You probably know what is time tracking software and maybe have one implemented in your business as well. It’s all round useful tool and it gives you valuable information about the activities of your employees. But, what you might not know is the fact that some time tracking software manufacturers allow you to run such a software in stealth mode. In this article, we’ll find out all about it and why you should and shouldn’t use it.

Positive Aspects

Some may say that having stealth time tracking software has a lot more negative aspects than positive ones. Whether this is true or not is up to you to figure out. But what needs to be addressed right away is the fact this isn’t one of those computer spying programs. You're not spying on anyone and it's something that's very important to understand.

Sometimes the situation is that your employees often forget to track their time. It's a typical human error due to laziness or forgetfulness. If you implemented a time tracking tool you would want to use it as much as possible to get desired results. Stealth monitoring software is a way to go. It can't be noticed in the task manager and starts working automatically when your workers start their PC. It is basically undetectable, it doesn’t interfere with your employees’ work and provides raw information about their productivity. Later on you will get a report on all their activities and suggested actions which should be taken. 

Stealth time tracking provides you with real information in contrast to kinda staged ones when your employees are aware of time tracking software. Admittedly, we have to fence this isn’t always the case, and it has actually been proven that in most cases, knowledge about time tracking software boosts employee productivity.

But, such a software has negative aspects as well. Let’s address some of them.

Negative Aspects

When you notify your employees that there’s going to be a time tracking and monitoring software working in the background, tracking their every move - you can expect a brief backlash. Maybe they are scared their data will be breached or their information will be used in a bad way. So having a program that's kinda working behind their back is always debatable. Hiding something from your employees is in most cases a no-no. How do you expect from them to be trustworthy if you aren’t in the first place? 

Furthermore, what’s negative is the fact that your employees won’t have direct access to the data collected by the software. Why? Because when the tracking program is running in stealth mode, they won’t be able to see it on their computer. Generally speaking, it's always better that your employees know how they spend their working hours, so they can use the data to improve. The data such a software provides is very helpful for you as a business owner but also for your workers as well.

Also, if you have an easy time tracking app which works in stealth mode, your employees can't really track the time they spend on tasks or activities. To do, they would manually need to click on a timer which indicates that certain task or activity has started. Since here we're talking about time tracking software that works in the background, this isn't possible. Your employees are losing a lot with this since they aren't able to see the valuable data of their work and the amount of time they spend on different segments of the project. 

Conclusion

The thing is that you’ll know yourself if you need stealth time tracking tool or not. You understand your employees the best, as well as their way of working. But, if you opt for such a tool, there isn’t a best stealth computer monitoring software out there. You’ll need to conduct a bit of research and pick the best one for your needs.

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