What Is Screen Monitoring, And How Does It Help Productivity?

Ever since remote work became a staple of how modern companies function, managers have needed to find ways of effectively managing their remote staff. This need for remote management solutions has led to an exponential rise in the use of screen monitoring software.

While debates continue to rage around the ethics of using such technology, the current data generally indicate that, when used transparently and with full employee buy-in, screen monitoring can significantly boost remote workers’ productivity.

Since time is money in any industry, employee downtime during work hours can notably and negatively impact companies’ ability to remain competitive and improve their profit margins. Thus, screen monitoring works to highlight instances of wasted time. The software does so in a number of ways – and, for the most part, managers can choose any combination of available options that best suits their particular operational needs.

Some of the more common screen monitoring activities offered by such software producers include screen capturing, time tracking, and keyboard strokes and/or mouse click logging. Collecting such data can show when, where, and how employees are working on given projects, which can help managers to identify and rectify possible blockages in workflow and task-completion processes. Such data can also highlight if and where employees may be using their work time for other activities – like scrolling through social media or holding personal conversations over apps like WhatsApp Web or Slack. While managers should be cognisant of allowing workers short breaks throughout the working day, as these can actually help promote productivity, they can also use the gathered screen activity data to determine whether or not employees’ alternative activities are excessive and/or undermining their productivity and ability to do their work well.

Through the responsible and transparent adoption of screen monitoring technology, managers can effectively improve remote worker productivity.

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