Employers' usage of employee-monitoring systems has been quickly expanding since the epidemic and the surge in people working from home. Employers claim to be monitoring employee activities primarily for two purposes: to enhance security and productivity.

Employers' demand for remote monitoring software is up more than 54% since the pandemic started. However, the types of monitoring tools they utilize and how zealously they employ them vary greatly. Unions and privacy campaigners, though, are concerned about the practice.

Manufacturers of monitoring software report rising sales, and the range of investigatory powers in their products is broad. One aspect that they all share is the capability to track and gather information on employee devices covertly.

Employers can find themselves on a precarious slope in terms of trust and privacy concerns as a result of this. However, the digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that nine out of the 10 worker monitoring software packages it studied could be made hidden to the people being tracked.

Employees who oppose may not have many options other than complaining or looking for employment because the surveillance software is installed on business computers.

Here are a few ways employers keep an eye on employees who work from home:

Computerized timekeeping for the workplace

The simplest task is probably clocking you in and out, keeping track of your working hours, downtime, and other stretches of the workday. If workers are spending a lot of time at their workstations, employers claim that this can assist them to recognize overwork or burnout.

In contrast, if you don't answer to a time-tracking system's alert after your computer has been idle for a while, it will log you off automatically, which may have an impact on your income at some businesses.

Recording keystrokes

This technology, often known as keylogging, can inform managers of all keystrokes made, including those that are accidentally deleted. Attackers can access passcode and other private data by using covert keylogging. Monitoring every keystroke an employee makes can quickly become tedious for managers, but it may be valuable in identifying people who spend a lot of time chit-chatting instead of working.

Observing emails, applications, and websites

Visit any websites that are unrelated to your line of work? Are you actively playing a game or is it just getting out of control? What percentage of your time do you tend to use social media? A symptom of the growing desire in implementing the same ideas inside is the announcement of some financing on internal message boards has raised a $60m third round.

Even though a company may have varied access privileges, most monitoring software includes a common function that allows for the monitoring of web activity. Some people might merely be curious to know how much time you passed communicating on instant messenger, while others might want to know what you talked about.

Using the computer to take screenshots

It is a regular function to take pictures of what users have visible on their screens at any time or at predetermined intervals. The workday of a worker can also be summarized in graphics by managers using a slideshow.

Users may remove a screenshot before their superiors can see it at some companies, like Workexaminer.

Turning on webcams

Whether observed in real-time or by recording video or audio, this might be the most intrusive method of monitoring employees.

Only two of the 10 applications under consideration by the Electronic Frontier Foundation have this function, according to their findings. It's a step too far, according to several providers of surveillance software.

Final words

The case of the working-from-home employee is an easy one to make. These are instances in which job performance issues can be resolved by monitoring the communication activities of a remote worker. In its simplest form, a method might consist of passively software monitoring email activity and website visits during working hours. But there are more advanced methods available if needed.