them from performing better.

Unexpected Growth of Employee Engagement

Earlier, communication throughout the teams was chaotic. No one wanted to talk to their colleagues, thinking it would drop their active time on the time tracker.

This was resulting in less progress, engagement, collaboration, and more confusion in project understanding.

But, right when we started measuring the real outcome of projects, employees started to focus on completing meaningful activities. They started helping others, discussing project ideas, and sharing feedback openly.

Therefore, at the end, we not only improved getting better results, but also built a sustainable work culture that shares knowledge and focuses on growth.

And the best part is, it all came naturally through that single initiative.

Closure

In the end, all that matters for a company is to achieve results that drive growth. If you measure outcome instead of screen time or keystrokes, it allows your team to focus on meaningful work, boost engagement, and improve overall productivity.

This approach performs better as it rewards real contribution, not just effort.

So, if you also want your team to bring consistent success to their productivity, consider shifting your measuring system to outcomes.

Trust me, empowering employees this way creates smarter, happier, and more effective teams.