Thread: Spying on a PC

Hello, everyone, I want to know is there an app to monitor computer activities?
In fact, I am a boss, I just want to know what my employees are doing during work time.

Team Viewer

what they are doing during work time ? probably like everyone else, watching porn, checking emails and posting on forums

Originally Posted by Kwang

Team Viewer

Employee will know if team viewer is active.

There is discrete monitoring software available, have a look on google.

Originally Posted by Fondles

There is discrete monitoring software available, have a look on google.

Don't encourage this guy, spying on your employees is lower than a dead donkeys nutsack IMO

VNC server on each machine

Are you trying to monitor their internet activity (email and browsing) or see if they're playing solitaire?

Either way, it's a management problem, not an IT problem.

Originally Posted by Alrale

Hello, everyone, I want to know is there an app to monitor computer activities?
In fact, I am a boss, I just want to know what my employees are doing during work time.

I don't support spying either, but there are many reasons why a boss needs to have at least a bit of insight into his employees' work; especially when you cannot be in the same office with them all the time. We are using a non-intrusive software to have an idea about how much and what work the employees are doing, it is called 'my team monitor'. The employee turns it on when he starts working and off at the end of the shift, and he can turn it off while having a break. The program will show me how many minutes they were active during each day. It also logs the number of keystrokes and mouse clicks to keep track of how actively they were doing their job, and it takes screenshots to show what they were working on. It doesn't record any private data. You can go to myteammonitor dot com to sign up. It is even free, so you can try it without commitment. They have a stealth version, as well, for seamless monitoring, but we already discussed what we think about that.

Do you have turnstiles on the bogs as well?

Originally Posted by PeteCalvin

I don't support spying either, but there are many reasons why a boss needs to have at least a bit of insight into his employees' work; especially when you cannot be in the same office with them all the time.

The more ineffective the boss, the more 'insight' is needed.

If you have to be in the same office all the time or run spyware, let's call a spade a spade, you really need demotion IMHO.

A modern boss's isn't supposed to be slave driver.


Yea I know. But, but, but.

I would suggest you hire hookers to ingratiate themselves with the employees and have them interrogate the hapless fellows when they are in flagrante delicto or after whilst laying in the glow of a successful expulsion

they could report back to you via carrier pigeon

It seems like bosses who need this kind of tech to work out if their employees are doing their jobs or not aren't doing their own jobs. Does anyone know an app that I can send into the classroom to teach English?

I use Software from these people :

Computer and Internet Monitoring Software | SpectorSoft

It's installed on all my Salesmens' Laptops (and yes, they know it is there), they all work out of the Office, only returning for 1 day every two weeks or so for a debrief so I need to be sure they are doing the work assigned to them.

Perfectly sensible management safeguard as far as I am concerned.

Patrick

And there i was thinking a salesman's job was to sell, and you judge him on his results over time, not spy on him like a nanny. I must be getting old.

Who'davethunk.

Why not get all employees one of these?
Then all you paranoid control freaks can sleep easy knowing your slaves are toeing the company line.

Originally Posted by Patrick

It's installed on all my Salesmens' Laptops (and yes, they know it is there), they all work out of the Office, only returning for 1 day every two weeks or so for a debrief so I need to be sure they are doing the work assigned to them.

What's that got to do with seeing everything they do on their laptops ?
Obviously you don't trust them, they probably think you're a bit of a cnut behind your back

Are Your Employees:
Spending all day playing online games?
Chatting with friends and family?
Really working from home?
Employees average more than 45 minutes EVERY DAY doing personal surfing from work.

Perfectly sensible management safeguard as far as I am concerned.

Patrick

If I was working for you, you would be finding a stack of gay and beastiality images even though I'm as straight as an arrow

Frederick

A friend of mine installed software that allowed him to ban certain sites like Facebook and other social networking sites rather than go down the route of spying on his staff.
It can't be that hard to do I would have thought ?

^

I don't know if you could ban the entire Internet outside of work-related stuff, but perhaps it's possible.

Checking an employee's work and productivity is standard in all industries- if you work on an assembly line or retail store there's always a supervisor monitoring your performance- what's so sacrosanct about a company-owned computer that the boss can't check it to see how it's being used during paid working hours? Company property is there for company business- if someone is spending two hours per day on Facebook and is getting paid an hourly wage, I would want to know if that person worked for me and I was paying for that time.

If your employees aren't doing their jobs, and you don't know it without spying on their computers, then you're a shit manager.

Rather than spy, why not block all common sites such as youtube and messenger services etc. That's what the boss did at my previous office employments. Spying is going too far i think.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

If your employees aren't doing their jobs, and you don't know it without spying on their computers, then you're a shit manager.

I don't think knowing how company property is being used is 'spying'.

If you have a department with dozens of people who primarily work on computers, a few (or more than a few) could definitely slide by on the work of others that are being more productive if productivity is assessed on a departmental rather than individual basis. If some guy is on a terminal but you can't see his screen, it's not OK if he's spending much of the day on social network sites- yeah, he may be highly productive for a few hours, but why should I have to pay for the hours he's not working? Unless a supervisor has some sort of ability to actual supervise, you can't call them 'shit'.

I would let employees know that computers may be monitored rather than doing it surreptitiously, but if you're on a company machine on company time, you have to expect to be supervised.

Again, why are all other aspects of a company subject to scrutiny, but a computer isn't? Because you have the opportunity to steal time on it with personal stuff?

Originally Posted by FailSafe

steal time

steal time ?

I think your attitude is incorrect - you do not totally own your employees just because you pay them a small sum of money

Originally Posted by baldrick

Originally Posted by FailSafe

steal time

steal time ?

I think your attitude is incorrect - you do not totally own your employees just because you pay them a small sum of money

So employees don't owe me work for the time I'm paying them to do their jobs? Who says it's a 'small sum of money' (and what does the amount have to do with it)? How much are you willing to pay for the two hours everyday that I spend on Facebook during company time if I work for you? Employees receive lunch breaks and other breaks over the course of a day where they can attend to non-essential personal matters.

You're right- I don't 'own' my employees, but they are selling me their time- if they take my money without offering anything in return, they are not fulfilling their contract- how is that not stealing from me? I'm not talking about being a slave-driver or making an issue out of a quick check of personal email or whatever, but if well over an hour of company time per day is wasted surfing the net, that adds up to nearly a full day of work per week and weeks lost over the course of a year.

I run a couple of businesses, and I find employees screwing around and doing as little as possible all the time (even with supervisors in place- they can't be watched every minute)- I can understand trying to get away with something from their perspective, but as the person who comes up with the payroll out-of-pocket every month, I find it disheartening.

Spying on computer use seems excessive (though as I said bosses should let employees know their company computers are subject to scrutiny, just like any other company process), but when it costs you a lot of money every year in lost productivity, you want to do all you can to combat it, and reduce it if possible (two hours a day on average seems like a lot, doesn't it?)