5 Signs Your Company Needs Employee Monitoring Software

Declining performance indicators are the first and the most natural cause for concern when they are more than an occasional or seasonal dip. If you see a consistent decline in your company's overall performance and productivity, it is time to dig deeper into the following factors.

Look at the exact figures. Are your usual benchmarks suddenly harder to reach? Are sales consistently falling short of projections? Is the number of units produced per day decreasing? When the key productivity indicators are consistently falling, and external market forces cannot explain it, it is an alarming sign that something is wrong.

Has missed deadlines become a norm rather than an exception? Projects consistently running behind the schedule are a serious issue. Missed deadlines mess up daily work processes, cause budget overflows, frustrate clients, decrease revenue, and ruin your reputation. Frequent delays mean that there are inefficiencies somewhere in your processes, a potential lack of accountability, or employees' problems with time management. Understanding why it happens is the first step towards improvement.

Employees may deliver work on time but it is only half the deal. It's not just about how much is getting done, but how well. Have you noticed a peak of complaints from the clients? Does your team spend more time on rework and fixing errors? Are quality assurance checks failing more frequently? This might mean the team loses focus or lacks essential skills to perform better. Employee monitoring software can help you reveal the problem behind decreasing work quality.

Do you struggle to determine who's responsible for a missed task, an error, or a project delay? Difficulties pinpointing responsibility may stem from unclear workflows, poorly defined roles, or lack of accountability for individual contributions.

Employee monitoring gathers extensive data on employee work activity: active and idle time, most used apps and websites, activity patterns, and potential distractions, such as social media. Analyzing this data, you can reveal why employee performance is declining and how to improve it.

Increasing security incidents, such as frequent malware infections, successful phishing attacks, data breaches, or unauthorized access to sensitive company information are reasons to start acting. They mean a weakness in your security defenses, and often, the vulnerability lies in unintentional or even intentional employee actions. According to recent reports, as many as 82% of security breaches are caused by human error. Employee monitoring can help mitigate these risks and detect incidents early.

The next reason to consider employee monitoring is regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or industry-specific compliance standards. Failing to meet them can result in large fines and reputational damage. Compliance often depends on employee adherence to specific procedures and protocols, especially regarding data handling and security. Lacking visibility into employees' daily operations significantly increases the risks of incidents due to negligence and misconduct.

Finally, if your company's competitive advantage lies in proprietary information, intellectual property, or trade secrets, protecting these assets is vital. Employees with privileged access to sensitive data can leak it both unintentionally and intentionally.

Employee monitoring software lets you see into employees' activity, thanks to which you can ensure their compliance with security policies and relevant regulations.

Software with Data Loss Prevention (DLP) functionality can detect unsafe or inappropriate employee behavior and alert the manager or a security specialist. Besides, data collected by monitoring programs can be evidence in internal investigations if an incident occurs.

A safe, comfortable, friendly, and respectful work environment is crucial for employee productivity. Violations of office conduct create a hostile atmosphere, decrease employee morale and engagement, and contribute to higher turnover. In worst scenarios, such behavior can even expose the company to significant legal liabilities and reputational damage. Do you notice the following worrying signs? A responsible investigation involving employee monitoring may be your solution.

The first alarm bell is reports of harassment and discrimination, formal or informal. Ignoring such complaints will not only be harmful to a victim of such behavior but also lead to a toxic atmosphere in the office.

Another worrying sign to look out for is violations of the company's code of conduct or ethics. They may include excessive personal use of company time for non-work activities, misuse of company resources for personal gain, inappropriate online behavior using company networks or devices, or breaches of confidentiality agreements.

Finally, employees may use company resources to defame or libel someone or something online, access pirated resources thus infringing copyright, or do something else that can lead to financial loss and legal consequences. If you leave such actions unchecked, they may lead to costly lawsuits, regulatory penalties, and significant reputational damage.

In cases of harassment, discrimination, or bullying, monitoring employee communications - with proper legal counsel and employee notification - can provide the necessary evidence for internal investigations.

Monitoring software can create detailed employee activity logs, including application usage and file access. These logs can provide a verifiable trail to understand employee actions and determine if company policies have been violated.

If you often catch yourself wondering how work is actually flowing and why bottlenecks occur out of nowhere, you may need monitoring software. Ask yourself:

1. Am I relying on guesswork instead of concrete data to understand our operational flow?
2. Are specific processes consistently slow, inefficient, and plagued by delays?
3. Do certain tasks repeatedly become chokepoints in our workflows, slowing down entire projects or departmental output?
4. Do I need objective data to understand our current workflows before implementing process changes? How do I measure the impact of those changes?

When managers lack clear visibility into work processes, they cannot efficiently plan the project schedule and budget, optimize workflows, and predict potential hiccups.

Employee monitoring software makes detailed reports on employee app usage, task progression, and time spent on each assignment. These reports are objective, quantifiable data on current workflows. By analyzing them, managers see how work is done in practice and assess individual and team productivity. They may reveal areas for improvement and automation, eliminate redundant steps, and re-engineer workflows to make them more efficient and fast.

Once improvements are implemented, monitoring data can be used to measure the actual impact of these changes on workflow efficiency. This data-driven loop can become the foundation for continuous improvement and refinement.

The company's success is fueled by engaged and motivated employees. But what happens if the spark goes out? You may observe concerning trends such as decreased engagement, absenteeism, and rising turnover rates. Here are other alarming symptoms:

1. a noticeable drop in enthusiasm
2. decreased proactiveness
3. employees seem less invested in their work and the company's success
4. less participation in team activities and meetings
5. general feeling of apathy or negativity.

These signs may signal deeper, underlying problems within your organization. You should investigate the health of your workplace culture and employee well-being, and careful employee monitoring may be a helpful tool in your research.

Monitoring software with automated attendance tracking can reveal the above-mentioned worrying signs, often earlier than a manager can, and prompt for digging deeper. Besides, it can help measure the effectiveness of efforts you take to improve employee engagement. However, to engage and motivate employees, you will need other methods, such as rewards and bonuses, development and growth opportunities, and others.

Timely recognition of the five warning signs - productivity plunge, security, unethical behavior, operational blind spots, and decreasing engagement - is crucial, and employee monitoring can help detect them and uncover the reasons for these issues. If you are experiencing these signs, explore how CleverControl's monitoring software can help. But remember to prioritize ethical and transparent implementation.