3 Ways to Monitor Your Employees at the Office and at Home

Remote employees have become more and more important due to the advent of new technologies, but those same technologies have also created new methods for managers to monitor their workforces. Using a combination of traditional managerial tools such as schedules and new technologies such as employee monitoring software, managers can continue to monitor their employees and correct potential issues in order to get the best performances possible.

Here are three methods that can be used to monitor both employees at the office and employees who are choosing to telecommute:

Employee Monitoring Software

Employee monitoring software such as My Team Monitor can be used to record information about the employees’ usage of their computers. Less intrusive software can record information about sites being visited, applications being opened, and the time spent on each activity. In contrast, more intrusive software can go as far as to record keystrokes and take screenshots. Employee monitoring software such as My Team Monitor are perhaps the most potent tool in the manager’s arsenal due to the ubiquity of computer use in the modern workplace, but that same potency also makes caution an important element in its effective usage.

Managers can get the best usage out of employee monitoring software by informing their employees about the information collected and the reasons for doing so. Doing so creates a useful deterrence effect while failing to do so can antagonize employees. Furthermore, informing employees is the only way to get remote employees to install software such as My Team Monitor on their home computers.

Remote Desktop

Using remote desktops is a great way for managers to monitor their remote employees as though they were employees at the office. Getting remote employees to install and use employee monitoring software on their home computers requires their cooperation, but the same is not true if they are required to log on to remote desktops provided by your business. Since you are the one who controls the user features and settings of the remote desktop, you can install software such as My Team Monitor and make it harder for remote employees to bypass them. You should still inform them about the monitoring, but there is no denying that such software is more effective when you have ultimate control over its usage.

Reports

New technologies are often both exciting and interesting, so it’s no surprise that we sometimes forget about old-fashioned but nonetheless effective methods for monitoring employees. Something as simple as requesting employees to make regular reports about their progress can do a great deal to help managers monitor their performance. Although asking for reports rather than using more intrusive methods requires managers to put a lot of trust in their employees, this should not be a problem in most cases. Besides, placing a measure of trust in employees is not the same as extending blind trust to them. Managers can and should still make the effort to confirm that their employees are telling the truth at prearranged times in the schedule.

Conclusion

Managers should not rely on any single one of these methods, but instead mix and match as the need arises. Some employees require closer-than-normal monitoring, while others can be trusted to do their best even with less oversight.