When left unsupervised, many employees who have desktop access to the internet spend hours each day surfing the web. They waste countless hours that could be devoted to working do everything but work. Because of this, your business may be loosing considerable amounts of profits due to lost productivity. But there is an effective way to get that productivity back up, and that is through a desktop remote monitoring service.
If your employees require access to the internet, you probably have already tried some different tools and methods to decrease the personal usage of the internet by employees. Unfortunately, many filtering programs are ineffective or are just a waste of money. Even if a filtering program works, oftentimes it not only blocks bad websites, but blocks websites that your employees need access to as well. And cutting internet services altogether is probably not an option either.
With a desktop remote monitoring service, you can have specialists monitor the productivity of your employees without restricting their internet accesses. You can ensure that their internet activities are work-related and not just for pleasure. Furthermore, employers can use these services to verify that employees are not accessing websites that can be harmful to their networks or make sure that confidential data is not being leaked.
There are a wide variety of remote monitoring tools and software packages available. You will need to determine how much you want to spend on monitoring software, what you want it to monitor, and how you want the data to be monitored. Furthermore, monitoring internet usage is time consuming, so you may also need to consider hiring specialists or subscribing to a monitoring service.
Cost is an important factor in the quality and services offered by monitoring programs. Nevertheless, do not let this deter you because as technology has become cheaper, these programs are a lot more affordable. In fact, basic monitoring programs can be found free of charge online. Other, more advanced programs can be fairly costly. Choosing an online remote monitoring service gives you the flexibility to have top of the line software support without having to pay for costly licenses or worry about upgrades.
Next, you will need to determine the level of monitoring that you need. Basic programs simply keep lists of the websites that your employees accessed without providing much amplifying data. Advanced programs provide greater detail and usually include in-depth activity logs. Some programs even offer keystroke loggers and can capture emails for additional security.
There are two primary ways that data is remotely monitored. The most secure method is to have computer personnel monitor the information directly from the network. This prevents the data they monitor from being leaked to the internet. However, this would require that you hire employees who are skilled and may be too costly. On the other hand, outsourcing to an online monitoring service is much more economical, but all of the data is at risk to being intercepted by potential adversaries to your company.
Regardless of what type of service an employer ultimately chooses, they have the legal responsibility to inform their employees that their activities are being monitored. In many places, not making your employees aware of this constitutes illegal search and seizure and employers can be sued, fined, and even imprisoned. Having employees sign a legal document stating that they consent to monitoring is a simple way of informing them of monitoring without violating their rights.
Using a desktop remote monitoring service is a highly effective way of increasing productivity. It allows employers the ability to keep tabs of their employees while they are working at computers throughout the work center. In most cases, the cost of these services is offset by the amount of profits that can be regained by the increase in productivity.
