With today’s rise in remote work and globally distributed teams, tracking employee productivity can quickly become a headache.
Learning how to be more productive takes a nuanced approach. Whether you’re supervising in-person or remote workers, employee monitoring software should be one of the productivity tools you use.
You’ll need to find the right option for your needs, of course. The best employee productivity tracking tools should add value to employee engagement, not detract from it.
What are Employee Productivity Tracking Tools?
Employee productivity tracker tools help you gain real-time insights into the performance and engagement of your team members. With the right tool, you can track employee activity for remote teams, mobile devices, and more.
Common features of employee productivity monitoring software include:
- Automatic time tracking
- User behavior analytics
- Detailed productivity reports, using productivity metrics and employee time tracking
- Integration with task management software to track the time employees spend on specific tasks
- Remote desktop control to record metrics, including keystroke logging and app tracking
Most modern productivity tools use automation. That means your employee-monitoring software will dynamically and continually analyze your team’s productivity in the background. You can create a detailed report from this information to help you manage employee performance more effectively.
The right employee-monitoring software enables you to manage your team’s workload and improve productivity. It even allows you to identify and celebrate your best-performing employee during a given period.
You can use all the insights you gain to build better, more objective, and more successful performance reviews.
Benefits of productivity tracking tools
The best software to monitor employees doesn’t just include basic time-tracking functionality. It can help with remote employee monitoring, ultimately helping to improve organizational-wide performance.
Or, to put it another way, this might be the productivity hack your team has been waiting for.
Use it to track your team’s key performance indicators, optimize how your remote employees spend their work hours, identify insider threats to team productivity, and review detailed project reports to build more efficient workflows.
The best part is that with the right employee productivity monitoring features, your tools don’t have to alienate your team members. You can use it to enhance the efficiency of management models instead, such as the collaborative work management maturity model, helping both remote and in-person employees.
10 Tools for Monitoring Employee Productivity in 2024
1. ClickUp
We’re starting our list with a tool that’s much more than simple employee-monitoring software. It’s a comprehensive work management solution, which naturally includes tracking and task management tools to help your team succeed.
Yes, it includes basic time tracking, but ClickUp goes far beyond this basic feature. It focuses on advanced tools that lend themselves to productivity analysis, such as detailed reports at a task or project level.
ClickUp best features
- ClickUp Time Tracking: A tool for tracking employee activity that can be used on any device to enhance your productivity monitoring. It even includes a Chrome browser extension
- ClickUp Dashboards: A tool that provides comprehensive and high-level insights into individual projects, boosting productivity
- ClickUp Goals: A feature that connects intended outcomes to active work, enhancing task management and making your work more strategic
- ClickUp Project views: Through a variety of options, your teams get better insights into their work in the way that suits them
- ClickUp Docs: Real-time editing functionality that enhances the productivity of your remote workforce and can work for teams of any size
ClickUp limitations
- Not a dedicated employee-monitoring software solution, which means some features (such as tracking employee location or mouse and keyboard usage) aren’t available
- Some limited functionality with other ClickUp mobile apps, with advanced features often only available for desktop computers and laptops
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/month per user
- Business: $12/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.7/5 (8,500+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.7/5 (3,500+ reviews)
2. Teramind
Teramind is a more straightforward employee monitoring software. It provides the ability to monitor employee behavior and location across devices, helping to prevent insider threats, especially among remote employees.
Teramind best features
- Advanced business intelligence reports that turn user activity monitoring into actionable insights
- Employee privacy management tools that protect critical company data without compromising monitoring effectiveness
- Remote video recording that enhances employee monitoring and can confirm suspected employee behavior
- Keystroke logging and remote desktop access that prevents malicious acts before they become a threat to the company
Teramind limitations
- Limited macOS support and no provision for Linux, meaning only companies operating on Microsoft Windows and mobile devices can realistically consider this option
- A complex initial setup can reduce the immediate benefits of its advanced employee-monitoring tools
Teramind pricing
- Starter: $12/month per user
- UAM: $23/month per user
- DLP: $27/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Teramind ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.5/5 (90+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.7/5 (80+ reviews)
3. Time Doctor
Perhaps the most well-known employee productivity tracking option on this list, Time Doctor has long been a standard for time tracking and productivity insights.
Time Doctor thrives on more than just its reputation, however. Installation takes just five minutes, making it a helpful tool for both supervisors and individual professionals looking to track their schedules and improve productivity.
Time Doctor best features
- Automatic startup when a worker switches their computer on, making it easier to track employee attendance and work hours
- Automated time-tracking option, which means Time Doctor can begin monitoring as soon as an employee starts a task
- Productivity ratings for individual sites, helping team members identify where their time would be better spent
- Idle tracking, a version of keystroke logging, recognizes when employees aren’t using their keyboard or mouse and marks them as inactive
Time Doctor limitations
- Limited mobile functionality, which can be difficult when working remotely
- Complex interface that can be difficult to navigate
Time Doctor pricing
- Basic: $5.90/month per user
- Standard: $8.40/month per user
- Premium: $16.70/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Time Doctor ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.4/5 (360+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.6/5 (500+ reviews)
4. Whatfix
Whatfix is a digital adoption and analytics platform. While it doesn’t provide employee monitoring in its strictest sense, it can help teams spend less time learning new software and more time taking advantage of its benefits.
Whatfix best features
- Interactive walkthroughs and product tools, meaning employees can easily adopt new software
- Advanced insights into where employees spend time on the platform, enabling more relevant training opportunities
- Easy content creation for onboarding managers looking to improve employee engagement and productivity
- Extensive widget library to customize the tool depending on your needs
Whatfix limitations
- Works best with single-flow applications, so it struggles to track employee productivity for larger apps with multiple paths
- Lack of advanced analytics, making further insights into employee activity difficult
Whatfix pricing
- Contact for pricing
Whatfix ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.6/5 (290+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.6/5 (70+ reviews)
5. Hubstaff
This is such a popular employee productivity-tracking software program that we’ve created a list of Hubstaff alternatives. But its extensive library of features, including remote workforce management and automated time tracking, still makes it a worthy addition to this list.
Hubstaff best features
- Automated timesheets make time tracking and employee scheduling easy
- Self-managed productivity tools, such as habit tracking and daily stand-up monitoring, for individual team members to use
- Geofencing employee tracking to monitor the time your team members spend at each job site
- Integrations with Hubstaff Talent and Hubstaff Tasks, adding task management and human resources management to your employee-monitoring suite
Hubstaff limitations
- Active and open-time tracking can be stressful for individual team members, potentially skewing productivity-tracking metrics
- There are no decimals for hours in some reports, making it more difficult to monitor your team at a granular level and optimize time management
Hubstaff pricing
- Starter: $4.99/month per user
- Grow: $7.50/month per user
- Team: $10/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Hubstaff ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.3/5 (420+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.6/5 (1,400+ reviews)
6. ActivTrak
ActivTrak shines through its analytics capabilities. While it offers most of the same productivity-tracking tools as others on this list, its advanced insights and dashboards set it apart and can lead to more informed decision making.
ActivTrak best features
- A comprehensive workforce intelligence dashboard provides extensive insights into team performance
- Automated time tracking and location insights enhance productivity tracking for distributed staff
- Impact analysis helps you identify the potential effect of organizational changes on team performance
- Advanced reporting allows you to analyze the performance of your best employee on a given task and apply those insights to your team
ActivTrak limitations
- Installation and onboarding take longer than most other employee-monitoring software solutions on this list
- Categorizing websites and activities can take a long time, delaying initial results
ActivTrak pricing
- Free
- Essentials: $10/month per user
- Professional: $17/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
ActivTrak ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.4/5 (210+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.6/5 (540+ reviews)
7. I Done This
I Done This is a basic time-monitoring software program, which includes some task management. It’s intentionally light on features to allow for as much employee productivity as possible.
I Done This best features
- Daily check-in feature that allows team members to quickly update others on progress each morning
- Commenting feature on reports that allows justifications for different types of tasks
- Team syncing enables supervisors and their teams to celebrate successes and learn from mistakes
- A clean, streamlined interface makes implementation and daily use easy
I Done This limitations
- An intentional focus on simplicity means fewer features than some of the other monitoring software on this list
- Limited search function, making it difficult to find and reconcile past tasks
I Done This pricing
- Contact for pricing
I Done This ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.4/5 (10+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.4/5 (120+ reviews)
8. ProofHub
If you’re looking for a productivity-tracking program focusing on project management, ProofHub is for you. It adds streamlined and intuitive project management to your basic employee-monitoring features, allowing you to build engagement and productivity over time.
ProofHub best features
- Time-tracking features that attach directly to individual tasks
- Custom fields and workflows enable even the most unique projects
- Employee-level reporting makes team monitoring simple
- Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations make communicating with your remote workforce easy
ProofHub limitations
- Limited notification system means team members may not receive task reminders
- Unsuitable for advanced project management, as it lacks features such as centralized notes, multiple project views, and advanced insights
ProofHub pricing
- Essential: $45/month for unlimited users
- Ultimate Control: $89/month for unlimited users
ProofHub ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.5/5 (80+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.6/5 (80+ reviews)
9. Teamwork
Although Teamwork is primarily a project management program, it still offers plenty of employee productivity options. With time tracking and resource management, you can build engagement while your team gets more done.
Teamwork best features
- Advanced reports and management features help to balance team capacity for more realistic, balanced workloads
- Client management features allow users to store client records, including communication and finances, in a single space
- Tracking time, budgets, and expenses allows for better recurring revenue management
Teamwork limitations
- Some external integrations, such as chat and CRM functionality, don’t perform as well as dedicated solutions
- Logging time isn’t always intuitive, which limits its employee-monitoring capabilities
Teamwork pricing
- Free Forever
- Starter: $5.99/month per user
- Deliver: $9.99/month per user
- Grow: $19.99/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Teamwork ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.4/5 (1,000+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.5/5 (800+ reviews)
10. SmartTask
SmartTask is another dedicated project management program. Its time-tracking capabilities make it a viable productivity-tracking software tool. Each member of your team can track the time they spend on each task either manually or automatically, providing better context to the needs and success of the project.
SmartTask best features
- Time and budget tracking flows automatically into advanced project reports for more comprehensive insights
- Extensive customization options make the tool suitable for every industry and business size
- Free training and onboarding make initial setup an easier process
SmartTask limitations
- Time-tracking feature can freeze when multiple tabs are open, limiting its functionality
- The user interface is busy, making it more difficult to find core project and task information
SmartTask pricing
- Free Forever
- Premium: $7.99/month per user
- Business: $10.99/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
SmartTask ratings and reviews
- G2:Â 4.5/5 (60+ reviews)
- Capterra:Â 4.6/5 (30+ reviews)
Enhance Your Employee Performance With ClickUp’s Employee Monitoring Tools
Finding the best employee monitoring software can be tough. There are so many options and ways to ensure your team’s productivity that it’s easy to delay your decision.
But you don’t need to. Why look for external tools when a free account with ClickUp means you need to look no further?
Create your free account today and start reaping the benefits of this comprehensive work management tool!
Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.