Remote work monitoring software

TimeCamp offers transparent and effective tools to track work hours, productivity levels, and activities seamlessly. Empower your remote workforce with a robust monitoring solution, designed to maximize productivity in diverse working environments.

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Companies using TimeCamp’s remote work monitoring software report an average 15.82% increase in productive hours, helping teams work smarter, not harder.

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Real-time remote monitoring tools

Get instant insights into remote activities with TimeCamp's real-time monitoring tools. Track application and website usage, working hours, and productivity trends to keep your distributed workforce on track.

Managers benefit from up-to-date views of team performance, enabling them to quickly identify bottlenecks and allocate resources effectively. TimeCamp brings transparency to your organization, optimizing productivity across all locations.

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User-friendly remote monitoring app

TimeCamp’s remote monitoring app offers intuitive and seamless tracking. It allows you to monitor activities effortlessly, ensuring consistent productivity oversight.

Our solution is built for diverse environments—whether employees are working remotely, hybrid, or in-office. With data consolidated from multiple sources, managers get a clear picture of employee performance, supporting well-informed decisions.

Effective remote work environment

TimeCamp builds trust between employees and managers to allow teams to stay engaged, productive, and informed—ensuring an effective remote work environment.

Whether you have a fully remote team, hybrid workers, or freelancers, TimeCamp is designed to adapt to your needs. By providing clear, transparent tracking, our software creates a supportive environment that fosters productivity and open communication.

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Comprehensive remote work reports

TimeCamp provides detailed reports to help you understand your team’s performance better. Our variety of reports includes custom options to meet your specific needs, giving you clear insights into productivity and efficiency.

Reports can be exported in various formats, such as PDF, Excel, and CSV, allowing for easy integration with other business tools. Use these data-driven insights to refine workflows, identify inefficiencies, and make strategic decisions to boost remote team productivity.

Monitor your employees
How to set up

How to get started with TimeCamp’s remote work monitoring tool

01

Create an account

Sign up for TimeCamp or log in using your Google account.

02

Install the app

Download and install TimeCamp on employee devices.

03

Set monitoring preferences

Configure monitoring settings to match your company policies.

04

Analyze reports

Use comprehensive reports to understand remote employee performance and optimize workflows.

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Explore TimeCamp’s features beyond remote monitoring to streamline your entire workflow.

Build trust-based employee-employer relationship with transparent remote work monitoring software

Promoting transparency in remote or hybrid work settings without overwhelming employees with surveillance can be challenging. Nevertheless, when implemented thoughtfully, remote employee monitoring software can connect remote workers and their managers, fostering trust-based accountability.

Suppose you plan to open the hiring process at your company to work-from-home workers or feel the urge to consolidate all the team members regardless of their work location. In that case, this remote work monitoring handbook will guide you through how to deal with remote employee monitoring without losing your team's trust.

Get to know:

  • What is remote employee monitoring?

  • What kind of practices does remote work monitoring include?

  • What is the ethical background of remote user activity monitoring?

  • How to encourage hesitant remote employees to use employee monitoring systems?

  • What other benefits are coming from implementing remote work tracking software?

  • How does TimeCamp streamline remote workforce management?

Make sure your team stays on top of their work regardless of where they work from.

Get your free account of TimeCamp, a top-notch remote productivity monitoring software.

What is remote work monitoring?

It's a long-term process of observing and analyzing remote employees' activity using various digital tools, such as time tracking, productivity, or task management software.

Why do companies monitor remote workers?

Modern, thriving remote teams need more comprehensive solutions than endless chains of emails and phone calls to ensure stable, real-time communication. Remote employee monitoring software is like a virtual office—it gives them a shared space to collaborate, report progress, and stay in touch regardless of their work timezone.

What are the other reasons why employers monitor remote workers?

  • Tracking employees' time spent working on their tasks is crucial to determining whether there are any differences in performance between in-office and remote workers.

  • Measuring employee engagement rates helps convince remote employees to take ownership of their tasks and be more accountable for their work.

  • Requiring remote employees to use a time tracker daily ensures hourly employees are billed fairly for their work hours.

  • Inviting remote employees to the tools the company uses daily helps establish one system for the in-office and remote workforce.

  • Tracking work time daily automatically marks remote employees present at work and collects their attendance data.

  • Analyzing time tracking data regularly is essential to determining productive and distracting activities.

And so on! Remote work monitoring software caters to employers' needs to stay connected to their team members regardless of location and provide employee services as similar as possible to the in-office experience.

Managing remote employees has never been easier.

Sign up for free and level up your remote monitoring with TimeCamp!

What are the most common methods of monitoring how remote employees work?

There are plenty of remote employee monitoring methods employers can choose from.

  • Automatic time tracking: Logs hours spent on tasks in real-time to get detailed reports on remote employees' work performance.

  • Keystroke logging: Tracks what employees type using corporate devices.

  • Mouse/touchpad tracking: Registers mouse movement to determine whether employees really work or just use a mouse jiggler that imitates user activity.

  • GPS tracking: Pinpoints the exact location of a remote employee.

  • Apps and website monitoring: Tracks what applications or websites employees use during work hours.

  • Screen recording: This method captures employees' screens in real time irregularly or at set intervals (in the form of screenshots or videos). 

Most of the tools currently available offer more than one employee monitoring solution. However, the comprehensiveness of the employee monitoring process often reflects the level of trust between an employer and their employees—the more employers are willing to monitor every step of their remote teams, the more their methods seem to invade their employees' privacy.

That's why it's a good practice to ask yourself how you would feel if you were overly controlled before purchasing remote employee monitoring software.

Usually, a cross-platform time tracker with computer activity tracking features is perfect for effectively monitoring remote employee productivity. Get a free TimeCamp account and see for yourself!

Can remote workers be monitored?

Currently, existing laws do not restrict employers' rights to install employee monitoring software on corporate-owned devices like laptops, tablets, or smartphones or to ask employees to keep them turned on during business hours.

However, ordering your remote employees to download an app on their own equipment may raise serious concerns about violating employees' privacy, either when onboarding new hires or announcing it to the current staff. That's why explaining why the company uses remote employee monitoring is crucial to avoid staining the employer-employee relationship.

How to address the ethical issues of remote worker monitoring?

Properly explaining why the company uses remote workforce monitoring software is crucial to addressing the legal and ethical issues surrounding employee data collection. A transparent approach encourages positive feedback, builds trust, and increases employees' willingness to cooperate.

The most common concerns about remote employee tracking software:

  • What kind of employee activity does the employee monitoring tool track, and to what extent?

  • What types of data does it track? What about personal data, such as login credentials?

  • Where is the collected data stored? Who has permission to browse it?

  • What does it mean that the tracking software is intended to boost employee productivity?

The perfect approach would be to address these concerns before your remote employees even voice them. Be consistent and transparent in your answers to ensure your employees fully understand the tool's purpose.

Also, consider creating a remote employee monitoring software handbook to summarize answers to your employees' concerns. Keep it handy, preferably pinned to a shared workspace within the team collaboration app, and openly communicate the plans for adjusting the company's worker productivity monitoring policy.

How to encourage remote and hybrid employees to track their time and productivity?

A successful and complete implementation will be possible only when remote workers start using the company's chosen employee monitoring software.

How can remote workers' doubts about productivity monitoring software be dispelled?

  • Communicate openly: As mentioned above, explain clearly why the company wants remote workers to report their work progress in detail. Define what kind of data the employee monitoring software collects and provide training on properly using the tool.

  • Clarify work results expectations: Provide a clear job description for remote positions and explain how remote employee tracking tool helps assess employees' engagement in fulfilling their responsibilities.

  • Highlight how remote workers can benefit from employee monitoring software: Introduce the tool as practical for performance self-checks, and as a guarantee of fair compensation for time employees spend on their assignments. 

  • Focus on results to enhance job satisfaction: Use remote worker monitoring software to define your remote workers' core strengths. This will help you quickly identify high-performing employees and reward them for their efforts, which is a perfect way to build trust, encourage the spirit of remote teams, and increase engagement. 

  • Let remote workers discover their weaknesses. Self-check is a valuable tool for employees to assess their performance and react quickly to drawbacks. This way, they can strive for improvement without experiencing negative situations that could damage their morale. 

  • Respect privacy: Explain thoroughly what data the remote employee monitoring software collects and for what purpose. Just as your company gets certified to ensure your clients' complete data protection, you should provide your employees with the highest level of data safety. 

  • Provide support at every step: A remote work environment has limits, especially if remote workers work from around the globe. Provide them with detailed training on how to use the remote employee monitoring software, check regularly to ensure they have the latest versions of the apps installed on their corporate devices, and keep them posted about even minor changes in the company's remote employee monitoring policy. 

In a nutshell, transparency and highlighting the positive outcomes are the keys to encouraging employees to stop hesitating about remote worker monitoring software.

What other benefits are coming from implementing remote worker monitoring software?

The most valuable players in the remote employee monitoring software market offer more than different abilities to track remote employees' time and activity. What are the other areas in which it helps improve?

Employee performance improvement

  • Broader visibility into employee activity: Due to limited face-to-face contact with remote workers, supervisors overlook deficiencies unless an employee raises concerns. Monitoring employees unlocks valuable insights into what employees struggle with the most.

  • Productivity trends indication: Tracking employee productivity includes classifying user activity into productive and unproductive activities, which allows for pinpointing and eliminating sources of distraction.

  • Enhanced accountability: Using employee monitoring software fosters transparency among the team members and encourages them to be more proactive.

  • Healthy time management practices: Giving remote employees a tool to perform regular self-checks on how they spend their working hours fosters pursuing a path of self-improvement and planning their work time more efficiently.

Streamlined task management

  • Seamless task tracking: See in real-time how your employees work to plan and manage workload according to the current team's capacity.

  • Higher task completion rate: Remote workers aware of remote work monitoring software running on their computers tend to focus better on their assignments. 

  • Enhanced communication: Remote work monitoring tools with collaboration features keep remote teams connected and make it seem like they share the same workspace despite the distance. 

  • Control budgets: Measuring time spent on different tasks helps prepare more accurate budget estimates and compare them with actual spending during a project's execution phase. 

Simplified workforce management

  • Streamlined payroll: Integrating a remote monitoring tool with accounting systems ensures accurate payroll lists and timely compensations, which is crucial for building trust-based employee-employer relationships.

  • Reduced micromanagement: Thorough analysis of time data provides more detailed information about employee productivity and is much less stressful for employees than constant nagging.

  • Strengthened team cohesion: Remote monitoring tools build a bridge between in-office, remote, and hybrid employees, fostering an inclusive remote culture.

  • An eye on employees' well-being: Remote workers tend to work longer hours than their in-office colleagues. Time and activity data help supervisors track their overtime and react when numbers indicate their employees work excessive hours.

  • Working hours flexibility: Remote workers management software streamlines the process of establishing separate policies for employees who need more flexibility in managing their time, such as when they balance work and parenting responsibilities. 

Enhanced security

  • Centralized system: Using one multipurpose tool for monitoring employees helps implement solid data security measures to avoid sensitive data breaches and aids in successful insider threat detection.

  • Full law compliance: Certified remote employee monitoring tools cater to employers' needs for the highest data protection standards and compliance with employment laws around the globe.

  • Proactive attitude: Employees are comfortable with their online activity; they should not give it too much thought or, quite the opposite, use its features to their favor.

Implementing time and activity tracking tools should be the first step for companies to keep up with the rapid workforce transformation. Just one app can spoon-feed employers with performance summaries for each remote employee, hence reducing their urge for extended control and stressful micromanagement practices.

So, what tool should a thriving remote team choose?

Why TimeCamp is the best employee monitoring software for remote teams?

TimeCamp is fully adjustable to help companies of any industry achieve their goals. It also provides a fully featured toolkit for monitoring remote employees' work.

Time tracking

How does TimeCamp track remote workers' time?

Choose from a variety of time trackers to monitor your remote workforce:

  • Automatic time tracking: The desktop app (available for all operating systems) monitors user time and activity to assign time entries to appropriate projects and tasks.

  • Timesheets: Time logs can be filled out by starting a new timer or manually entering time. They also show time entries registered using different time tracking methods in TimeCamp. Time logs are easily accessible to employers and employees and thus contribute significantly to fostering a culture of transparency. 

  • Mobile apps: Time trackers for mobile devices facilitate logging hours from remote locations even when users are offline.

Regardless of what you choose for remote employee productivity tracking, the top-notch synchronization between the apps guarantees accurate time records to streamline attendance and payroll.

Read more: Ways of tracking time in TimeCamp

Computer activity tracking

Desktop apps work in the background and collect users' activity. More specifically, they register the names of websites and applications and the exact time employees work on them. They assign tracked time to the appropriate tasks based on previously set keywords.

Desktop apps boost productivity by reducing distractions. They automate the timesheet-filling process so that users can focus solely on their assignments.

Read more: Computer Activities in TimeCamp

Screenshots

This is an optional feature of a desktop app. If enabled and the desktop app is on, the system automatically takes screenshots every 10 minutes and saves them for further review. Only administrators and supervisors can access the screenshots; they have 60 days to review the records.

Read more: Screenshots in TimeCamp

Detailed reports

Employers and managers can create performance summaries that provide detailed insights into employees' typical work habits. These thorough analyses can help them understand why engagement rates decrease or recognize and reward high-performing employees.

Read more: People reports in TimeCamp

Attendance tracking

Tracking absences is another essential part of the TimeCamp employee monitoring system. The attendance module can be configured based on timesheets or computer activity data; however, the latter seems to be a better choice for tracking the attendance of remote teams.

An attendance report displays a breakdown of each employee's workweek, including data such as:

  • The hours of clock-ins and outs.

  • The number of hours in between (compared to a default workday length for this company).

  • Overtime value.

  • Private time value.

  • An overview of leave balance for the year in progress, including sick time and remote work days.

A brief review of employee attendance data reveals whether employees are fulfilling their required working hours and the frequency of their tardiness. Additionally, it aids in evaluating whether their overtime contributes to improved performance and enhanced work outcomes.

Read more: Attendance reports in TimeCamp

Idle time tracking

Idle time is an essential part of TimeCamp's remote worker monitoring.

A desktop app in TimeCamp registers user activity and, thus, the overall time when the computer is actively used. Suppose the app doesn't record any mouse/touchpad or keyboard activity within the previously specified time. In that case, the system automatically registers time away from the computer and pops up a window that asks the user to define the reason behind this break.

However, if remote employees tend to overuse this feature, it can be turned off for specific users in the settings.

Read more: Idle time in TimeCamp

Productivity dashboards

Thanks to the real-time activity dashboards, each user can access their performance data anytime they want. The dashboard shows the most often visited websites and apps and daily/weekly breakdowns of tracked hours, grouped by activity category, projects, or tasks.

Enabling this feature allows employers to encourage their employees to perform regular performance self-checks. This way, they can better understand how they spend their time and take ownership of their time and task management.

Read more: Activity tracking dashboard

Quick TimeCamp remote work monitoring Q&A

Does TimeCamp support ethical monitoring of remote workers?

Absolutely. We do our best to help you establish a solid remote work tracking system while providing high-quality measures to prevent insider threats.

TimeCamp does not offer intrusive remote worker monitoring methods like keystroke logging or live recording. Instead, it provides features that help employers encourage employees to be accountable for their work.

Moreover, TimeCamp ensures full compliance with GDPR and other data protection laws, so none of its apps register sensitive data.

What kind of data does TimeCamp collect?

Employee time data, computer activity to detect keywords in the names of apps and websites (can be turned off), and computer screenshots (only if the feature is enabled).

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