Future of Employee Monitoring Software In 2024

The landscape of employee monitoring is evolving. The employee monitoring software offerings, too, will have to upgrade to fulfil the demands and needs of the businesses. To learn about emerging trends and the future of employee monitoring, read this blog.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall: What Does the Future of Employee Monitoring Hold?

For businesses nowadays, it has become a norm to utilise the advanced tools of employee monitoring software to keep the three pillars of business strong:

• Productivity
• Efficiency
• Accountability

There is no debate about why companies should not utilise field monitoring solutions. After all, such solutions help them sort and manage the chaos of field and in-office employees. But now, as the business landscape evolves, the demands, needs, and challenges around it will also change. This means that the aim of the software’s solutions, too, will have to upgrade.

We have curated this article to help you understand the latest trends and innovations in the future of employee monitoring software. In it, we discuss the top 8 trends we believe will shape the future of workforce monitoring.

Read for the latest gossip!

An Overview of the Current Employee Monitoring Scenario

Employee monitoring aims to track the activities that employees are assigned and perform so that companies can accurately measure productivity. This monitoring determines the amount of work each employee is accomplishing and the results it is yielding.

Companies are utilising employee monitoring solutions to record employee attendance accurately and hours worked to safely and securely register such sensitive information.

Employee monitoring software is crucial in helping businesses make data-driven decisions. This is because the software provides quantifiable or measurable outputs around distinct events, be they taking orders, closing customers’ tickets, or meeting monthly targets. Such data provides great visibility into the efficiency and work done by employees operating through offices or allotted field locations.

What to Expect from the Future Trends in Employee Monitoring?

1. The Demand for Employee Monitoring Software is Increasing Due to the Hybrid Work Model

Fun Fact! 39% of new hires search for hybrid work arrangements, while 18% look for fully remote positions.

Companies have widely accepted the hybrid work model, and employees favour it as it offers them freedom and flexibility. However, it also affects the employees’ productivity regardless of location, making employing an employee monitoring solution a must.

This software allows employers to track and assess efficiency, identify potential risks, evaluate and create informed diagnoses for project timelines and deadlines, and help ensure compliance with industry standards.

For instance, TrackoField has a visual verification option where employees snap a picture of themselves on the app to mark their attendance. The picture is also stamped with real-time location coordinates, time, and date. This way, businesses can effectively monitor and optimize their workforce irrespective of their working environment and gather statistics on which “mode of operation” gives better results.

2. Invasive Employee Monitoring Causes Increased Stress in Employees

Did you know? According to Harvard Business Review, 60% of companies with remote workers use employee monitoring software.

59% of employees feel that the intrusive nature of monitoring makes them feel stressed and anxious. But this does not mean that businesses abandon all supervision. Some level of monitoring is a necessity.

That is why employee monitoring software promotes macro monitoring. It provides useful insights into employee performance in a manner that does not risk their privacy. The idea is to strike the right balance between transparency and privacy. Businesses should aim for reasonable data utilization focused on high-risk behaviours. It’s necessary to permit employee input and offer opt-out options whenever practicable.

That is why TrackoField is an ideal employee monitoring software because it is:

• Takes consent of employees before monitoring them and tracking their location.
• Stops tracking them once marked log out.
• High data encryption, which prevents data misuse, also offers selective user access.
• It encourages macro management through reports, real-time tracking, and alerts, thus removing micromanagement, which generally consists of constant calling.

3. Mobile Employee Monitoring and Geofencing

Another employee monitoring trend that is on the rise is the remote monitoring of field employees through mobile apps. Using employee monitoring software on a mobile device allows companies to gather data about employees who work hybrid schedules or have field responsibilities.

Mobile accessibility allows field employees to mark their completed tasks remotely, and managers can view and note the task status and progress in real time. Sales reps can also collect orders on the mobile app without carrying around heavy laptops or a stack of paper forms.

Another trending element of employee monitoring is the implementation of geofencing or using GPS to trigger a virtual boundary. Do you recall when Facebook would auto-check you in whenever you arrived at a restaurant? Yes, geofencing technology is that ancient!

Now, some software applications offer employer notifications and automated employee clock-in and clock-out reminders based on a predefined map area. It’s no surprise that the combination of mobile employee monitoring and geofencing has taken off, as they have the potential to reduce employee error and save employers thousands.

Unique Feature Notification! The geocoded attendance marking feature of TrackoField allows field employees to mark their attendance only when they have reached their first task location. By linking the task with attendance, managers can ensure complete authenticity on the field as employees are able to access their schedule or task list once they reach their start location.

TrackoField has a dedicated native mobile app, the Executive App. Through it, the field workforce can mark their attendance, collect orders, and mark tasks completed. The app also sends managers their employees’ location, task progress, battery, and network status.

4. Gamification of Time Tracking to Improve Employee Engagement and Motivation

You won’t believe it, but keeping track of time may actually be fairly entertaining and fun. But how? Must as challenges and prizes are essential components of any game, it can also be part of employee time tracking in this game. Gamification will ensure everyone on the team gets involved and their performance is monitored while playing. This is the essence of gamification.

In 2024, various gamification elements will be included in employee tracking software, facilitating increased levels of employee engagement and motivation.

Give the “Early-Bird” award to those who start daily at 9 AM. Give employees who never have more than 5 hours in their timesheets the “Sloth” achievement. You can devise several improvement rewards, but make them sound fun to not harm your staff and make it look innocent.

Gamification has proven quite effective in employee monitoring in various scenarios. Less time will be lost creating timesheets, fewer workers will show up late for work, and more workers will choose automated time monitoring over manual timesheet modification.

Just be fair in your evaluations and establish acceptable goals. To be exact, you stand to lose nothing. In the worst-case scenario, the team will realise that you care about them and have fun even if nothing improves.

5. Consolidated On-site & Remote Teams Data (over a single interface)

Tracking and ensuring the productivity of field and in-office employees can challenge managers. While micromanaging can be helpful, balancing monitoring and respecting privacy is important.

But with smart employee monitoring software, you can bring the field team and in-office team on the same page. The software offers reports like targets vs. achievement reports for each employee, so you can make informed decisions and easily filter shifts by location to delve into employees’ performance. To make your processes data-based and evaluate the influence of your workplace on your team’s productivity, choose modern monitoring software to gather user data.

Digital dashboards and reports can greatly help manage both teams as you get colour-coded data. The emerging augmented and virtual reality (VR) trend will make online meetings, training sessions, and discussions more immersive.

6. Employee Monitoring Software Turns to Biometrics

Did You Know! According to market research firm the IMARC group, the global biometrics market reached US$ 33.2 billion in 2022. The biometric technology industry is projected to be worth as much as $59B by 2025.

Businesses are revolutionizing the use of biometrics to improve security and track employee attendance. To verify employee and monitor their login and logout periods, these systems examine hand geometry, iris scans, voice recognition, signature recognition, and facial recognition.

Using advanced technology to verify unique physical characteristics, biometric systems provide a seamless and accurate identification method. TrackoField can record employee logins regardless of the identification method.

Biometric technology encompasses a variety of techniques that can be used to identify an individual, including:

• Fingerprints: A fingerprint scanner can obtain around 30 specific points, or minutiae, in a single scan. No two individuals can have more than 8 minutes in common with one another, making fingerprints a very reliable biometric.
• Facial features: A facial recognition system analyzes an individual’s facial features or patterns to authenticate their identity.
• Eye scanning: Eye scanners can identify an individual through iris recognition or through retina recognition, which looks for patterns of veins in the back of the eye.
• Voice patterns: Speaker verification uses a person’s voice to confirm their identity.
• Palms: Palm scanners may obtain verification by using geometric features such as finger length and hand width or scanning for unique vein patterns in the palm.
• DNA: Encountered most often in forensics and healthcare, DNA testing is a useful tool to accurately identify a person by analyzing segments of their DNA.

7. Impact of AI on Employee Monitoring Software

AI will become more important in 2024 in assisting HR professionals and companies with data evaluation, repetitive duties, and hiring decisions.

Unmatched analytics is the greatest superpower AI offers to worker efficiency. Monitoring software with AI capabilities can turn large volumes of data into reports. AI-driven solutions find areas for development and offer insightful information by closely monitoring and evaluating worker behaviours.

Use AI in monitoring software to improve internal procedures, maximise work schedules, and adjust to new work modes.

A subset of AI called machine learning can help examine employees’ end-to-end productivity. AI monitoring software can spot inefficiencies and suggest improvements by examining how much time employees spend on tasks and projects. These solutions make better data-driven performance evaluations, resource allocation, and workflow enhancements possible, likely increasing productivity.

8. Managers require More Efficient Task Monitoring

Alarming! Only 21% of global workers surveyed identified as being actively engaged at work, and the employees who are not engaged or actively disengaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity. That’s equal to 11% of global GDP. Many businesses are finding ways to watch what their employees do all day to discover where lost time is going.

A skyrocketing concern for employee monitoring is deriving the need for employee monitoring. Employee monitoring goals have expanded to include ways to make better use of a team, and like remote work, the component of employee monitoring is here to stay.

According to senior managers, 16 days are lost annually looking for printed documents. While employers have always been interested in knowing how their staff members spend their time, they now want a more detailed picture, which is now more accessible than ever.

Project managers can link tasks to deadlines because project management platforms frequently include employee monitoring tools as standard features. Rather than having a to-do list in one location and the time of day noted in another, users can view tasks that show how the changing time affects ongoing and upcoming projects.

Employee monitoring software that tracks time spent on each activity is an unparalleled productivity tool when utilised to its maximum potential. Task-level staff monitoring highlights time-consuming, repetitive tasks, providing leadership with crucial evidence of which operations are unnecessary and should be automated.

Choosing to replace pointless duties in professional services frequently frees up time to foster closer client interactions. One of the various sorts of business software that is anticipated to continue gaining popularity among companies of all sizes is task management platforms with integrated employee monitoring, practical shift scheduling, and work assignment capabilities.

Conclusion

Changing times and technological advancement have brought changes in almost every sector and industry, and employee management is no exception. Employee monitoring software that has been around for a long time has also witnessed changes. Businesses should keep in mind that they should opt for a platform that is flexible enough to accommodate all the emerging trends of employee monitoring when investing or moving their operations to a new platform.

We’ve got the perfect example for you – TrackoField. It is the best employee monitoring software because:

• • Not only is it helping businesses scale, but it also grows, as the company’s size grows.
  • It’s flexible enough to update, accommodate changes, and offer advanced solutions according to any unique challenge.