Increasing Productivity Through Employee Monitoring
Your employees are your biggest asset as a business. Employees want to feel they’re trusted by their managers, and they want to feel like real human beings. We’ve all had jobs that felt impersonal, and these leave team members feeling unmotivated. When employees feel appreciated and heard, they’re more likely to work towards company goals.
A Gallup study discovered that disengaged employees cost companies upwards of $300 billion in lost productivity every year. Increasing productivity of people becomes one of the main task for every manager. That’s why motivation needs to be at the forefront of your human resources strategy. An unexpected solution to the demand for higher productivity is employee monitoring.
We don’t mean monitoring in the sense that a manager hovers over an employees shoulder all day. We mean utilizing employee monitoring software to find better solutions to common problems and allowing team members more freedom in scheduling, time management, and beyond. These small steps make a big difference. Not only can employee monitoring tools prevent burnout, but they can actually help in increasing productivity from the inside.
Why Employee Monitoring Applications Work for Increasing Productivity
Basically the answer is very simple:
- Employees have more freedom to choose when they work
- Employees prioritize their own tasks
- Managers gain valuable feedback about time spent performing projects
- Managers can identify employee peak productivity hours
- Managers discover things that are preventing productivity
- The company can stop wasting time (and money) on paperwork
When employee monitoring is leveraged with technology and tools like Screenshot Monitor or Humanity, it’s a win/win for everyone. A report from the Conference Board revealed that over 50% of Americans are unhappy at work. That means one half of everyone in the workforce today is not satisfied with their workplace.
What can you do to make sure your office is a positive, motivating place all employees want to be? With so much competition between big companies today, it’s more important than ever to make a change for the better before you lose your top performers. Let’s explore the reasons why employee monitoring applications are so effective so you can see for yourself why you need to bring them into your office environment.
1. Freedom
Your employees want to feel they’re trusted to do their job right. They want freedom. Let’s face it: the traditional work schedule is a thing of the past. Employees want more freedom in deciding how they work and when. With employee monitoring software, it’s easier than ever to offer perks like remote work, flexible scheduling, and on-the-go project management.
Numerous studies including this one from the Harvard Business Review suggest employees are more productive when they have more freedom. While your business might not be ready to offer remote working, everyone can benefit from feeling trusted with their own time management.
2. Task Management
Management often takes a front seat in deciding which tasks are the most important. However, it’s the employees who work with these tasks every day, and they’re the ones really equipped to make smart choices about their time. Thanksto employee monitoring applications, it’s easier to see just how long these tasks take. It’s also easier to give team members the ability to manage their own projects and to-do lists.
When employees are able to choose how they spend their time at work, they’re able to complete projects as they see fit. This usually results in more productive and effective uses of time, since tedious tasks that slow the process down are left in the past.
3. Feedback
Increasing productivity is impossible without giving feedback. Feedback is a two-way street. Employees need to know they’re performing on an acceptable level, and managers need to know how they can continue to help employees. Gallup claims that managers who receive strength feedback are more profitable. Similarly, 69% of employees feel more motivated to work harder when they feel recognized.
These are both stats you can’t afford to ignore. Employee monitoring means leaving room for feedback on both ends. Not only do you want to know how your employees are performing, but you want to know how leaders are performing.
4. Peak Productivity Hours
The idea of the 9 – 5 schedule isn’t always the right choice. Many employees find they work better when they have more freedom, as we discussed earlier. This doesn’t usually come from the traditional schedule. When employees tasks are monitored for time spent doing every part, it’s easier to see when they’re most productive.
This data is a valuable tool. Not only can it show dates and times that are more likely to improve results, but it can reveal problems with the current employee schedule. You might find that team member productivity lowers after 6 pm. That might be a sign that it’s time to cut late nights at the office. Similarly, if you have a big meeting every Friday afternoon, you might see productivity improve right before. That might suggest you should continue these meetings more frequently.
5. Discover Roadblocks
There will always be some distractions in the workplace, but employee monitoring software helps breaks these down. While things like social media and online distractions might not be avoidable all of the time, they should be during office hours. Additionally, things like excessive team meetings, group sessions, and even employer-hosted events can get in the way of projects.
Even minor workplace interruptions can lead to hours of lost time. What roadblocks are keeping your employees back? Are there small tasks that aren’t needed or inefficient ways of finishing projects? It might be time to analyze these challenges.
6. Less Paperwork
The workplace is becoming a digital place, and that’s good news for both your wallet and the environment. Less paperwork also means less time spent on smaller tasks and more time spent on productivity. With employee monitoring, things like schedules, calendars, and task lists are all on the computer. Not only is this more organized, but it’s less wasteful.
Final Thoughts
As a competitive business, you can’t afford to pass up employee monitoring software. These easy-to-use applications are changing the ways management interacts with employees for the better. Let’s bring the humanity back into the workplace by offering a solution everyone can get behind.
These tools don’t just make the day-to-day life of employees easier. They transform the workplace into a motivated, productivity powerhouse. Increasing productivity is quite simple. You’ll just wonder why you didn’t implement these changes sooner.
About the author
Ashley Limpan is a content manager at Humanity – an online employee work schedule maker.