Not all platforms can go this deep into automation. However, the ones that can will either trigger user notifications to stop the action, or simply send an alert or update an audit log. This all speaks to a more fundamental question: Is your business investing in an employee monitoring tool primarily to improve productivity and efficiency? Or do you truly want or need full oversight into everything employees are doing and saying on company time and machines, to a meticulous degree of detail?
Depending on your organizational needs and what value you're looking to gain from implementing this kind of solution, your choice of employee monitoring tool and the ways they can be applied could be vastly different. The range of software we tested varied from basic time trackers that offer some added employee monitoring to full-blown, data-driven digital surveillance systems. For example, Hubstaff, Workpuls, and VeriClock are pure-play time tracking tools that offer some deeper employee monitoring features. These products give you great core time-tracking features plus features such as mobile GPS tracking for workers in the field.
They also give you attached notes and photos, screenshots, or basic monitoring of apps used and URLs visited. Workpuls is an employee-friendly tool that enables end users to turn the monitoring feature on or off and is suited to distributed teams and situations where monitoring 9-to-5 activity is not ideal. These tools offer website and app monitoring features plus screenshots, keystroke and file tracking, and board admin customizations including proactive alerts. Note that these capabilities are centered around improving productivity rather than policing employee activity.
Data is funneled into reports and dashboards that can monitor and aggregate productivity metrics as well as a fair amount of insights-driven business reporting. Finally, there are the platforms that feel almost omniscient in the depth of monitoring, automation, and comprehensive data they provide. These tools are the closest to invasive Big Brother-like internal surveillance systems, depending on how deeply an admin wants to customize what data and monitoring vectors are being tracked for each employee, or how much automation and alerting to layer on top.
This tier of tools also provide what is essentially full-blown business intelligence BI reporting and data analytics on the back end to process and analyze all of the employee data being collected. Pricing varies for all of these tools. But most employee monitoring tools set their price by the number of users or endpoints, meaning the number of employees for which agents are installed on their machines. Costs tend to scale based on user capacity and volume discounts kick in for larger organizations. However, tools such as InterGuard also offers additional add-on modules for premium functionality.
If you're looking for software you can buy outright rather than via a monthly or annual subscription, then StaffCop Enterprise offers perpetual licenses per user, though this involves on-premises versus cloud-based installation. Ultimately, the Editors' Choice awards for the products tested in this roundup went to Teramind and Veriato Cerebral for enterprise-level monitoring and to ActivTrak for productivity-focused monitoring that's better suited to small to midsize businesses SMBs.
While InterGuard and Veriato Cerebral have comparably vast feature sets and monitoring capabilities, Teramind stands alone in the level of automation admins can configure when it comes to user-specific rules and alerts, and additional advanced functionality such as live OCR, historic playback mode, remote desktop control, and audio support for microphone and headphone monitoring in call centers.
Enterprise-Grade Threat Detection
StaffCop Enterprise packs a selection of monitoring tools and automation features to match Teramind, but their value is lessened by an involved on-premises setup and virtual machine VM provisioning process as opposed to Teramind's seamless installation. Teramind was also one of the easiest tools we tested to install agents, configure the admin dashboard, and get up and running fast without much hassle.
ActivTrak, and to a lesser extent, Workpuls, are ideal options for SMBs or even enterprises that don't need the full-blown Big Brother oversight of Teramind and want an easy-to-use platform for tracking employee productivity and efficiency metrics. Veriato Cerebral's application of artificial intelligence AI for risk assessment is second to none and its outstanding security focus earns it our Editors' Choice selection.
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PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing. Learn more. Updated October 29, Copy Link. Our 10 Top Picks. These can range from screen recordings, live views of employee PCs, tracking emails, and keystrokes all the way to Zoom sessions, all of which earns it our Editors' Choice pick for employee monitoring.
Pros Comprehensive set of tracking tools.
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Cons In-depth monitoring features can be complicated. Enterprise-Grade Threat Detection. Veriato Cerebral delivers robust employee tracking and employee engagement features and data collection powered by artificial intelligence AI to not only track employee activity but also help mitigate potential insider threats.
Pros Unmatched visibility into employee activity and communication. Cons Can get pricey for larger teams. Deep Monitoring, Activity Tracking, and Scoring. Attractive pricing and an efficient user interface make ActivTrak a solid employee monitoring and analytics tool that's squarely focused on worker productivity.
Employee Cell Phone Monitoring
Improved capabilities around remote workers make this a good tool to watch during the COVID pandemic. Pros Quick and intuitive user interface. Cons Needs fine tuning to define user and group productivity metrics. Because it's a cloud service, Controlio's employee monitoring solution is well-priced and scalable. It's also capable with the ability to track every aspect of an employee's activities with an eye towards productivity and potential threats. Pros Incisive employee monitoring focused on productivity.
Time Tracking With Monitoring Capability. While better known as a time tracking tool, Hubstaff does have a solid complement of employee monitoring features, including keystroke logging, URL and application monitoring, GPS and location monitoring, and more.
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Pros Screenshot and keystroke capture and monitoring. Cons No advanced tracking. Focused on Widely Distributed Workforces. With an improved user interface and a gamut of employee productivity monitoring features, InterGuard converts data into useful insights and has a host of proactive alerts for larger businesses, especially those now focused on managing a remote workforce. Pros Wide selection of add-on modules and features. Cons Requirement of more than 10 licenses might put off smaller SMBs.
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Robust but Centralized Enterprise Monitoring. StaffCop Enterprise is an thorough employee monitoring solution with a rich selection of tools. It enables powerful surveillance, data gathering and reporting, though it still requires on-premises installation. Pros Comprehensive on-premises tracking features.
Cons Dated multi-step on-prem server and client setup. Mainstream Monitoring and Time Tracking. VeriClock is a well-featured employee monitoring and time tracking tool aimed squarely at small to midsized businesses. Pros Ideal for managing remote workers. Cons User interface is bare. Built for Task Tracking and Basic Monitoring. Calendar and invoicing features add a lot of value to a platform that's also easy to set up and use. Pros Automatic Time tracking. Cons Limited reporting. Affordable, versatile, and aimed to empower employees as well as managers, Workpuls provides SMBs with a wide variety of productivity and time tracking tools as well as basic reporting.
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Pros Modern and intuitive user interface. Cons Mail reports need to be more flexible. What is Employee Monitoring Software? The Pandemic Effect The issues facing companies due to the pandemic include ensuring business continuity and productivity across distributed teams, securing company data and IP on remote PCs, as well as enforcing compliance outside company walls. Top Onboarding Challenges When larger employers hire new workers, they need to find a way to ensure that the employee is getting the supervision, training, and support they need out of the gate.
Unparalleled Monitoring Capability Today's employee monitoring technology offers unparalleled monitoring capability and can track employee's from any conceivable frame of reference. Who Sells Employee Monitoring Solutions? Pricing and Licensing Pricing varies for all of these tools. Our Picks. Check Price.
Veriato Cerebral. StaffCop Enterprise. DeskTime Pro. Editors' Choice. Pricing Scales Based on User Volume. Get Our Best Stories! Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning Email.