Employee monitoring software is a broad term that refers to a variety of digital tools that can assist business owners, managers, and human resource (HR) professionals in improving their employee oversight capabilities.

There are various methods of monitoring employee performance, but digital systems are the preferred choice these days.

These software alternatives can be tailored to specific workforce environments and situations, giving employers more control over how employees spend their time and how engaged they are with work-related tasks.

The best computer monitoring software efficiently tracks employee performance and productivity to ensure that your company knows what’s missing in terms of output and how to better its overall performance.

Employee monitoring software can also assist businesses that deal with confidential and sensitive data and information in ensuring that employees are not wrongly accessing or tampering with this data.

These are four features to look out for when sourcing for the best employee monitoring software.

Productivity and monitoring tools

The best monitoring software should be designed with both productivity and monitoring effectiveness in mind. There has to be a balance between the two aspects.

Find a monitoring system for your organisation that allows features like optional screenshots and the ability to turn off tracking in specified apps or websites.

Similarly, screenshotting should be disabled in apps and sites that are off-limit. This ensures a good amount of space and privacy for your people, while still maintaining a firm grasp on the performance tracking metrics where it matters.

You could say that the best way to track employee productivity is by focusing on the applications that matter and basing your performance data on how fast or well their production capacity is.

Flexible tracking

Employees should have a host of options to choose from, like being able to clock in manually and clock out at any point of the day. When taking a break, they should be able to disable the tracker until they are back on the clock.

Flexible tracking options go hand-in-hand with solid time management tools. Based on employee log-in and log-out, the best monitoring apps should be able to define a working day.

Employees can, however, work offline as well. They can, for example, speak with a colleague over the phone about a problem or schedule a meeting with a customer.

As a result, it is recommended that users of your software be able to manually log time spent on work-related tasks while offline.

Also, don’t forget about mobile remote workers and provide a mobile app to support your product. A time-tracking app allows you to manually or automatically log your working hours (upon detecting the Wi-Fi network).

Solid analytics

Employee tracking software is more than just a tool for keeping track of employees’ activities, as it helps employees to prioritise their responsibilities.

Using proper tracking software, you can assist them in determining where they should spend their valuable time by conducting a thorough analysis of their work.

Employees have been known to devote a significant amount of time to seal a single deal. However, their time might not be well spent on this deal.

As a result, choose software that not only tracks your employees’ work performance but also provides analysis reports so they can improve it from the ground up.

Project and task management

Employee monitoring software should have project management features and be able to display project and task statuses, progress, and deadlines in real-time.

It gives managers complete visibility into their employees’ work activities and allows them to assess their performance. What’s more, it’s a simple way for employees to keep track of their tasks. They can group them, get timely notifications about the latest deadlines, and more.

Project management capabilities should be centralised and organised, saving you time and money.

This means you should look for an option that offers a time tracking feature, employee monitoring solutions, and standard project management tools in one neat package.

Employee monitoring software can lift your organisation’s overall performance to the next level, as long as you take necessary factors into consideration when choosing a good fit for your company.

Be sure to find a system that allows for flexibility, productivity, and analytics among the other things to keep workflow at an all-time high while retaining employee satisfaction.

This article first appeared in MyPF. Follow MyPF to simplify and grow your personal finances on Facebook and Instagram.