With record numbers of people working from home during the pandemic, employers are using sophisticated software to remotely monitor their employees' productivity. Companies such as ActivTrak, Teramind, Hubstaff and Time Doctor provide bosses with a "dashboard" which provides data on individual workers - including their screen time, mouse activity, desktop screenshots, and even their physical location via GPS, according to the CBC.
According to the report, Austin, TX-based ActivTrak has seen a spike in customer inquiries, while Miami-based Teramind said that global "customer interest" is 300% normal. Hubstaff co-founder Dave Nevogt said that the Indianapolis-based company's website has seen a massive jump in traffic.
"We had half of our company working remotely before this, and since COVID, now everybody is remote," said Jackson Fregeau, COO of Vancouver-based Revenue Accelerator - which uses Hubstaff's software to monitor its 25 employees. The company helps tech companies find and develop sales leads. "We need to be holding people accountable. We need to know what people are working on. And I think it helps people stay more focused as well."
"We used to measure their performance by results — the number of meetings booked — but now, potential customers aren't responding the way they used to, and we have to measure against the time the team is putting in, even if it's not producing a result," said Fregeau.
According to Hubstaff's Dave Nevgot, most of their clients are business owners with between 10 and 100 employees.
"It's typically those customers that bill...