Best Employee Monitoring Software

Employee monitoring / Productivity

Best Employee Monitoring Software

If you continuously visit the work desk to monitor employees’ work, employees might not feel comfortable. Also, it may show there is no trust among employers and employees in the organization.

Likewise, they might not perform as freely and degrade work with anxiety and fear.  

However, paying employees based on their performance is equally important so that every employee gets their payment somewhat. 

When you use employee monitoring software in your organization, you will pay employees based on their performance, ensuring that you pay employees fairly. You can identify your productive and unproductive employees and evaluate their performance accurately. 

Ethical considerations using employee monitoring software

Employee monitoring software also helps to improve overall business performance. You can also manage your business projects and documents using the app.

Managing and monitoring employees’ productivity without disturbing them can be problematic if the proper monitoring app is not used. Here I have mentioned some of the best employee monitoring software:

Top 10 Employee Monitoring Software

timeTracko

timeTracko is an all-in-one time tracking app for measuring employees’ productivity. It keeps track of employees’ online activities, apps, and URLs they visit during their work hours. 

You can monitor your teams’ active and inactive hours using a timeTracko. Employees can clock in and clock out when they start and end up using the app; they can also pause the timer when they need a break. 

Once they clock in using the app, they start to track employees’ online activity and time. If they need to complete their private tasks between work, they can use the remote time feature to stop the app from tracking their activities.

The website and apps are categorized as productive, unproductive, neutral, and uncategorized. You can separate websites as productive and unproductive based on staff’s jobs and view employees’ productivity levels. 

The app also works as an attendance management system and records employees’ attendance. You can keep track of employees’ billable and non-billable hours and simplify the payroll process.

The app’s best feature is a Pomodoro timer that reminds you to take a break when you work for a long time without taking a break for refreshment.

Features of timeTracko

  • Sends alerts when employees stay idle for a specific time.
  • Keep track of employee’s clock in and clock out time using the timesheet feature.
  • Alert and notification feature sends team notifications about their schedule. It even allows you to customize notifications.
  • View your project status, budget, and deadline using the project monitoring feature.
  • It provides an innovative reporting feature that prepares the report of employees’ productivity, attendance, and project status. 

Benefit of timeTracko

  • The free version of timeTracko provides all the essential features. 
  • Provides a Pomodoro timer that sends a reminder for employees to take a break.
  • The paid version provides one month free trial period.
  • Allow the workforce to manage and edit their shifts.
  • Blurs screenshots if the screenshot contains sensitive data.

Pricing of timeTracko

timeTracko is completely free. It offers:

  • Free plan with all premium features for unlimited users and no timeliness.
  • No credit cards required.

Available on: Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, IOS, Web. 

Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a time tracking and employee monitoring app for organizations having remote teams and distributed teams. It takes a random screenshot of employees’ PC, reports their time, and automates their payment system. 

It helps employees focus on their work by tracking apps and websites during their work hours. It captures employees’ mouse and keyboard activity to determine employees’ active and inactive hours.

The geofences feature of the app tracks employees based on their location. You can view the time and route employees use during their work hours.

You can also customize the GPS and auto-start and stop the GPS based on employees’ feasibility. 

You can also use the app to manage your project, budget, and deadline. It shows your project status and its deadline on the dashboard. 

The app also reminds you when you reach your project budget limit and when your project deadlines are near. 

It also provides employee scheduling features to manage employees’ shifts and send employees notifications about their work shifts. Employees can also edit the shift as per their suitability.

If you use the paid version of the app, you can get features like payroll management, expenses tracking, timesheet approval, invoices, and more. It even offers a two-month free trial period.

Features of Hubstaff

  • Calculates employees’ payroll using online payroll features.
  • Allow employees to turn off the screenshot features whenever they want.
  • Track employees’ work hours and manage employees’ timesheets.
  • Creates and customize employees timesheet reports based on days, week, and month.
  • Allow employees to add and edit their timesheets manually.

Benefits of Hubstaff

  • Enable employees to turn off their screenshot feature when necessary.
  • It provides two months of the free trial period.

Drawbacks of Hubstaff

  • A frequent update will be better.
  • The report feature needs to be improved.

Pricing of Hubstaff

Hubstaff offers four price plans, which are:

  • Free: It is free of cost, suitable for one user.
  • Basic: It costs $7 per user per month.
  • Premium: It costs $10 per user per month.
  • Enterprise: It costs $20 per user per month.

Available on: Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, IOS, Chrome. 

ActivTrak

ActivTrak is an employee monitoring and productivity-boosting software. The app takes a random screenshot of employees’ PC while working and shows you a clear picture of their online activities during work hours. 

You can view all your employees’ activities and unproductive hours on a single dashboard.

The app creates a chart representing employees’ productivity levels and views the total time in the pie chart’s time.

The app categorizes employees’ apps and websites as productive and unproductive and limits or does not provide access to unproductive apps during work hours.  

It sends a notification to Slack and Microsoft team when employees use unproductive apps for a long time. You can integrate ActivTrak with Microsoft Team, Slack, Jira, ZenDesk, etc.

Feature of ActivTrak

  • View productive and unproductive apps that employees use during work hours. Also, allow you to set limits on the usage of unproductive apps during workhour.
  • Show employees productivity levels in the pie chart and allow you to view it on the dashboard.
  • It offers multi-layer security features like multi-factor authentication, single sign-on feature, and more. 
  • It provides an unlimited data storage facility.
  • It classifies websites and apps as productive and unproductive based on employees’ jobs.

Benefits of ActivTrak

  • Suitable for all kinds of businesses.
  • Disables unproductive websites if employees use them for more time.
  • It provides a high level of security.

Drawbacks of ActivTrak

  • It does not track mouse and keyboard activity.

Pricing of ActivTrak

ActivTrak offers two price plans, which are:

  • Freemium: It is free of cost.
  • Advanced: It costs $7.20 per user per month, paid annually.

Available on: Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, Web. 

CurrentWare

CurrentWare is a Citrix-ready software suite with modules for employee and computer monitoring, device control/DLP, web filtering, and remote PC power management. Each module operates from the same central CurrentWare console; they can be purchased as individual modules or as a full suite for the best value.

With CurrentWare’s user activity monitoring capabilities you can monitor a user’s computer activity including browsing history, app usage, file transfers, uploads/downloads, login/logoff times, active vs idle time, bandwidth consumption, and more.

To prevent data loss the BrowseControl web filtering module blocks access to high-risk or malicious websites and apps that are against your company’s standards. The AccessPatrol device control module prevents the use of unauthorized peripherals, blocks USB file transfers based on file name/extension, and monitors file transfers to egress points such as cloud storage and USB flash drives.

Features of CurrentWare

  • Screenshot monitoring/remote PC viewing
  • User activity monitoring (web browsing, app usage, file transfers, etc)
  • Remote employee monitoring
  • Stealth & transparent monitoring options
  • Application blacklisting
  • Block file transfers and unauthorized peripherals
  • Block websites and apps
  • Remote PC power management

Benefits of CurrentWare

  • Verified Citrix Ready for Windows-based deployments
  • Lets you track how productive your workers are, even when they work from home
  • Central management from a browser-based web console
  • Full control over your data; no user activity data is shared to third parties
  • Offsite mode enforces security policies and continues to collect user activity data when devices leave the network
  • Accessible customer support via phone, live chat, and email

Drawbacks of CurrentWare

  • License bundles start at 10 licenses
  • Windows only; no support for Mac, Linux, or mobile phone monitoring
  • There is no cloud-native option, only self-hosted cloud
  • No free tier available, only a 14-day free trial

Pricing of CurrentWare

Individual modules from the CurrentWare Suite start at $5 USD monthly per user on an annual plan, with a minimum purchase of 10 licenses. The full suite of 4 modules can be purchased for $12 USD.

Available on: Windows

SentryPC

SentryPC is a cloud-based employee monitoring and time management software. It records all the activities that employees perform on their PC in real-time.

You can get a clear picture of how employees spend their time during office hours.

It also allows you to create a schedule when employees can access computers and set a time limit for daily and weekly use.

The app records all employees’ activities on their computers by taking screenshots of their computers screens.

It records the mouse, keyboard activity, and usage time of each app and website. 

It creates a chart that shows all employees’ activities during their work hours and allows you to download it in JPG, CSV, PDF, and PNG format. 

SentryPC provides high-security features like two-factor authentication and a one-time password feature.

One of the app’s most essential features restricts apps, websites, and games. You can even block them for specific hours during work to stay focused. 

It even sends employees email notifications to notify them about blocked websites and apps. You can even block messaging apps, Yahoo, Skype, XFire, etc. 

Features of SentryPC 

  • Filters websites and apps based on different categories.
  • The app sends an email notification to employees when websites and apps are blocked.
  • It offers a time management feature that specifies the time limit for computer usage. 
  • Monitors employees’ location and IP addresses.
  • It has an online search feature that allows you to view employees’ search history while they are working.

Benefits of SentryPC

  • Allow employees to turn off any feature when required. 
  • Sends a notification to employees when certain websites are blocked.
  • Record the active and idle time of the PC.

Drawbacks of SentryPC

  • It is expensive.
  • It does not provide a project management feature.

Pricing of SentryPC

SentryPC offers the following price plans:

  • Basic: It costs $59.95 per year, $19.95 for each additional license.
  • Business: It costs $995 per year for 50 PCs, $19.90 for an additional license. 

The price of Sentry varies based on the number of PCs you want to manage.

Available on: Windows, Mac. 

Veriato

Veriato is an employee monitoring, time tracking, and productivity measurement app. Using the app, you can monitor the staff’s online activities while working. 

You can measure the total work hour of employees, time spent on each app, and website.

It even tracks employees’ location, IP address, the connection made by applications, and bandwidth.  

Once team members log in to the app, it captures all the communication. It records the time of employees based on the login session. 

The app even records keystrokes, including hidden characters, also sends you an alert when employees use .onion sites. 

The app takes random screenshots of employees’ PC and screens record PC activities. You can view the screencast in JPG and BMP format and export views in AVI video files.  

It even allows you to view the screencast in chronological order. It also tracks files and documents that team members are working on. 

Features of Veriato

  • Captures and reports all the websites and apps that staff use while working.
  • Send alert notifications when team members use .onion sites.
  • It provides an accurate picture of employees’ active and inactive time.
  • Allow you to export screencasts in JPG, BMP, and AVI video file format.
  • Tracks employees’ IP addresses.

Benefits of Veriato

  • Easy to use.
  • It has an email recording feature.
  • Provides screen capture and recording feature.

Drawbacks of Veriato

  • Tracks team members’ conversations.

Pricing of Veriato

It does not display the pricing. You can contact the vendor for pricing details.

Available on: Windows, Mac, Android, IOS. 

Work Examiner

Work Examiner is an employee monitoring software to track the productivity of employees. The app is suitable for all businesses to track remote and onsite employees.

First, the software must be installed on the employees’ PC to track employees’ activities.

The app ensures that your employees are entirely focused on their work. It tracks apps and websites used by employees while working. 

You can view the real-time activities of employees with their active and inactive status. The app takes random screenshots and also records screens while employees are working.

You can even increase and decrease the quality of images and videos in JPEG. 

It filters apps and websites and blocks and redirects all unproductive websites. You will get a notification when employees try to access blocked websites.

It detects employees’ active and inactive status based on mouse and keyboard activity. 

You can view the details of employees’ work performance in the report and compare and analyze it. The reports can be sent to the manager via email and downloaded PDF. 

Features of Work Examiner

  • It shows the active and inactive status of employees.
  • Provides an instant messaging capturing tool that records all activities of messaging apps.
  • The keylogging feature captures all keys pressed by employees. 
  • It saves all the emails sent through Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and more.
  • Prepare a report on employees’ productivity and allow you to share it with managers via email.

Benefits of Work Examiner

  • Video record PC screen.
  • It tracks the active and inactive status of employees based on keystrokes. 
  • Filters websites based on the productivity level.

Drawbacks of Work Examiner

  • Not available in Linux and MAC.
  • It does not provide a location tracking feature.  

Pricing of Work Examiner 

Work Examiner offers the following price plan:

  • WE Standard: For 1 to 2 client licenses, it costs $60 per PC. Price per PC decreases as the number of client licenses increases. 
  • WE Professional: For 1 to 19 client licenses, it costs $60 per PC. Price per PC decreases as there is an increase in client licenses.

Available on: Windows. 

Teramind

Teramind is an employee activity monitoring app that monitors and controls employees’ online activity while working.

It monitors and detects the threat and prevents your computer from insider threat.  

It detects keystrokes and copy-paste actions to determine employees’ active and inactive work time and measure and evaluate their productivity.

It allows you to use an anti-logging feature that won’t record passwords, credit cards, and bank account numbers.

The app also provides an email monitoring feature that tracks all incoming and outgoing emails. 

One of the best things about this feature is that it automatically alerts when an email is sent to a suspicious account.

It tracks file activity like file creation and transfer; it also sends you a notification when files are uploaded in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. Also, it prevents your file from unauthorized access by outsiders. 

Teramind records all the employees’ internet activities and allows you to view them in real-time or for future use.

It even records employees’ idle time productive and unproductive apps during office time to determine their productivity.

Features of Teramind

  • Remote control feature records live sessions of employee’s PC.
  • Social media control feature tracks and blocks social media use. It also sends you a notification when any updates are made to your social media. 
  • Creates a report to evaluate employees’ performance and calculates employees’ total work time.
  • Active and inactive features determine total-time employees work actively and help to reduce unnecessary idle time.
  • Allow recorded files to download in AVIS format.

Benefits of Teramind

  • It is available in six different languages.
  • Easy to use.
  • It provides a high level of security.

Drawbacks of Teramind

  • The starter version lacks many features.   

Pricing of Teramind

Teramind offers three price plans, which are:

  • Teramind Starter: It costs $60 for five users per month.
  • Teramind UAM: It costs $125 for five users per month.
  • Teramind DLP: It costs $150 for five users per month.

Available on: Windows, Mac, Android, IOS, Web. 

iMonitorSoft EAM

iMonitorSoft EAM is an employee monitoring software that monitors employees’ online activities. It is suitable for businesses, whether a government or a large corporate house. 

The app helps improve employees’ productivity and protects employees’ confidential data. It records the keyboard, mouse, clipboard activities, inserts USB files, copies and downloads files, etc.

Using the idle time detection and screen recording features, iMonitorSoft EAM ensures productivity loss.

You can monitor your employees in real-time without disturbing them and notify them when unproductive. 

It keeps track of all websites, URLs, and messaging apps employees visit during work hours.

It even tracks messages and emails sent and received while working and records online search history.

The best feature about iMonitorSoft EAM is it provides a file encryption feature that encrypts files and sends them in ciphertext format.

It guarantees a high level of security to the files when they are sent.

The app provides powerful features like control and view that enable you to open employees’ PC cameras remotely in real-time and view their activities.

Features of iMonitorSoft EAM

  • Generate employees’ daily, weekly, and monthly productivity reports.
  • Allow you to block websites and apps and disable USB, memory cards, and other removable devices.
  • Ensures data security by hiding sensitive data.
  • Provides employees attendance management feature that records employees’ attendance, clock in and clock out time, active and idle time.
  • Provides a stealthy mode that ensures employees are not disturbed while they are being monitored.

Benefits of iMonitorSoft EAM

  • It is easy to set up.
  • Allow you to view employees’ activity in real-time.
  • It provides stealth features. 

Drawbacks of iMonitorSoft EAM

  • It is quite expensive.

Pricing of iMonitorSoft EAM

iMonitorSoft EAM offers five price plans, which are:

  • Free: It is free of cost.
  • Professional: It costs $76.75; it is a one-time payment.
  • Live Agent: It costs $95.95 per annum, billed annually.
  • Standard: It costs $58.75; it is a one-time payment.
  • Lite Agent: It costs $48.95; it is a one-time payment.

Available on: Windows, Mac. 

Workpuls

Workpuls is an employee monitoring software and time tracking app that helps to boost employees’ productivity. 

It even works as an attendance management system and records employees’ clock in and clock out. The app even allows employees to add their time to the timesheet manually.

It takes a random screenshot of employees’ PCs at certain time intervals to track employees’ activities. You can turn on the stealth mode that tracks employees’ activities without disturbing employees. 

The app categorizes websites as productive and unproductive based on employees’ jobs.

It keeps track of websites employees visit, records them as productive and unproductive, and prepares reports based on the data.

You can see the total time spent by each employee in the project using Workpuls. It also tracks the project budget and project progress. 

It automatically generates employees’ productivity levels and allows you to export them in PDF, CSV, XLSX format.

This report also helps to simplify the payroll process and minimize errors while calculating payroll.

Features of Workpuls

  • Monitor employees’ activity in real-time to know what employees are doing at a particular time.
  • It categorizes websites as productive, unproductive, and neutral based on employees’ jobs.
  • It sends employees’ productivity reports on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in your email.
  • Allow employees to add time to their timesheets manually.
  • Allow employees to view their data and improve their productivity.

Benefits of Workpuls

  • All the data are stored for up to two years.
  • It provides stealth mode.
  • Suitable for all sizes of business.

Drawbacks of Workpuls

  • A frequent update will be better.

Pricing of Workpuls

Workpuls offers the following price plan:

  • Employee Monitoring: It costs $4.80 per employee per month billed annually.
  • Time Tracking: It costs $6.40 per employee per month billed annually.
  • Automatic Time Mapping: It costs $12 per employee per month billed annually.
  • Enterprise: It has custom pricing.

Available on: Window, Mac, Web.  

Monitask

Monitask is a cloud-based employee monitoring and time tracking app that helps to boost employees’ productivity.

Once you open the app and click on the resume button, the app tracks employees’ time and takes a random PC screenshot.

It even tracks employees’ active and inactive status based on mouse and keyboard activities. 

The app allows employees to view their productivity and screenshots on the dashboard. You can view employees’ activities in real-time.

You can even add projects and tasks in Monitask and start tracking the required time to complete the task.

It provides an automatic timesheet that records employees’ attendance and makes it available on multiple devices.

Monitask also monitors apps and website employee visits during their work hours and their repetitive tasks.

Features of Monitask

  • Provides offline monitoring feature that time tracks and takes screenshots even if employees are offline.
  • Send employees alerts when they stay idle for a specific time.
  • Allow the team leader to add as many members as they want.
  • It detects employees’ activity based on keyboard and mouse usage. 
  • Provides a project management feature that tracks time, reviews the project and its budget.

Benefits of Monitask

  • It provides an offline tracking feature.
  • Allow you to turn off or blur screenshots to hide sensitive information.
  • Helps to calculate accurate payroll for employees.

Drawbacks of Monitask

  • It does not provide an email monitoring feature.

Pricing of Monitask

Monitask offers three price plans, which are:

  • Free: It is free of cost.
  • Professional Version: It costs $4.99 per user per month; offers ten days of a free trial. 
  • Hosted Version: It has custom pricing.

Available on: Windows, Linux, Mac. 

Conclusion

Employee monitoring apps monitor employee work and provide many features that help employees complete their work.

You can view your employees’ work performance in real-time without disturbing them. It ensures that employees are paid fairly and also helps to motivate employees to perform better. 

It even works as an attendance management system and helps to reduce errors while managing employees’ timesheets.

In this article, I have tried to mention some of the best employee monitoring software you can use for your organization.

I would like to know your favorite employee monitoring software; please feel free to cite them in the comment section below.