Top 10 software to see if remote employees are working

Worried about whether your remote workforce is working or not?

Don’t be!

With the right employee monitoring software, you can easily keep track of your remote workforce. These software track and monitor how much time a remote worker spends on a specific task, site or app. This helps you get a better idea of what they’re up to during work hours.

In this article, we’ll give you 10 tools to monitor your remote employees and ensure they’re always productive.

Here are the tools we’ll be covering:

We’ll be going over their features, integrations, pros and cons, pricing, and customer reviews. Click on the links below to jump to a specific tool:

Time Doctor
Toggl
RescueTime
Timely
Harvest
Everhour
Timeneye
ClickTime
TopTracker
EmailAnalytics

Let’s get started.

The benefits of monitoring remote work

Before showing you the best tools to track your employees, let’s quickly go over the major benefits of having an employee monitoring tool for your remote workforce.

Here are the benefits of a good employee monitoring system:

Your employees will be held accountable for their output each day. This ensures that they’re motivated enough to produce results regularly.
With a good time tracking tool, freelancers and contractors have concrete proof of time spent when billing clients.
As there are records of time spent on each task, clients know exactly which remote work they’re being billed for.
Reduces the need for an office space as your employees can remain productive remotely.
You’ll have fewer worries when hiring remote workers as the tool will ensure that they’re committed to your organization.
A good remote employee monitoring software reduces the time spent on time-tracking and task management as the tool does it for you.

Now that we’ve covered why you need a remote employee monitoring software, let’s go over the best options:

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1. Time Doctor

time tracking for remote teams

Time Doctor is one of the most powerful time tracking tools for 2021. Used by companies like Apple, Ericsson and PwC, it’s no surprise that Time Doctor is one of the best options for you and your team.

With Time Doctor, managers can calculate:

The tasks your team is working on.
The time they’re spending on each task.
The sites they’re visiting.
The times they log in and log out.
Task management – task allocation based on how productive each employee is.
Attendance.
Client billable hours.

Time Doctor is the easiest way to keep your employees productive. Let’s take a closer look at some of the features that make Time Doctor special:

A) Simple time tracking

A major problem with most remote work tools are that they’re complicated to use. They require a lot of manual input which could be a big turnoff for most employees.

Luckily, Time Doctor is super easy to use.

All an employee has to do is start the timer before they start a task. TimeDoctor will quietly run in the background – calculating the time spent and sites accessed during this time. Your team doesn’t have to manually enter anything – all they have to do is start and stop the timer!

Just because your employees are manually starting and stopping the timer doesn’t mean that they can exaggerate their working hours! Time Doctor has features that make it nearly impossible to fake data.

Let’s take a look at them.

B) Poor usage monitoring

Worried that your employees maybe on social media and instant messaging sites when they’re supposed to be working?

With Time Doctor, you don’t have to worry about that.

Whenever an employee accesses unproductive sites like these, the app automatically sends them a pop-up asking them if they’re still working. This little nudge is usually enough to get them off the social media site and back to work.

distraction management

Additionally, managers have access to a Poor Time Use report that details what sites an employee accessed and how long they spent there.

Time Doctor can also take screenshots of your employees’ screen at random intervals to ensure that they’re on productive sites. This feature is optional and can be disabled at any time.

Privacy feature

For privacy reasons, the employee can always delete a screenshot in case it contains any sensitive information.

C) Inactivity tracker

Time Doctor ensures that your staff is actively working during their work hours through the in-built inactivity tracker.

When there’s been no keyboard or mouse activity for three minutes, Time Doctor automatically assumes that the worker is on a break and pauses the timer.

This way, your employees can’t pass off idle time as remote work.

D) Advanced reports

Time Doctor gives you tons of detailed reports to make your time tracking process meaningful. Here’s a closer look at each of these reports:

1. Timesheet report

timesheet report

What does this show?

This report shows you the total hours worked by your employees per day during a given time period – say a month or a week.

What is it useful for?

It’s a good way to take stock of how many hours each employee is working per day and the total hours worked during a month or week.

You can also export this report as a CSV or XLS file for safe storage.

2. Time use report

track websites visited time doctor

What does this show?

This report is a breakdown of the time spent on all tasks by an employee in a given period. You’ll be able to see what tasks they worked on and how long it took them.

What is it useful for?

Checking how each employee has spent their time on different tasks. For example, if you see that a task took too long, you could have a coaching session with that team member about how to do it faster the next time.

3. Timeline daily report

Time Doctor timeline

What does this show?

The timeline daily report gives you a complete breakdown of the time spent by all your employees in chronological order. You’ll know the sequence of tasks each team member was working on and how long each activity was for.

What is it useful for?

This is useful while evaluating unproductive employees. By looking into how they are spending their day, you can advise them on how to become more productive.

4. Projects report

time doctor projects report

What does this show?

The projects report gives you a breakdown of the total time spent on a project-wise basis. You’ll also see who’s worked on different tasks in the project and for how long.

What is it useful for?

Useful for calculating how much time is being spent by an individual or a team on each task and project. It helps check if time estimates are being exceeded and even arrive at estimates for future projects.

Moreover, you can also use this for calculating billable hours for clients.

5. Attendance report

attendance report

The attendance report gives you a list of absentees in the week with their reasons for absence. It’s a simple way to keep stock of who’s been missing from work recently.

6. Web and app usage report

web and app usage

What does this show?

This report gives you a breakdown of each site and app an employee accessed during working hours only. It also shows you how long they spent on each of these sites.

What is it useful for?

This allows you to check if people are wasting time on irrelevant sites like shopping or social media.

7. Poor time use report

poor time use report

What does this show?

The poor time use report is a periodic report that shows you any distracting sites and apps an employee accessed in a day during working hours only. Time Doctor automatically categorizes social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as distracting – however, you can edit this list to suit your needs (this feature can also be disabled if you like).

Whenever a remote worker accesses these blacklisted sites, Time Doctor will calculate how long they spent there and it’ll show up in this report.

What is it useful for?

It’s a good way to deter your employees from breaking your policies and spending too long on social media and instant messaging sites.

E) Privacy controls

An average remote worker is usually suspicious of any remote employee monitoring software.

Why?

They’re worried that their security may get compromised and they wouldn’t be able to maintain a healthy work-life balance. They’re concerned that they’ll be monitored during non-work hours as well.

With Time Doctor, they can rest assured that their work-life balance won’t be disrupted. The app immediately stops monitoring employees once the timer is switched off. There’s no way for it to track the sites and apps they access during their breaks or non work hours – giving them a sense of security over this matter.

Integrations

time doctor integrations and addons

Time Doctor can integrate with tons of different tools such as GitHub, Asana and Zapier for added functionality. For the whole list of integrations, click here.

Pros

Powerful automated time tracking capabilities.
Great website monitoring features with an integrated inactivity tracker.
Detailed reports to keep track of your staff and what they’re up to.
Strict privacy controls to ensure the security of your employees’ information.
Loads of helpful integrations.

Cons

The chrome extension is limited – it’s best to use the desktop app.
The tool may be more suited to companies than freelancers and solopreneurs.

Pricing

Time Doctor starts at $7/month per user with volume discounts. You can always sign up for a free 14-day trial without a credit card.

Customer ratings

G2Crowd – 4.3/5 (100+ reviews)

Capterra – 4.5/ 5 (200+ reviews)

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2. Toggl

toggl reporting

Toggl is a great virtual software to see if remote employees are working. With features and plans suited to smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, it’s effective for simple task management and time tracking.