Increasing Employee Productivity through Measuring and Monitoring

The Internet is a double-edged sword.  There are so many things you can accomplish through the Internet nowadays. It is unthinkable not to empower your employees with Internet access. But on the other hand, you’re concerned that your employees are wasting time online during work hours. You are not alone!  There are studies showing that up to 56% of the time employees spend on the Internet are not work related. There is even a term called “cyberloafing,” which is used to describe the actions of employees who use their Internet access at work for personal use while pretending to do legitimate work-related tasks.

You are frustrated and considering computer monitor software as a means of addressing the problem. While your motivation is understandable, you should know that computer tracking software only provides a partial answer to your problem.

A Few Downsides of Computer Tracking Software

There are a few possible downsides to consider when you implement computer monitoring software:

• Computer monitor software is often thought of as an invasion of workers’ privacy.  As a matter of fact, in some states, you are required to disclose your monitoring to your employees.
• Using any form of computer monitoring software can be seen as micro-managing, and your workers might react negatively to this “look-over-the-shoulder” type of management.
• It is time consuming to use computer monitor software to determine if employees visit non-work related websites.  In addition, you can’t easily measure the time employees spend being unproductive online.
• Computer tracking software can be completely ineffective if employees bypass the system altogether and access the Internet via their smart phones.

The Importance of Measuring

The only true solution to the problem is finding a means of measuring each employee’s productivity. Just consider how important it is for business owners and managers to be able to measure their employees’ efforts. Without measuring how productive your workers are, how would you know who the most valuable employees are and which ones need to improve? How could you write fair and honest performance evaluations if it weren’t for measuring? And how would you decide what kind of pay raises employees would receive and who should be promoted if you didn’t measure performance? As valuable as computer monitoring software is, it can’t adequately measure your employees’ productivity. Fortunately, MySammy can!

One simple form of measuring that managers and supervisors do each and every work day is a visual assessment – you can tell which employees are arriving late for work and which are leaving early simply by watching them come and go. If your workers punch a time clock, that’s an even better measurement of the number of hours they’re spending in the workplace. But how do you measure how much productive time they’re spending between the time they arrive and the time they leave? The answer is simple: MySammy. One way to think of our innovative software is as a sophisticated time clock – one that measures how employees spend their time on their computers throughout every workday.