Never before have so many changes taken place in such a short period of time. Only 30 years have passed since the invention of the World Wide Web and yet most of us can’t imagine life without the internet now. Today, technology plays a major role in many aspects of human activity - communication, entertainment, education and, not least of all, work.
One aspect of it in particular has seen a lot of technological improvements, constantly gains in popularity and has the potential to revolutionize the work landscape - computer usage monitoring software.
Exactly what is monitoring software? In short, it’s a program that can monitor work computer activity on each employee’s workstation, not just in the office, but also for those working remotely. The activities that can be monitored include usage of apps and websites, time on tasks, productivity and more.
Where Does the Need for Employee Monitoring Services Come From?
There are several factors that brought about the need for software usage monitoring. The first one was the transfer of nearly all work processes onto computers. Now, documents are created, shared and stored on hard drives and online. And most importantly, business information and client data are now all digital, which makes them vulnerable to cyber attacks, but also to insider threats. To curb the latter risk, an increasing number of companies are opting for implementing software to monitor computer activity.
Moreover, globalization and ease of distance communication have led to larger outsourced and remote workforce which also calls for digital form of employee control.
Finally, with such a huge competitive market in vast variety of industries, companies need to make sure that their most important assets - employees - are productive and efficient, and employee time monitoring software gives managers the most accurate and large-scale reports.
For all these reasons and more, employee monitoring software market is getting bigger and more competitive in order to meet the rising demand.
How Does Employee Monitoring Software Work?
From its conception to the present form, employee tracking software has gone through many refinements. Today, there are many types of this system, from simple time tracking software to powerful programs that log every keystroke. There’s something for everyone.
Workpuls is one example of fully developed state-of-the-art system for tracking employees’ computer activity. It recognizes and logs apps used and websites visited for every employee in the network. It also tracks time spent on these tasks, which you can categorize into ‘productive’, ‘unproductive’ and ‘neutral’. This categorization is customizable for every team or individual. This allows for very precise productivity measurements and trends. This is also one of the systems that offer screenshots for enhanced surveillance and data protection.
Workpuls has another feature which gives you a taste of what the future of process tracking looks like. With its automatic time mapping, it has the ability to track time on specific projects based only on the name of the file that an employee opens and works in. This procedure is fully automatic and doesn’t need any input from employees (such as clicking the ‘start’ and ‘stop’ buttons), which means it’s also completely free of human error.
And this is only the present state of affairs. Considering the speed of progress so far, employee monitoring software can only be expected to get more accurate and more automated.
The Future of Employee Tracking Software
The rise in specialized education and the demand for knowledge workers suggests that we’ll need more automation in more menial aspects of office jobs, such as employee surveillance and time tracking. Computer monitoring software industry is trying to fulfill this demand.
One way in which this can unfold is to apply the task tracking functionalities of employee monitoring software as the basis of the rising field of robotic process automation (RPA). The data from monitoring software can map all the activities and steps involved in producing the desired outcomes, while RPA programs can then learn from this data and replicate the repetitive tasks that are otherwise time-consuming for human employees.
As it seems, everything is headed towards helping free up human workforce for more innovative, meaningful and customer-centric tasks.
Conclusion
In its steep evolution, computer tracking software has become a source of accurate data that would once have been considered barely tangible - productivity and active time tracking. Today, with features like automated time mapping and new intelligent solutions like RPA, it’s only obvious that the programs are here to help - help with our productivity as well as project tracking and help with doing the work we don’t want. As this technology gets more accessible and reliable, one thing is becoming certain - the future is here and it’s very bright indeed.
