What are the Benefits of Employee Time Tracking?

We’ve come a long way from analog punch cards, but did you know that the time-tracking methods your employees use could have an impact across your whole operation?

Using a computer monitoring system to track employee idle time, session duration, and project lifecycles can help you refine your business budget, reallocate staffing costs appropriately, streamline existing processes, and improve productivity company-wide.

Keep reading to learn about some real applications for employee time tracking software:

Why is time tracking important?

Timekeeping is a fundamental skill that’s proven to help you become more organized and accountable in the workplace. Before you can take advantage of time tracking to improve your organization, it’s important to understand why you need this tool in the first place.

Time tracking is used to record employee payroll, but did you know that it can also be used to gauge productivity? Time tracking tools give you a more accurate snapshot of:

• Outstanding goals vs. realistic expectations
• Time spent vs. revenue generated
• Employee performance and wellbeing
• Redundancies and under-staffed departments

Time tracking software is an ideal way to see how your employees are spending their time during their workday, not just how long they’ve been at work.

How can you track employee performance?

The best way to measure employee productivity is to measure how much time they spend at work, right? Well, not quite.

Turns out, you can measure employee productivity more efficiently by checking what they’re doing with their work hours. In this case, quality is better than quantity because the goal is to make the most out of the time they spend on each project – rather than simply clocking in and clocking out for their paycheck.

There are three primary factors to look for to successfully track employee productivity:

Regular performance updates

Communication is of the most important elements for any functioning employer-employee relationship, and this is especially true when it comes to performance reviews.

Monitoring your employees’ progress can give you a better look at strengths you might not have otherwise noticed. This can become a strong source of employee morale and positive reinforcement for their next review meeting.

Additionally, using time-tracking will make employees more aware of how they’re spending their time. Is their device idle for a considerable amount of the workday, or do they tend to skip breaks altogether?

Identifying these behaviors can give everyone a better idea of where improvements can be made.

Objective data for accurate reporting

Corporate objectivity is critical for any operation, no matter the size. Relying on human accounts alone is a quick way to cultivate convoluted and unreliable information. Using monitoring software as a time-keeping tool eliminates human error – and dishonesty – from the equation.

Rather than expecting employees to record their time accurately to the minute with traditional methods, timekeeping software takes away the guesswork. You can pull accurate, dynamic reports that will show you:

• Details of each worker’s daily activity
• Session duration by program
• Download history
• Productivity value itemized by activity

Having the ability to generate a report for every user allows you to objectively review each worker’s contribution to your bottom line.

It also provides you with more insight into your employees’ mental health and general wellbeing, which contributes heavily to the value of your organization as a whole.

Detect and prevent insider threats

While this category makes up a smaller portion of the factors that might lead to a decline in productivity, insider attacks still pose significant risks to your company.

An insider threat is a security breach that is initiated by an employee or vendor that has exclusive access to proprietary or personal digital data.

This type of program helps to prevent insider cyber threats using:

• Integrated & intelligent AI technology
• User behavior analytics and activity monitoring
• Context rich recordings to CERT and SOC response times
• Scalable architecture for up to 300k endpoints

Using insider threat detection software as part of a comprehensive computer monitoring plan can prevent dishonest or negligent users from costing you millions of dollars due to data theft.

Streamline project timelines

Do you set deadlines based on the amount of time you expect your team to spend on a project? If you’ve been projecting deadlines manually, you’ve likely overestimated or underestimated how long it would take to complete a task.

Using monitoring programs to review employee activity is a helpful way to generate a quantifiable account of the average amount of time each project, task, or objective takes to complete.

Are you paying your employees a 40-hour salary for 20 hours of work? With an interactive, easy-to-use dashboard you can gain a bird’s eye view of how staffing costs are being allocated across your entire company.

How does time tracking improve productivity?

Ultimately, the best way to improve productivity is to reduce the amount of time your employees spend on necessary tasks – while eliminating unnecessary tasks.

Time tracking software allows you to see exactly how long each employee spends on every task, no matter how big or small.

Most importantly, time tracking gives you the ability to reduce the amount of time employees spend on tasks that aren’t constructive for company goals. You can also make the most out of everyone’s workday by identifying elements like:

• Time of the day employees have the highest production
• “Slumps” or reductions in activity
• Increases in idle time, by user and program

By understanding exactly how your employees are spending their workday, you can help them make the most out of their effort and your own resources.

What is the best employee time tracking app?

If you’re shopping for a time-tracking program, look for a comprehensive employee monitoring program that includes these features:

• Active working hours
• Program session duration
• Slowdowns or reductions in worker activity
• Accurate, real-time reporting

Being able to assess these elements will help you improve company-wide communication, foster a stronger remote or in-office work environment, and increase the security of your organization’s digital information.

Protect your company – and your bottom line – by using computer monitoring software for employee time tracking.