Decoding Employee Monitoring: Different Software Types and Their Real-World Examples

Employers want their teams to be productive and efficient and their organizations to be secure and compliant with all regulations. At some point, after hearing other specialists’ recommendations and reading articles online, you may decide to use a software tool for employee monitoring to help you achieve these goals. You start looking for a solution and immediately are lost in the sea of options. What will work best, a time tracker or an activity monitoring tool? What is a DLP, and do you need it? What features should a reliable monitoring solution have? It’s tough to know where even to start!

In this article, I will break down the different types of employee monitoring tools, explaining what each one does and what specific purposes they serve. I hope it will help you choose the tool that best serves your needs and goals.

Type One: Activity Monitoring Software

Activity monitoring is the most widely used type of employee tracking tools. Such software offers a deep and detailed look into day-to-day work processes. Activity monitoring tools typically have the following features:

• Application tracking: monitoring which applications are used and for how long.
• Visited websites: the software tracks websites the user visits and the time spent on them.
• Screenshots: the program takes screenshots by timer or at a certain user’s action.
• Keystroke logging: recording all typed text and pressed buttons.
• Active/idle time tracking: the software identifies periods of the user’s activity and inactivity and provides a report.
• User activity: tracking the time when the employee logs in and out.
• Reporting and analytics: the app summarizes the data and presents it in charts or graphs allowing you to understand the trends easily.

These are just the basic set of features. Different software can offer various additional features, for example, screen recording, webcam and sound recording, printer activity tracking, and more.

These software tools are typically used for monitoring employees’ productivity. By tracking application usage, website visits, and idle time, businesses can pinpoint patterns of inefficiency and understand where employees might get distracted.

Analysis of employees’ activity logs can reveal opportunities to optimize workflows or provide additional training.

Although it is not designed for this purpose directly, activity monitoring software may serve security purposes as well. It may capture unusual behavior, usage of unauthorized software, or data leakage attempts.

Finally, activity monitoring can help ensure adherence to regulations and internal policies regarding computer usage and data handling in some industries.

Benefits of activity monitoring

Activity monitoring software provides factual insights into employee work habits. Rather than relying on assumptions and vague observations, organizations can make decisions based on factual data on employee productivity and work processes. Employers can reveal time-wasting activities or issues early and address them proactively to improve productivity.

One more undoubtful benefit of activity monitoring is better resource allocation. Organizations can Understand how software and other resources are used to make informed decisions about future investments.

Activity monitoring software in action: CleverControl

CleverControl is an excellent example of a software tool used for employee monitoring. It offers a comprehensive suite of features to track employee activity on the computer:

• application and website tracking
• search queries monitoring
• screenshots
• screen recording
• clipboard monitoring
• keystroke logging
• idle time tracking
• live streaming of the user’s screen
• printer activity monitoring
• webcam and sound surveillance
• face recognition
• call recording
• attendance and work time tracking
• external storage devices tracking and more.

CleverControl is actively developing and incorporating new technologies. Recently, the software introduced a new feature — AI Scoring. It analyzes the employee’s activity, compares it to industry standards, and assigns a productivity score with comments. AI Scoring delivers individual evaluations for every employee, saving time for managers and allowing them to assess everyone’s contributions at a glance.

CleverControl aims to provide business owners and managers with the data they need to optimize productivity, enhance security, and gain a better understanding of how their teams operate in the digital environment.

Type Two: Time Trackers

Time trackers are perfect tools for businesses that want to understand how time is spent on various tasks and projects. Such software can:

• automatically track work time
• allow users to manually enter their work hours, days off, and vacations
• assign time entries to specific projects, clients, or tasks
• generate timesheets
• integrate with project management software, accounting systems, and calendars for seamless workflow.

With time trackers, the manager always knows how much each employee works, and what tasks or projects their time goes to.

Time trackers are generally used to calculate payrolls and billing. Automatic work hours recording ensures employees are paid correctly for their time and that client invoices accurately reflect billable hours. Besides, time trackers are perfect for project management. They allow managers to understand where time goes and how long a project or task takes, identify potential delays, and manage resources effectively. Also, historical data on time spent on similar projects helps with more accurate future estimations and budget planning.

Benefits of time trackers

The main benefits time trackers give businesses are increased accountability and enhanced efficiency. Employees are more aware of how they spend their time when it’s being tracked. Besides, time tracking is the perfect way to battle habitual latecomers and early leavers.

Managers gain better project visibility. They can easily see how much time is spent on different project phases and tasks and reallocate resources if necessary.

Seamless time tracking: Toggle

Toggl is a popular time-tracking tool for monitoring and managing work hours. The software allows employees and managers to track time using a timer, manual entry, or by integrating calendar events. Besides, it automatically detects idle time and reminds you to return to work, if you lose focus.

Toggle has a built-in Pomodoro timer that helps stay focused, yet remember to take regular refreshing breaks.

Another valuable Toggle feature is setting project budgets. When the project nears or exceeds the limit, managers receive notifications. This feature helps stay within the set budget and timely reallocate resources or make adjustments when necessary.

Toggle has a robust reporting system: summary, detailed, and weekly reports. The summary offers a quick overview of the total tracked time with filters by date, user, client, project, etc. Detailed reports show individual time entries, while weekly reports allow a review of the tracked time throughout the week.

Toggle integrates with management software like Jira, Asana, and other popular tools — there are over 100 integrations available in total.

Toggl Track provides streamlined, accurate, and intuitive time tracking, making it a valuable tool for freelancers, small teams, and larger organizations looking to improve time management and project accounting. Its emphasis on simplicity and integration has made it a popular choice in the time-tracking software market.

Type Three: Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) software is designed for organizations that want to enhance the security of their sensitive data. Unlike activity monitoring or time tracking, DLP focuses specifically on preventing confidential information from leaving the organization’s control, whether intentionally or accidentally.

DLP solutions typically offer the following features:

• Content analysis: the software examines the company data based on predefined rules and policies and detects sensitive information.
• Data classification: the DLP tool categorizes data based on its sensitivity level and applies appropriate security controls.
• Endpoint protection: the software monitors how employees use the data and prevents its unauthorized copying, printing, or transferring.
• Network monitoring: DLP inspects the network traffic to detect and block the transmission of sensitive data outside the organization.
• External storage devices control: DLP monitors USB drives and other devices to prevent data leakages.
• Alerts and reports: The software records detailed logs of security events and alerts managers and security specialists when policy violations occur.
• User behavior monitoring: DLP analyzes each user’s actions to identify risky behavior or potential insider threats.

The primary purpose of DLP solutions is to enhance security and prevent data leaks. They identify and block unauthorized transmission or sharing of sensitive data, such as customer information, financial records, or intellectual property. This way, DLP software helps protect intellectual property and valuable company secrets.

DLP software is a must for organizations operating in strictly regulated industries, such as healthcare. DLP controls how sensitive data is handled and stored and ensures compliance with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others.

Benefits of DLP software

Organizations significantly benefit from using DLP software. First, they significantly reduce the risks of data breaches and their costly consequences. DLP provides a centralized view of sensitive data across the organization, making it easier to monitor, quickly identify and remedy potential data security incidents.

Organizations using strong data protection measures, including DLP software, are naturally more trustworthy and attractive to clients because such measures demonstrate a commitment to security.

Forcepoint DLP: A Robust Solution for Data Protection

Forcepoint is a well-regarded example of a comprehensive DLP software solution. Its data-protecting capabilities include:

• Monitoring and securing data across multiple channels, such as email, web, cloud applications, and endpoint devices
• Using content awareness tools and contextual analysis to identify sensitive data in documents, files, emails, and network traffic
• Flexible security policy configuration by geography, industry, and over 1600 classifiers applicable to regulatory demands of 80+ countries

Forcepoint can locate and remediate regulated data across on-premises and cloud environments. Its AI and pattern recognition build dynamic profiles of user activities, flagging potential data theft or accidental leaks. If an incident is detected, the system offers automated incident response workflows.

Forcepoint natively integrates with major cloud platforms and supports various deployment options for hybrid environments.

Final Thoughts

We have reviewed three main types of software tools that are used for employee monitoring. Choosing a certain type depends on your monitoring goals. For example, if you want to track only work hours, time trackers are your best choice. However, if you want to know exactly what your employees are working on, activity monitoring software will provide the necessary insights. In some situations, a combination of the described types will be best.

Regardless of the chosen option, remember to implement it ethically and transparently.