Greg N., manager of a bank, signed up for an employee monitoring tool to find out why his contingent workers were not productive. The bank’s management was primarily interested in monitoring downtime and computer usage by employees working from home. The goal was to solve the problem of low productivity and ensure that the time employees spent working on computers was the same as if they were working in the office.
Problems/Challenges
Since the beginning of the COVID lockout, hundreds of employees have taken to working from home. Even after the lockout was lifted, the bank’s account executives continued to work remotely. However, employee productivity, quality of work, and speed of response were significantly lower than working in the office. Because the workers were remote, it was challenging to identify the issue’s root cause. It was unclear whether the slow response times were due to the fact that telecommuting employees were not sitting at their computers during sessions, or due to the volume of requests. In an office environment, it’s easy for managers to monitor whether employees are sitting at their computers during work hours. But when employees are working remotely, it’s not easy to tell.
Solution
Greg N. implemented an employee attendance monitoring tool that also records downtime and computer usage. The employee monitoring tool clearly shows when employees are and are not using their computers and when they are active on the computer.
Usage
Several employees exhibited unacceptable attendance behavior: they started work on time (logged on to the computer on time) and did not use their computers for several hours. In addition, this was done on a daily basis. In addition, software was being used to record employee meetings. The company decided to investigate the matter and assumed that the downtime might have been due to the meetings. It turned out, however, that the downtime was not due to the meetings. Management talked to the employees, warned them, and explained what the company expected of them, but some of them ignored the warnings. So the company decided to release them and this decision was made public.
The Consequences
The result was an immediate increase in the amount of time employees spent on the computer, from 30-40% to 86%! This was a performance that exceeded all expectations. Of course, the management team was thrilled. They also feel more secure and have more control over how their employees work from home.
About EMS
EMS is an employee monitoring application free that offers useful features such as time and attendance tracking, inactive/active time, and other useful features that help companies maintain good productivity. EMS is the only monitoring software on the market that focuses on employee productivity without compromising their privacy.
