60% or less of work time is actually spent productively
‍Or, in other words: more than 40% of work time is wasted. Let that sink in.

It’s an eye-watering figure for any company executive, founder or manager trying to run a productive and profitable business.

When you’re in charge of a team, it’s easy to feel powerless to do anything about wasted staff time. Because, the reality is, in the modern workplace it’s impossible to watch staff’ every click, scroll and tap.

Left unchecked and unmonitored, today’s digital working environments quickly turn into the Wild West. Endless hours are wasted on social media, timesheets are fudged, budgets get out of control, and “looking busy” and actually working look identical to the naked eye. Here’s where staff monitoring steps in.

Capable of monitoring almost 100% of staff activity, staff computer monitoring software delivers insights into exactly what your staff are up and how they use their time via clear, powerful data.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

But, before you buy and download monitoring software, there’s a lot you need to ask yourself, like…

‍What features do you need?
Do you need customization?
How much will it really cost?
How simple is it to install and use?
How will your staff react?

‍And that’s just the start…

Good thing for you, just by taking a few minutes to read on, you’ll have all the answers (and more!). It’s everything you need to make a smart decision about choosing the best staff monitoring software for your team.

First, it’s important to get your head around what the best PC monitoring software does - and what it doesn't do. Because there’s often some confusion. At times, both managers and staff think of it as nothing more than basic staff surveillance. But, as you’re about to see, it’s so much more than that.

With it, you’re able to identify unproductive workers, discover which apps, websites and software your team uses most, track every minute of time and attendance, and so much more. Best of all, a team monitoring software delivers this data as actionable insights and trends that you can use to constantly enhance team performance.

Imagine having an all-seeing, all-knowing manager on your team. You’ve just imagined modern work monitoring software.

With today’s powerful staff tracking software, it’s possible (and effortless) to monitor:
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- Email
- App & website usage
- Computer activity
- Time & attendance
- Time on projects & tasks
- Screenshots

Plus, with some staff computer monitoring software, like Outstaffer.com, tracking workers happens automatically and in real-time. Then every byte of data from your entire team is delivered to an intuitive dashboard that’s as easy to use as reading an email.

When it comes to staff tracking, it’s about more than just the activity that’s monitored. It’s about the data collected and insights revealed. The best staff monitoring program continuously delivers millions of data points that help you discover…
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- Productivity analysis to measure individual, team and company productivity
- Behavior analytics that explain exactly what causes spikes and troughs in your team’s productivity
- Business metrics & trends through user activity monitoring that weeds out costly inefficiencies and helps you direct resources to high ROI activity
- Apps and software usage that is costing or making you money
- Time & attendance charts that show every minute workers spend at work and what they get up to
- Automated time tracking that automatically assigns work-time to the correct project or task, without any manual effort

With these incredible data insights, you can optimize productivity, calculate wages, track and budget project costs, streamline work processes, determine staffing needs, and enhance just about every other aspect of business. Simply, instead of doing things on a hunch or intuition, you can make decisions based on verified data.

At this point, you’re probably imagining what staff desktop monitoring software could do for your team. To help you decide if an staff tracking app is right for you, have a think if you’ve experienced any of the following...
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- Lost time and costs due to late or false clock-ins and early clock-outs
- Time wasted and productivity lost because of staff not staying on task
- Project budgets blowing out due to poor time allocation
- Dozens of expensive software licenses with no idea of their benefit
- Staff wasting time browsing social media, websites and personal emails
- Getting incorrectly billed for hours by contractors on tasks that aren’t yours
- Staff time and work being charged to the wrong client
- Time and productivity wasted filling out manual timesheets and activity logs

Now, most modern workplaces struggle with these problems, which severely hamper team performance and productivity. Which, we’re sure, you probably don’t need reminding of...

For employers and managers concerned about lost productivity, there are a couple of options:

Option 1
‍You could stick with the old method, attempting the near-impossible task of physically monitoring staff at work, and hoping they’ll “do the right thing” when you’re not around. Or...

‍Option 2
You could choose to use Outstaffer.com and leverage our tracking software to monitor employee time and activity. Even if you’re out of the office, in a meeting or your team is spread across cities and countries. If the second option sounds more logical to you, then read on.

We get it. In business, it all comes down to numbers, data and results. So, if you’re discussing computer tracking software with your team, or weighing it up in your own mind, you need data to make a smart, informed decision.
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Here’s just some of the data-backed results a staff tracking app like Outstaffer.com brings to remote teams...

- Over 24% More efficient business processes
- Over 15% More accurate clock-ins
- Over 10% More active daily time
- Over 32% increase in productivity for remote teams
- Over 26% increase in remote companies
- Over 23% more accurate payroll
- Over 25% less time to complete projects
- Over 60% more accurate time reporting
- Over 21% percent increased active daily work time for remote teams
- Up to $10 million in time saved annually

With the flexibility of today’s staff monitoring software, teams from every industry imaginable rely on it as a way to conduct employee productivity monitoring...

-Customer Support
- Back Office
- Information Technology
- Startups
- SMBs
- Enterprise
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Millions of businesses track, analyze and optimize their daily work with employee PC monitoring software. But what exactly would it look like in your business? Here are three real-life examples of companies using Outstaffer.com that show how flexible, easy-to-use and effective workplace monitoring can be.

‍Digital Agency Experiences More Profitable Client Work with Outstaffer.com
When you’re a digital agency in a sea of competition, how you bill – and get billed – time can define your success. It’s a financial juggling act of pricing projects, allocating time and paying – often freelance – workers.

Most agencies know the importance of getting billing right. One such agency turned to Outstaffer.com because of our ability to provide high-quality employees aboard and our #WorkFromAnywhere technology that allow monitor and time tracking on the project, campaign and client level.

With Outstaffer.com, the digital agency is now able to make sure they aren’t getting overcharged by freelancers; better calculate rates to charge clients to prevent going over budget; and optimize campaign time and resource allocation to maximize profitability.

Like any business decision you make, it pays to really know the pros and cons of staff monitoring. There’s a lot to think about before you buy. You need to consider your goals, expectations and team makeup. To help weigh things up and make the right decision, we’ve clearly broken down the pros and cons of staff monitoring software.

Pros of Staff Monitoring
‍Businesses of all sizes experience major benefits from the simple decision to install staff tracking software. Let’s take a look at just some of what you can expect.

Less Time Wasted
89% of staff admit wasting time at work. More plainly, if you’re a team of 100 staff, only 11 of them don’t waste time at work (or, more likely, don’t admit it).
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What’s more, these staff waste anywhere between 30 minutes and five hours a day. This all adds up for employers, who are stuck with a bill of more than $40b in wasted time every year.
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Using a staff monitoring tool like Outstaffer.com, you can plug the leaky hole of wasted time. With every action monitored and every minute tracked, staff are only paid for when they’re actually doing work.

Enhanced Productivity
Whether it’s browsing the internet, scrolling social media or checking personal email, there’s an endless number of non-work-related tasks that destroy productivity. In fact, it’s estimated non-work-related tasks cost companies $134b a year.
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Staff activity monitoring software answers the question how to increase productivity with real-time monitoring and insightful, up-to-the-minute charts that measure individual, team and organizational productivity.

Less Admin
Few things put a handbrake on productivity and performance like painstaking admin. It’s a plague that afflicts all businesses. Just how badly? 59% of managers say they spend more than three hours a day on admin.
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Every minute spent on admin, is a minute that could be better used elsewhere. Outstaffer.com removes all time and attendance admin with pinpoint accurate clock-ins and clock-outs via computer activity monitoring. More than that, O tracking connects to payroll to calculate costs automatically - right down to taxes, currency and preferred payment method. It does this via simple functionality that tallies only hours of active work.
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Plus, with its unique Automatic Time Tracking feature, Outstaffer.com monitors project and task work based on file name. Say, for instance, you’re an architect or design firm, as soon as your employees open a CAD file, Outstaffer.com automatically monitors what they’re working on, calculates time and then bills it to the right client. No manual timesheets. No hitting stop and start on a timer. Pretty nifty, huh?

‍A More Engaged Team
Just 15% of employees claim they’re engaged at work. This is for a whole host of reasons, like working environment, allocated projects and lack of support, just to name a few. Without some way to know for sure, though, it’s all just random guesswork to figure out what makes your team tick.
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With the Outstaffer.com staff tracking app, productivity trends and reports provide a definitive answer to what keeps your team engaged.
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For instance, let’s say Greg from marketing claims he works best remotely three days per week. But you have your doubts. With Outstaffer.com’ productivity trend data, you can track Greg’s output based on his time and location of work, then make a clear decision about whether to keep Greg in the office, or give him the freedom of teleworking. This extends to the projects your employees work on, the apps and software they use, and the support they’re getting on the job.

‍Prioritizes Focus
‍Often, what an employee chooses to work on isn’t what’s most important to the business. And typically, it isn’t until after hours of misdirected work that a manager realizes time’s been put into the wrong task. By then, it’s too late.
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With real-time employee monitoring, misplaced focus gets picked up in an instant. All it takes is a glance at your real-time activity dashboard to see who’s working on what that very second. Then, to correct course, you can ping your team members to say, “The deadline for Project XYZ is tomorrow, stop what you’re doing on Project ABC…”

‍Clearer Direction
‍“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself,” Henry Ford once said. But the larger your team gets, and the more remote or freelance workers you have, the harder it is to live up to Ford’s mantra.
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Even when your team is under one roof, getting everyone going in the same direction is a challenge - let alone for remote teams. If your head office is in Montreal, marketing team is in Miami and support team is in Manila, ensuring everyone’s going in a unified direction is like juggling blindfolded.
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Employee monitoring is like a directional beacon that can guide your whole team - no matter how far apart you are. By calling on the real-time dashboard of Outstaffer.com, you can instantly see what every team member is working on, identify bottlenecks, and align employee focus.
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Cons of Computer Monitoring Software
‍For any manager or leader, the advantages of employees monitoring software are clear. But there are some potential downsides. Here’s what to consider - and how to deal with them.

‍Impact on Team Culture
‍According to Deloitte, 94% of executives say team culture is critical to success. There’s no doubting that. And, as leaders know, culture is a delicate ecosystem that takes years to build.
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It’s easy to fear that even the mention of employee monitoring might negatively impact team culture and morale. But, positioned correctly, computer monitoring software can in fact bolster team culture by identifying top performers and workers dragging the team down.

Perceived Lack of Privacy
Concerns about workplace privacy and employee monitoring are not uncommon. Employees often worry that every detail of their private daily lives will be exposed to management. With a proper explanation of what exactly is being monitored and how the data is used, these privacy concerns can be quickly allayed.

‍Elevated Stress Levels
You know what it can be like when someone is standing over your shoulder watching you work. It’s easy to become a little stressed, flustered and the work just doesn’t flow. Now, some employees will get this feeling just knowing that cloud based employee monitoring is installed in your workplace. Transparency is one way around this. There’s also Stealth Mode functionality that monitors discreetly, which is one of Outstaffer.com’ many unique features.
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Perceived Lack of trust
‍We get it. Even asking someone what they’re working on can give the perception of lack of trust. So, things like monitoring employee email or screenshots can trigger alarm bells that you consider an employee untrustworthy. Explaining it’s all to do with productivity, not trust, is the starting point for handling this type of concern when you start using a computer monitoring software.

‍Legal Ramifications
‍Monitoring laws vary across the world. Places like California have some of the strictest laws around employee surveillance, which can expose an employer to litigation. Whether you’re in The Golden State, or elsewhere, it’s absolutely vital to know the legal landscape around employee monitoring. Typically, you’re well within your rights to keep monitor what your employees are up to. But it pays to be sure.

So, if you make the smart decision to install employee computer monitoring software. Before you buy, you need to answer five questions about which employee tracking solution is best for you:

- What are your goals?
- What’s the makeup of your team?
- What will employee monitoring cost you?
- What features do you need?
- Will your computer monitoring software grow with you in future?

For leaders, employers and managers, the decision to install employees monitoring software is pretty plain to see. And, after all, it’s your call to install it. But, this doesn’t mean you should go it all alone. It’s important to get your team involved and informed from the outset.

Be Transparent
Like anything introduced to your team, it’s best to be transparent with your communication around it. When you decide to install a monitoring software for employees, start by clearly communicating your plan to use it to improve performance. Researchers Bartels and Nordstrom, found that when monitoring is clearly explained and directly linked to rewards or consequences it is highly effective.

Talk About the Benefits (To Them)
‍Sure, as the boss or owner, you know what you’ll get out of screen monitoring software. But, for wary employees, it might not be so clear. There’s a simple answer to this: show them how it’ll benefit them. For instance, the hundreds of thousands of employees monitored companies using Workpuls experience.

- Faster, more accurate payments thanks to automatic, activity-based payroll
- More recognition and reward for their performance through user activity monitoring that highlights high achievers
- Being part of a more efficient, high performing team where it doesn’t feel like they’re carrying an unfair share of the work
- Insights into their work to improve their skills, ability and advance their careers
- No painful manual time and activity reporting or weekly reports
- Freedom to work remotely on their own terms more often as managers can now track their work from anywhere
- Greater autonomy from managers and team leaders who can now ‘light-touch’ manage using a real-time monitoring dashboard
-Make them a Part of the Process

‍Bring them into the tent early and team buy-in will surge.

With your leaders on board from the outset, getting the rest of the team behind it becomes easier. It’ll still take some savvy communicating on your part though, including:

- Calling a meeting to introduce the screen monitoring software
- Having a strong, clear internal communications plan
- Dealing with privacy concerns, letting employees know it’s not spying
- Asking for feedback every step of the way
- Responding to negative feedback, concerns and questions

‍Have a Policy
‍Yes, we know. Another workplace policy is the last thing you need - and employees want to read. But, unlike the one for how to stack the office dishwasher, having one for employee monitoring is a must-do. Makes sure it’s in clear language that doesn’t take a Harvard Law graduate to understand. Once it’s drafted, it can be easily inserted into your team’s onboarding process.

By now, you know the productivity, performance and saving benefits of staff monitoring software, like Outstaffer.com. As monitoring technology has evolved, it’s become simple to install, use and customize. Even so, the decision to start monitoring employees in the workplace depends on your team’s structure, goals and what priority you put on productivity and performance.

Schedule a demo with Outstaffer today.