Work Computer Monitoring: How It Works and How It Helps

Work computer monitoring can seem like a complicated subject, and if you’re a business owner or manager thinking about implementing a work computer monitoring system in your office, you may have some questions about it. 

What is work computer monitoring? What can it do? How does it benefit your company? Take a look at some of the things that you need to know about how work computer monitoring works helps your business. 

How Work Computer Monitoring Works

Work computer monitoring can tell you a lot about how your employees are spending their time.

Work computer monitoring software packages are designed to accomplish multiple tasks. A good workplace computer monitoring platform will have a variety of features that you can use to monitor different aspects of the workplace. Some of the common features include:

• URL Capturing: This feature captures the URL addresses of the websites that users visit. This allows you to see which websites your employees are visiting. It not only lets you know whether or not your employees are visiting sites unrelated to work during working hours, but you’ll also be able to see exactly which sites they’re visiting. 
• Keystroke Logging: Keystroke logging records exactly which keys a user strikes on the keyboard, allowing you to see what your employees have been typing. You can also monitor how often keys are being struck, which can let you know whether your employees are working consistently during the workday.
• Application Capturing: This feature lets you see which applications your employees are using. For example, when your employees launch Excel or Powerpoint, you’ll be able to see that information.
• Customized Reporting: Computer monitoring software stores the information that it collects so that it can compile it into reports. You should be able to customize the reports so that you can see the information you want, presented in a way that’s clear and easy to understand. Want to know which employee sends the most emails or who types the fastest? Your computer monitoring software’s reporting feature should be able to give you that information. 

How Work Computer Monitoring Software Helps Businesses

Does work computer monitoring really benefit your workplace? It’s easy to be skeptical. The concept of data privacy is a hot-button issue, and many people equate monitoring with intrusive spying. But computer monitoring in the workplace can have some real advantages and can even benefit employees. 

For one thing, monitoring work computers can help you discover problem areas for your employees. You can see how long they spend on various tasks, and that information can give you an idea of what your employees are struggling with. This can help you give your employees more useful feedback and additional training and mentoring if required. 

You’ll also know which employees are working most effectively and efficiently, which can be useful information when you’re considering promotions, bonuses, and raises. Both your workplace and your employees benefit when you have all of the information you need to reward, lead, and guide them. 

Another benefit of work computer monitoring is an increased ability to eliminate distractions and increase productivity. Today’s workers have powerful tools at their disposal in the form of modern devices and the internet, but these powerful tools come with a drawback – distractions. It’s incredibly easy for even well-meaning and diligent employees to get sidetracked with things like personal emails, social media, and online shopping. 

But by monitoring what employees do on their work computers, you’ll have the information you need to minimize those distractions. You may choose to block certain websites, keywords, or subject matter to prevent your employees from engaging in non-work-related activities on work time. Or you may notice a pattern in when your employees are most likely to become distracted and adjust schedules or task assignments in order to lessen the urge to wander off task. 

In some cases, a simple conversation may be enough to motivate an employee to stay more focused. No matter how you choose to handle it, having information about employee distractions can help you make the right decisions for your company. 

Security is another important factor that work computer monitoring software can help with. Workers don’t always realize the potential risks of visiting insecure websites on a work computer, but they can unintentionally pick up viruses or malware, or even be targeted by malicious actors who see a benefit in accessing your company’s network and data. 

And of course, there’s always the possibility of employees who are themselves malicious actors. While most employees are well-meaning and wouldn’t intentionally hurt the company they work for, it’s also a fact that some of the most devastating data breaches that companies have had to deal with have been caused by intentional acts by somebody inside of the company. 

With that in mind, employers must be vigilant about data security and work computer monitoring software is an effective way to practice vigilance. 

The Observer Effect

Just the knowledge that they’re being watched can have an immediate effect on employee behavior. 

Another positive effect of implementing work computer monitoring is due to something called the observer effect. It’s important to bear in mind that you should definitely let employees know that the work they do on company computers is going to be monitored. 

They’ll find out eventually anyway – if nothing else, the first time that you act on information that you learned through monitoring – so it’s better to tell them upfront. Nobody likes to feel that they’re being spied on, but employees can accept monitoring if you let them know that it’s going to happen and explain the reasons for it. 

And when you inform employees that you are monitoring what they do on work computers, you might notice an interesting initial effect – a jump in productivity. This is due to something called the observer effect. To put it simply, when people know that they’re being watched, they tend to alter their behavior based on that knowledge. 

The observer effect can be a vexing problem for scientists and researchers because it makes it difficult to make accurate observations about how people behave when they’re not being watched. But in the context of the workplace, it’s definitely a positive effect. Employees who know that they’re being watched are more productive simply based on that knowledge. 

For more information about work computer monitoring software and how it can benefit your company, take it for a test drive.