Whether all your employees work together out of a single location or your staff is 100% remote, it is vital to stay on top of team productivity levels. But while you must monitor your team to get the best out of them, micromanaging them won’t serve you well either. And in this current age of remote work and distributed teams (78% of CEOs agree that remote collaboration is not going anywhere soon), you can’t be everywhere at the same time. Many businesses today face these challenges.
Besides, there are several other motivations for monitoring employees. You might want to prevent a disgruntled employee from acting maliciously—by leaking customer data or sensitive information, for example. Or you might want to prevent employees from violating safety protocols. Or keep them off unsafe, malicious websites.
If you have ever wondered how to deal with these issues, employee monitoring software may be the solution, and thankfully, you don’t have to be a techie to implement this solution. With a wealth of employee monitoring software choices available today, you’re sure to find something suitable for your business.
And if you have lots of employees, then Controlio just has to be used so that you can check on their activity. Controlio software sits on the laptop or phone. Someone starts a task, or it picks up after login. You get hours by person. You see the sites that took the afternoon and the long idle stretches that do not match the timesheet. A manager approves the week from the numbers. Screenshots exist for the client who asks. Turn them off for everyone else. Staff can pause the agent for personal tasks.
What is the best employee monitoring software?
There are several options for employee monitoring software out there. Just as every business is unique, most employee monitoring software available today is vastly different and caters to different business types. The best software for your business will depend entirely on your specific needs. Whatever you decide, your choice must not only cater to your current needs but also be capable of growing with your business.
In this article, we’ve researched and reviewed 14 of the best employee monitoring software to help you choose the best option for your business.
1. Controlio
Best for teams that need hours and app visibility without heavy settings. Controlio monitoring software covers the usual cases and lets you leave screenshots off. Exports go into payroll tools. Staff can pause the agent. Most teams have the basic view running within a day. The reports show idle gaps and app switches so you can adjust the load without daily check-ins. One group used the data to move two tasks off a person who had been carrying them for weeks. The extra hours disappeared. The flexible schedule stayed.
2. Teramind
Best employee monitoring solution for enterprises. Not much employee monitoring software can compete with the endless capabilities of Teramind. Among employee computer monitoring software, Teramind has become a favorite for its time tracking solutions, in-depth analytics, and efficient reporting features. Founded in 2014 in Miami, Florida, Teramind has won the trust of over 2,000 organizations.
One of the key distinguishing features of Teramind is its Optical Character Recognition (OCR). OCR recognizes pieces of text information hidden inside images and videos. This handy feature means that you can create rules that automatically come into effect when certain words or text appear on a user’s screen, even inside images and videos.
Teramind lets you monitor your team visually and in real-time, whether remotely or on-premise. This capability goes hand-in-hand with its in-built messaging and alert system. With the Social Media Activity Tracker, Teramind keeps you up to speed with how long your employees spend on social media. You also gain remote access to control your employees’ workstations.
Pricing: The Starter Plan begins at $60 monthly and supports five users. The User Activity Monitoring (UAM) plan starts at $125 and grants full access. The price scales with the number of users.
Pros
- A comprehensive set of tracking tools
- Intuitive UI and dashboard
- Keystroke tracking
- Versatile deployment for cloud or on-premises environments
- Privacy compliance and access control
Cons
- In-depth monitoring features can be complicated
3. Hubstaff
Best for productivity tracking and employee monitoring. Hubstaff is possibly the most efficient employee monitoring software for closely keeping track of productivity. Its monitoring tools emphasize user activity over the strict surveillance methods that its competitors use.
It also comes with easy-to-use web and mobile apps that make it a great option for businesses that work with independent contractors, freelancers, and remote workers who are paid by the hour. Besides, Hubstaff’s extensive third-party integrations let you easily automate numerous aspects of your business, including financial management.
With Hubstaff, you can also remotely take screenshots and recordings of your employees’ screens. Hubstaff’s keystroke monitor lets you actively track and record employee keystroke data. This function, coupled with Hubstaff’s time tracking function, makes for very accurate productivity analyses.
Pricing: The Basic Plan starts at $7 monthly per user with a two-user minimum. The premium plan starts at $10 monthly per user. The enterprise plan starts at $20 monthly per user.
Pros
- Can capture screenshots and monitor keystrokes
- Lets you track how productive your workers are, even when they work from home
- Job site and geolocation features
- Makes it easy to plan employee shifts
Cons
- No advanced tracking
- You need another app on the desktop for the stopwatch
- Reporting is basic
4. ActivTrak
Best free employee monitoring software. A cloud-native employee monitoring tool, ActivTrak specializes in measuring employee productivity. This solution is hosted on the Google Cloud Platform. ActivTrak’s user activity monitoring delivers real-time insights about the activities of your employees and remote teams, whether in applications or on webpages.
You also get an opportunity to minimize abnormal idle time with ActivTrak’s productivity monitoring feature. You can simply select applications and websites that you consider unproductive for your employees and teams and keep track of who goes on those apps and sites and how long they are there.
Closing notes on monitoring choices
Controlio monitoring software handles the hours and apps for most teams that need a basic view. Teramind and Hubstaff add deeper options when security or GPS matters. Most groups start with one tool, check the first week of reports, and leave the extra settings off once the numbers match the actual work.
