Employee productivity monitoring software for companies

Use productivity monitoring software by DeskTime to keep track of your employee’s productivity in the workplace.

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Illustration of the user dashboard in the DeskTime app

What is productivity monitoring software?

In modern teams where people collaborate through their computer screens and often even sit at different physical locations, it’s increasingly difficult for managers to keep track of everyone’s performance – they can’t take a look across the office floor and see what they’re doing. That’s where employee productivity monitoring software comes in, providing a detailed look into every team member’s workday.

Types of productivity monitoring

If you haven't yet started to monitor your employee’s productivity at work, note that there are several approaches and that the variety can cause some confusion to first-time users. Therefore, let’s look at the most popular types of employee productivity monitoring and see which option fits your needs best.

Illustration of the productivity overview dashboard in the DeskTime app

Monitoring work time

This is the most simple and popular way of monitoring employee productivity. It refers to keeping track of everyone’s attendance, time spent at work, and productivity levels throughout the day.

An illustration of the dashboard in the DeskTime productivity tracking software

Computer usage tracking

Employee computer monitoring will not only allow you to monitor your team members' attendance but also give you an insight into their working habits during the workday.

An illustration depicting the variety of features offered by DeskTime employee productivity monitoring software

Advanced productivity monitoring

From auto screenshots to custom reports and document title tracking, these features come in handy if you need to monitor your team’s performance more thoroughly.

A screenshot of employee productivity overview in the DeskTime app

Use it to keep an eye on your remote employees

If you oversee remote employees, it’s quite likely that you have found it difficult at times to keep track of what exactly they are doing during their work hours. Productivity monitoring software can help – it will allow you to see a detailed report of your contract workers' working day, divided into productive and unproductive time. That way, you won’t have to keep guessing what your remote team is up to.

All the productivity monitoring tools you need – combined in one app

DeskTime combines several tools and features that will help you and your team reach new productivity levels. Monitor your employees' daily activity, as well as their sick leave, vacations and overtime. Get a clear overview of your team's workflow.

An illustration of the features in DeskTime productivity tracking software

Automatic Time Tracking

DeskTime’s automatic time tracking software gives you a timestamp for your employees' arrival and departure; it tracks the total time spent on work-related tasks and automatically calculates your team’s daily productivity.

Track Apps and URLs

Employees can indicate which applications and URLs are productive or unproductive for completing their tasks. At the end of the day, this gives a clear overview of how productive the workday has been. Analyzing the used unproductive apps, employers can also identify any possible online time stealers.

Monitor Projects and Tasks

Monitor the individual projects and tasks your team is working on. Auto screenshots and activity rate trackers provide all the necessary data to give you an idea of the status of your projects, let you estimate the time required for projects in the future, and help you bill your clients accurately for the work done.

An illustration of DeskTime’s features

Create auto screenshots

The optional DeskTime auto screenshots feature offers a particularly detailed view of your team’s efficiency and lets you accurately monitor employee internet usage. Every 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, DeskTime takes a screenshot of what everyone is working on and automatically saves the files on each user’s account. You can set up the screenshots to be blurred for increased privacy or disable this function altogether.

Create custom reports

Use the DeskTime employee productivity monitoring software to create reports about the company’s productivity that you can share, print, or export to .xlsx files. You can also compare the effectiveness of your team or individual employees over a given period of time and gain insight into extra hours spent at work.

How does productivity monitoring differ from surveillance?

Using productivity monitoring software isn't and shouldn't be about surveilling your employees. Yes, it’s a perfect aid for anyone who wants to become more productive and can help company managers get an overview of what’s going on. But first thing’s first – employee productivity tracking software is not a spy or surveillance tool. It’s no secret that some might use this kind of employee monitoring software in ways that aren’t employee-friendly. Managers have the right to know how their employees get the job done, but it's also important to value their time and privacy. That means allowing personal time at work and encouraging breaks, too.

Seeing productivity tracking software as a spying tool or using every situation to point the finger at someone just isn’t efficient. If employees don't feel safe and trusted at work, it makes for a very unhealthy work environment. Honesty is always the best policy – being upfront about why a company uses productivity monitoring and how it can benefit everybody’s day-to-day life is the best way to go. Productivity monitoring is a two-way street of communication. Yes, it gives managers an overview of what their employees are doing during the workday, but it’s also a tool to help employees show their progress and ask for help if needed.

Need an ethical way to implement employee productivity monitoring software? Choose DeskTime!

There are many reasons to choose DeskTime as your employee productivity monitoring software – the main one being that it's not a spy tool. DeskTime works to benefit both parties – employers as well as their employees. All features are customizable to each company's needs. This productivity monitoring software plays a big part in ensuring efficiency and transparency. When you use productivity tracking, everyone is accountable, and everyone’s work is transparent. DeskTime offers an optional screenshot feature but it does not register keystrokes or record videos. It's simply a tool that monitors productivity data and lets team members themselves see the areas that could be improved. Such self-analysis will motivate employees to do better and avoid any unnecessary and unproductive actions. Take, for example, those well-known “fast and easy” 5-minute jobs many of us are often asked to do. With employee productivity monitoring software they can note how much time these extra jobs actually take and be able to make better decisions on whether it’s worth interrupting their workflow.

The most important thing for an employer is to be transparent about their intentions when using an employee productivity tracker and be open to communicating why it will help the company and its employees. Productivity tracking can do wonders if everyone works as a team and strives for the best results.

Things to know about employee productivity monitoring software:

There are several ways you can approach productivity monitoring. You can use hidden employee monitoring software or do it out in the open – we suggest the latter. All you need to do is subscribe to DeskTime and install it on your team’s computers. DeskTime will then track employee productivity, arrival and departure times, help keep an eye on overtime, as well as assist with project management, cost calculation, and much more.

Employee productivity monitoring software is a great way to boost efficiency and even revenue. By teaching employees ways to make smarter decisions about how they spend their time at work you can not only increase your company's overall success but also avoid employee burnout, improve meeting deadlines, project future workflow, and more.

Employee productivity monitoring software empowers effective project management. Productivity tracking in general lets teams plan resources accordingly and understand similar future project planning and potential deadlines. Managers can follow project and task progress in real-time without disrupting the team's workflow. This software promotes straightforward communication, transparency, and easy work evaluation.

When used correctly, not only is employee productivity monitoring software reliable – it's also is one of the best ways to establish accountability and transparency at work. Productivity monitoring software enables management to analyze business processes while not disturbing the team's workflow.

To work smarter not harder, we need to see how and where we spend our time and where it might be inadvertently drained. Productivity monitoring software can help your employees see how productive they really are. DeskTime’s analysis will show your employees how they can improve their habits at work to reach better results in a shorter time. This will motivate your employees to do better and avoid any unnecessary and unproductive actions.

DeskTime's employee productivity monitoring software offers an easy way to do that. All you have to do is open a DeskTime account and invite your employees to join. You will then be able to see their daily productivity, arrival and departure times, project progress, shifts, and absences in your My DeskTime dashboard. You can oversee the progress of your whole company or look into every individual user.

Since a lot of companies and industries switched to full-time employees working at home when the pandemic hit, it introduced a new kind of employment opportunity. A lot of companies are turning to productivity monitoring software to ensure that employees are actually performing their tasks while working remotely. Implement an employee productivity tracker if you want a tool that lets you oversee your team’s progress, easily track arrival and departure times, plus keep an eye on the overall well-being of your employees to avoid burnout.

Here's what managers and CEOs using DeskTime say about it:

Julia Gifford
Julia Gifford

If you're working as a freelancer, a writer, a blogger, or you're simply billing by the hour, DeskTime is the right kind of time tracking tool for you.

Toms Panders
Toms Panders
CEO Setupad

With DeskTime I am able to see how productive my employees are and how much work time they spend on work-related applications - that’s something many other time tracking software don't have.

Tudor Brad
Tudor Brad Linked In
Quality Assurance Manager Better QA

Better QA wants to be in a company where people can work from anywhere they want, as long as they do their job. After researching the market for multiple products, DeskTime fits like a glove, since it does just that. I can easily say that employees are being more productive when working 6 hours a day compared with the regular 9 AM to 5 PM hour job.

Rob Robelo
Rob Robelo
General Manager Integra MDP

Support has been on point and incredibly helpful. Excellent customer service. We have made right decision to go with DeskTime.

Zelma Diana Vidina
Zelma Diana Vidina
Managing Director AD VERBUM

DeskTime has helped us find new ways to automate our workflows to free up time for important things like strengthening relationships with our customers.

Przemek Koszka
Przemek Koszka
Director of Technology Diversity travel

The data DeskTime provides helps us understand and improve our processes, which ultimately benefits our teams and our customers, and helps us maintain our 98% client retention rate.

Abdurrahman Karaahmetoglu
Abdurrahman Karaahmetoglu
General Manager B2 Yazılım A.Ş.

There is no problem about Desktime, we love it :)

Rizah Kabasi
Rizah Kabasi
Founder & CEO SmartLab

I was thinking about if there is a solution which can gather me all needed data about team productivity, and at the same time provide more flexible working hours to all team members. I found it possible with the DeskTime task and time management system. It is easy to control everything and I don't need to worry about employee working hours anymore.

Kaspars Milbergs
Kaspars Milbergs Linked In

I would recommend DeskTime for companies with remote employees or home-office days - time tracking allows people who work remotely to feel certain that their work, effort, and dedication won't stay unnoticed. Since everything happens automatically, they can feel safe that any work their do will be logged and their hours adequately compensated.