Published on August 6th, 2021 | by Sunit Nandi

How to monitor employee activity?

Do you know what your employees are doing online? At best, they’re watching Youtube videos or communicating on social media. At worst, they are leading your company to financial ruin. That is the opinion of Robert Strohmeyer, one of the authors of the popular web magazine PC World.

The phrase “activity monitoring” still causes resentment among most company employees. But let’s be honest. The days when activity monitoring was the preserve of rare companies and perceived as draconian security measures are long gone. According to statistics, three quarters of organizations in the US use monitoring systems. Most companies have not yet caught up with the leaders, but every year there are more and more companies monitoring staff web surfing.

Now ask yourself this question: if your business doesn’t have staff control, maybe it’s time to rethink your internal policies.

Everything a team of specialists does using the company’s resources makes a huge difference. After all, the time spent sitting around on various forums and websites has an impact on productivity.

For small companies, monitoring employee activity, analyzing email and web traffic is sufficient.

For large companies, with a large number of staff, the style of communication with customers is of particular importance. After all, it is the human factor, more often than not, that affects the level of satisfaction of the end consumer or a positive decision when concluding a deal. Now let us remember how often a bad mood of the manager caused failure of a large contract? How many times because of an unscrupulous call-center operator had to calm down the angry client who began to publish dozens of complaints on various Internet forums?

In such a situation, meticulous and scrupulous monitoring and analysis of conversations over various messengers, such as Skype, ICQ or Lync, and mobile phones is a must.

Equally dangerous is purposeful sabotage. It is not uncommon for people to come to an organization with one goal in mind: to develop their business at the expense of the company’s resources. It is not even worth mentioning “kickbacks” and “bonuses” from competitors, it has long been a common practice.

Industrial espionage is not uncommon either. Very often companies send their residents to work for competitors. The goals of such activities range from simple research of business processes to theft of client bases and financial documents.

Monitask is excellent at monitoring and preventing risks. It can effectively combat both the trivial avoidance of job duties and serious attempts on confidential information.

So you have decided to start monitoring. Get ready, the first thing you will face is staff resistance. And how tough it will be is directly up to you.

Of course it is possible to covertly install software on computers, but this is not the best course of action. People don’t like to be spied on. Although, if there are serious concerns that important information is leaking to a competitor, covert surveillance would be justified.

If the main goal is to increase efficiency and reduce potential risks, the best thing to do is to talk to employees, explaining the reasons and purposes of monitoring. Many companies put information about monitoring in job descriptions, notifying employees that all computer activity, including typing, is recorded. Or hiring managers are obliged to announce it at job interviews and during the newcomers’ briefing. Surveillance notification is a powerful tool to reduce unwanted online activity.

Just as important is the prevention of pending breaches of discipline. To do this, it is enough to block malicious resources. If your employee cannot access a certain site, then he or she is guaranteed to avoid problems.

And don’t forget the reports. In as little as five minutes, you can identify potential risk areas. It’s better to deal with a problem right away rather than wait until it becomes a disaster.

Screen monitoring is a powerful tool to improve productivity, directly affecting the financial performance of an organization. If you study the statistics over the past few years, some very interesting facts come to light. One of the main efficiency indicators is the ratio of a country’s GDP to hours spent at work. In the European Union, this indicator is 50 US dollars per hour worked.

Tags: employee activity, monitor

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.