With the rise of internet work-from-home jobs and freelancing, our concept of a workplace is steadily changing. Today, our concept of a traditional workplace can be different from the rooms full of individual cubicles that we were used to. HubStaff, a software from a firm of the same name based in the United States, offers its services for conventional, distant, or even completely online workplaces.
An employee monitoring software is used to track whether or not employees are keeping on with their responsibilities, as well as screen and look out for unwanted or illegal activity. Aside from monitoring behavior, it can also be used to handle any sort of workplace and make it more productive.
Monitor Productivity and Improve Coordination with HubStaff Free Hubstaff Similar
HubStaff includes the features that you would expect from an employee tracking software such as:
Online Activity Monitoring:
All of us know full well that social media kills productivity. All too often, a few swipes on any social networking app is going to end up consuming hours of our time, even at work. Assessing on important notifications from time to time is acceptable, but it is helpful if supervisors know when it is becoming a problem. HubStaff can help track if employees use too much social media and other applications that hamper productivity.
HubStaff can take note of the websites (and even the url of the specific page) that workers see during work hours, in addition to the time they spend on it. Traffic from applications can also be tracked and the time spent on these is also listed.
The data is displayed neatly, and supervisors can see the page name of the visited webpages, the url, and the time spent, all in a single glance. They can also visit the links displayed to verify if workers really are letting time slide on websites unrelated to work.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
Display Monitoring
Monitoring individual displays is too much of a hassle and can be quite awkward if done personally. But then, it is necessary for when a remote workplace setup is in order where it’s impossible to handle employees in person.
HubStaff has a feature that could enable managers to take screenshots of the employees’ screens at a customizable time period, with 10 minutes as the default. If this sounds too much of an invasion of privacy, then it could be set to have the screenshots be partly blurred. In this way, managers can determine if employees are working on their desks instead of playing games or watching movies, without exposing possible sensitive information.
It must be noted that workers would know that this feature is activated on their displays. Employees would also have the ability to view the screenshots taken from their screens just so that they’ll be ensured that this feature is implemented only for reasons related to work.
That said, this still has an effect on the behavior of employees as knowing that their displays are monitored is enough of a reason for them to execute their tasks.
Monitor Activity on Computer Peripheral Devices
In standard office setups, the sound of keyboard strokes and mouse clicks can be enough of a measure of worker activity. HubStaff can detect keyboard strokes and mouse interaction and detect times of inactivity where none of those instances are present.
HubStaff can then compare the total time where the mouse or keyboard is active to the total time spent working. HubStaff believes a productivity rate of at least 60% as a great sign. Productivity rates of less than 60% can indicate that a worker is taking too much time on the desk doing nothing, or if a worker is doing too slowly.
The dashboard for this tool displays the productivity rate of each member of the group. In this way, the tool may also be used to see how many members of this team are working on a project at a specified time.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
Work Limit Monitoring Free Hubstaff Similar
Working overtime is also becoming more of a norm, even so in countries like Japan where it is an unofficial standard. Reasons can range from employees wanting to complete their tasks early, catch up on jobs, and some are only workaholics who wish to be working as much as you can.
However, it’s been proven that too much work could be detrimental as creativity and productivity declines without enough rest. There is a good reason why there’s a regular 8 hours of work each day.
HubStaff can help managers track if employees are working too much hours each week. They can set the maximum time each week which employees can stay logged on for work. After the maximum time has been reached, then the time tracking tool stops. This way, workaholic tendencies are suppressed, and that workers won’t be given the incentive to put in a lot of time to work and sacrifice personal and rest time.
Monitor the Location of Employees
Managers working with remote teams may find it hard to communicate and organize the team. Some employees might be leaping from place to place for work, and even be operating from cafes or other workstations.
Setting up unplanned meetings can be difficult if workers are commuting from one place to another, or if they’re doing field work.
Members of the group can install HubStaff in their smartphones so that the employee place monitoring feature can be used. With this, supervisors and team leaders can track the location of the members during work hours.
HubStaff can display how much time employees spend on commuting between locations and how long is spent on each location. From these data, managers can determine the best time to do quick meetings.
As this needs employees to install HubStaff on their phones, this can be seen as too intrusive of a tool. However, same as the rules on iOS and Android applications, employees will know exactly when their locations are being monitored.
Project Progress Monitoring
HubStaff lets the entire group report on the progress of their tasks. HubStaff can then use this to provide a report on the status of every job on a weekly basis. On the staff dashboard, managers can see each individual employee’s working hours and a summary of the completed and uncompleted tasks. The dashboard also displays whether workers are online.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
Payroll, Timesheets, and other Miscellaneous Features Free Hubstaff Similar
Besides monitoring employee productivity, HubStaff can also make it easier for managers and admins to handle payrolls and manage accounts.
Timesheet and Payroll Management
HubStaff can function as a virtual check-in and check-out mechanism for businesses. And, better than conventional systems where timesheets can be cheated, the HubStaff timesheet tool can capture the first keyboard stroke or mouse activity of the day for each worker.
Managers can also pause the system manually for breaks.
With HubStaff, maintaining a record of working hours and salaries is also made easier. HubStaff’s payroll managing tool can determine each employee’s payout based on the hours logged for them. By linking their paypal accounts with HubStaff, then payment transfers are made simple. Cash transfers for payroll can even be automatically set to weekly, monthly, or on a set interval.
Job Tracking for Clients Free Hubstaff Similar
Being transparent to customers is key for establishing trust for your company. HubStaff makes it easy to communicate with customers, as well as assure them that things are going as agreed upon.
HubStaff makes it simple for clients to take a peek into the progress of projects. This can be simply accomplished by adding clients into the members tab. From there, they could see the phases of the project, in addition to the completed and pending tasks.
Third party Software Integration
HubStaff can integrate nicely with other project tracking tools including but not limited to Asana and Trello. This is good news for business owners that are already using other project management software.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
Employee Spying?
You might be wondering if using HubStaff to handle employees can be counterproductive as it may make a feeling of distrust between managers and staff members. To ease your mind, you can be sure that HubStaff lets the entire team know of the whole monitoring system. Employees can be sure that their activities are monitored only during work hours, and exactly how they are being monitored.
However, as a company owner or manager, it is your duty to let your workers know beforehand that your workplace will be implementing HubStaff. Additionally, HubStaff should only be installed on the devices necessary for work where it would make sense to have implement a monitoring system.
To put it simply, HubStaff is a monitoring system rather than a surveillance system. Employees can be sure that only the cases of their keystrokes and mouse actions are listed, and not the actual keystroke that they register. HubStaff won’t let managers and admins know just what their workers are typing.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
Pricing
HubStaff has three paid plans that charge a fixed price per user per month. The Basic plan costs $7, while the Premium and Enterprise plans cost $10 and $20 respectively.
Only the Premium and Enterprise plans unlock features associated with payroll management. The enterprise feature comprises fleet monitoring and even a concierge accounts.
For those people who are willing to pay on an annual basis, then the cost per person per month of the paid programs will be slashed down to $5, 8$, and $16, respectively.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
Verdict Free Hubstaff Similar
It’s important to find the right software for your business since this will allow you to, in a way, outsource some of your tasks to the specific software.
You can be certain that HubStaff can flawlessly perform the job that it promises to do. The user interface is intuitive and clean, and is not at all confusing, requiring only minimal orientation for employees not familiar with the software.
However, it has to be said that not all companies might benefit fully from utilizing HubStaff. HubStaff is especially suited to modern desk jobs, and for projects where team members use computers for most of their time. Take jobs that require a whole lot of reading for example, where employees might seem to be inactive based on computer interaction. The software might say that they are inactive, but they just might be on top of a reading assignment in reality
Business owners should also not completely rely on the information that HubStaff collects to ascertain if their employees are being productive or not. HubStaff is simply a project management software with tools and features that can help you gauge the performance of employees and other members of the team. This is certainly not a virtual or artificial intelligence office manager.
All the same, HubStaff collects data seamlessly, and we all know that data helps you run your business effectively.
> > Click Here to try Hubstaff for Free! < <
FAQ Free Hubstaff Similar
Q: Where do the screenshots go?
A: HubStaff stores the screenshots and other data using Amazon AWS.
Q: Is there a maximum number of team members that may use HubStaff?
A: The paid programs have a minimum of two users and limit of 350 users.
Q: Why is implementing HubStaff in companies completely legal?
A: HubStaff has complete legal permissions for use, and resources regarding them are available on their website. But these are only based on United States laws. It’s best to check with a lawyer for international users.
Q: Can employees choose when they’re being monitored?
A: Yes, employees can manually start and finish HubStaff tracking and have it run in the background. HubStaff does not collect any data once tracking ends.