Internet monitoring software plays a crucial role in managing your employees’ web habits, both in-office and remote. After all, you can’t allow risky internet behaviors to jeopardize company data and possibly set you back quite a bit. Sensitive data leaks are fairly expensive!

If you haven’t already begun monitoring the internet activity of your employees, now’s the time to get started. It’s possible you haven’t suffered a data breach by pure luck. As any wise business leader would, you’re about to take matters into your own hands. Start by learning all the reasons you should start using internet monitoring software, protect and how that can protect, and even improve your business.

Monitor for Risky Online Behavior

The first and the most important reason to use a tool such as CurrentWare internet monitoring software is to stay ahead of potentially risky online behavior. Viruses, malware, spyware, and ransomware are all lurking on the internet, constantly looking for a way in. Modern antiviruses and firewalls are so efficient that most users aren’t even aware they’re constantly under siege by malevolent pieces of software.

However, the weakest links in the chain are definitely the users themselves. They can unwittingly leave the door open for malicious software trying to get ahold of your sensitive company data. When that happens, all hell breaks loose and the damage is sometimes too great. Locked data, ransomed computers, and massive data breaches can cost your company millions.

By monitoring your employees’ online behavior, you can notice risky activities before they lead to actual harm. By risky activities, we mean visiting suspicious websites, downloading infected files, or sending data they shouldn’t be.

Prevent Excessive Usage of Distracting Websites

Social media and eCommerce websites are by far the biggest time wasters at a workplace. While it might be okay to check an occasional Facebook post, excessive usage of distracting websites can cause a serious dent in that employee’s productivity.

Using internet monitoring software, you can set time limits on certain websites or use time-based filtering to only allow employees access to those websites during breaks. You can also have the internet monitoring software alert management of excessive time usage on distracting websites.

The management can then decide how they’ll act on those warnings and take the necessary steps to prevent further time wastage. 

Improve Employee Productivity

By measuring how employees are spending their time, you can find the cause of falling productivity. All it takes is for you to look at what applications they’re using and what websites they’re visiting, and you can deduce what the problem is.

You can compare project progress with data you’ve gathered about employee activity to try and find the correlation. If you identify internet activity as the source of the problem, you can use the software to limit employee’s access to that website. If there’s no correlation between internet/app use, then you can help your employee by offering productivity coaching.

Read here : 5 Time-Tracking Tools to Consider for Your Business Firm

Manage Your Employees Better

Internet monitoring software can help you manage your employees better by keeping track of their activity. That’s especially true when you’re not there to oversee operations. You’ll get to see how productivity trends are changing when you’re not there in person. Software tracking can reveal valuable and unexpected information about your employees that you can use to manage them better in the future.

However, employee management can also be positive. Internet monitoring software can show you who’s deserving of a raise for all the hard work they’ve been putting in while keeping wasteful internet use to a minimum.

Bring Remote Workers Closer

Remote workers are often too difficult (and too far) to oversee. If you’re not monitoring their internet use, how can you know they aren’t slacking off on company hours?

Companies that hire a lot of remote workers can benefit tremendously from internet monitoring software. It will give you a better insight into who’s taking their remote position seriously and who’s just enjoying being unsupervised.

Of course, being constantly distrustful and suspicious of your employees is not a good thing and will breed a lot of contempt between management and workers. Be mindful of how you’re using any type of tracking software or you’ll hurt the morale beyond repair.

Manage Workload

Internet activity can show you who has plenty of spare time on their hands. Use the data you track to balance the workload between your employees.

You can manage workloads on an individual level (per employee) but it’s much more efficient to track what entire teams and departments are up to. If activity coming from one of the departments is lackluster, you can redirect them to help a team that’s under a heavy workload.

Just like increased internet activity can point to a team with too much free time on their hands, so can a constant lack of it show that a certain team is overburdened. Managing workload has never been easier than it is now!

You may like to know :  Employees Waste 3 Hours of Their Workday – How to Stop It?

Block Harmful Websites

So far, we’ve only been talking about monitoring internet activity. However, the best monitoring tools also come with website filtering capabilities.

When your employees seem to ignore your warnings and try to find creative ways to access distracting websites, you can just flip the switch on the websites you want gone. Website filtering allows you to completely block distracting or harmful websites your employees like to visit.

You can block predefined categories or target URLs. The former is particularly useful to prevent access to adult websites, gambling, social networks, malicious websites, eCommerce stores, and many other types of sites deemed unnecessary or dangerous at work.

Malicious and virus-infected sites should be blocked off immediately. There’s no point in simply observing internet traffic to these websites. They will without doubt cause harm if accessed, so it’s best to cut them off right off the bat. 

Get the Tool You Need to Stay On Top of Things

Without internet monitoring software, you can only guess what your employees (especially remote workers) are up to. You’ll never know if someone is engaging in risky behavior that can put the entire company at risk, or if one of the employees is downloading a game, causing a massive traffic bottleneck.

Take full control of your company and stay on top of things with the most powerful software ever available to a business owner. Start monitoring employees’ internet activity today for a better future for everyone tomorrow.