Top 7 employee productivity tracking software

by Time Doctor
productivity tracking software

To save time and improve efficiency across your team, you might have tried implementing to-do list apps or project management tools.

As helpful as these platforms can be, many actually create problems like:

  • Requiring staff to track tasks and projects manually
  • Providing data but no actionable insights that you can use to improve
  • Failing to integrate with your payroll and scheduling tech stack

With the right employee productivity tracker, you can monitor work activity, get personalized tips to improve efficiency, and help your team accomplish more in less time.

Which platform is a good fit for your team? In this article, we’ll cover seven of the best employee productivity tools that can help your team level up and make your job easier.

Table of Contents

  • Benefits of an employee productivity tracking software
  • Let’s get rolling.

    What to look for in a good employee productivity tracker

    Productivity tools often include a lot of bells and whistles. Yet any platform you choose should have these essential elements:

    1. Activity monitoring: Don’t rely on employees to input their tasks or hours manually. With automated activity tracking, you can gather productivity data and generate insights much more efficiently.

    2. Project forecasting: Productivity platforms that integrate with project management tools can make scheduling and budgeting much easier. Look for an app that works with Asana, Trello, and other tools you already use—so you can complete projects on time and on budget. 

    3. Insightful reports: You need much more than a summary of how many hours your team worked or a list of who put in overtime. Make sure the tool you adopt includes insights that help you improve efficiency and identify top-performing employees and teams.

    4. Employee-friendly tracking: In order for a productivity tool to work for your organization, you have to get your team on board. Look for an employee-friendly tool that gives staff some control over how and when they’re tracked—so they can maintain privacy when necessary.

    5. Productivity alerts: Most productivity trackers are designed to help teams improve and level up. But any tool you choose should also be able to alert you to serious problems. Look for a platform that can warn you about employee burnout and overworked team members.

    Top 7 employee productivity tracking software

    With vendors offering such a plethora of options to track employees’ productivity, which software should you go for?

    Let’s answer that by looking at the seven best productivity tracking software that you can use today. We’ll start with our own, Time Doctor.

    1. Time Doctor

    What is Time Doctor

    Used by a broad range of professionals, from freelancers and small businesses to teams at large corporations like Ericsson and BBB, Time Doctor is the ideal productivity management software for any business.

    Time Doctor’s unique blend of powerful functionalities like idle time tracking and screencasts, high data security features, and a friendly user interface make it the best productivity tool on the market.

    Key features

    Let’s have a closer look at some of the platform’s best features:

    1. Interactive time tracking

    Time Doctor offers the easiest way to manage time accurately.

    Employees can track time manually by pressing the app’s start and stop buttons and selecting relevant tasks and projects. With this option, your team gets total control over when their time is tracked.

    Interactive Time Tracking

    In addition, Time Doctor offers an option to automate time tracking. With this feature, employees don’t have to worry about starting the time tracker every time they start work or begin a new task. 

    In automated mode, Time Doctor tracks time and activity from the moment whenever team members power up their devices for the day until they sign off.

    2. Detailed reports

    Unlike the complicated features of similar remote monitoring apps, Time Doctor offers detailed productivity reports in a minimalistic and intuitive user interface.

    The different productivity metrics that Time Doctor can auto-generate for you include:

    • Timeline report: See the time employees spend on tasks and breaks.
    • Projects and tasks report: Determine how much time employees take to complete tasks and projects.
    • Hours tracked: See how many hours your employees have tracked time per day, week, or month.
    • Activity summary report: Get real-time reports of any employee’s active time.
    • Web and app report: Track the time team members spend on different applications and websites.
    Time Doctor web and app usage report

    3. Productivity ratings

    The sites and apps your employees need to use for work depend on their roles and projects. For some team members, an app may be essential for a task—but for others, it may be considered unproductive.

    Most productivity software classifies social media sites and specific communication tools as unproductive for all employees. 

    However, that’s not the case with Time Doctor.

    Time Doctor doesn’t automatically classify sites as productive or unproductive. Instead, it allows managers to choose whether they want to classify sites as:

    • Productive
    • Unproductive
    • Neutral
    • Unrated

    Productivity reports of employees are generated based on these four unique productivity ratings.

    Time Doctor productivity ratings

    4. Idle time tracking

    With Time Doctor, you can track the idle time of your employees.

    What’s idle time?

    Idle time is a minute or second where there are no keyboard strokes or mouse movements detected on the employee’s computer.

    Idle time tracking ensures that your employees don’t log their inactive time as work. It can also ensure that you only bill clients for your team’s active time.

    Note: Time Doctor does not support keystroke logging. It only monitors whether some keys are pressed or not to protect user privacy.

    5. Screencasts

    Time Doctor allows you to capture screenshots of your employees’ computer screens at random intervals.  

    This is a handy optional feature as it encourages both in-house and remote employees to stay away from distracting sites at work.

    Screencasts allow managers to:

    • See and download the (selected) screencasts.
    • Change the timezone.
    • View screencasts with no/low user activity. 
    Time Doctor screencast

    Productivity tracking technology

    Time Doctor tracks the websites and mobile apps that employees use during work hours. Managers can receive a report with this data—but only about 20% of the benefits of this software come from the monitoring features.

    The other 80% come from empowering your staff to manage their own time more effectively and from providing you with higher-level insights into how your organization spends time.

    Additional features

    • User-friendly interface for easy productivity tracking.
    • Offers both manual and automatic employee time tracking modes.
    • Track time without an internet connection.
    • Create and assign different projects to your employees.
    • Powerful payroll management system to pay employees and bill clients.
    • Offers dozens of integrations with project management tools like Trello, Jira.
    • Monitor all the website pages remote workers visit during their remote work time.
    • Strict privacy and data security policies.
    • Responsive customer support team.
    • Powerful mobile app for Android devices. 

    Pricing

    Time Doctor gives you a 14-day free trial that doesn’t require any credit card info. Paid plans start as low as $5.90/user per month. 

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.4/5 (320+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.5/5 (490+ reviews)

    2. Hubstaff

    Hubstaff homepage

    Hubstaff is another good option for tracking the productivity of your employees. 

    It offers employee productivity monitoring features like screenshots, reporting, and URL tracking.

    Though Hubstaff has some unique features like task management and geofencing, its productivity reports are very limited. Consequently, you can’t go into the granular details of how employees spent their time at work.

    Key features

    • Powerful geofence functionality for live location tracking.
    • Easy generation of timesheets to bill clients or pay your team.
    • Offers both online and offline activity monitoring. 
    • Optional screenshot feature as well as app and URL tracking to monitor remote work.

    Productivity tracking technology

    Hubstaff monitors the websites and apps your team uses while on the clock and provides productivity statistics to help the organization improve.

    Pricing

    Hubstaff’s free plan offers basic features like time tracking for a single user. Paid plans start from $5.83/user per month.  

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.3/5 (415+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.6/5 (1375+reviews)

    3. ActivTrak

    ActivTrak

    ActivTrak is an employee monitoring solution that can enhance your team’s productivity. 

    It offers a workforce intelligence dashboard that gives powerful insights into your team’s performance.

    The trade-off is that you can’t customize your dashboard widgets to suit your brand requirements, like adding pictures, changing colors, etc. 

    Key features

    • Compare productivity levels between individuals and groups.
    • Know your top performer’s habits so that you can coach those patterns to other team members.
    • Set automated caps on unproductive breaks.
    • Business intelligence style dashboard to track performance.
    • Experiment with goals, test strategies, review results to minimize time wastage.

    Productivity tracking technology

    ActivTrak automatically logs the websites and apps that remote employees use. The platform offers insights into productivity patterns and goal-setting.

    Pricing

    ActivTrak’s free plan offers limited visibility into activity and productivity for up to 3 users. Paid plans start at $10/user per month for a minimum of 5 users.

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.4/5 (200+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.6/5 (540+ reviews)

    4. ClickTime

    ClickTime homepage

    ClickTime is an employee productivity monitoring software that can help your team perform better while working on projects and tasks.

    You can get insights on project progress, get project reports, the number of employees required on the project, billable hours, etc. 

    However, ClickTime does not give you options to copy, paste, edit, or add repetitive tasks. 

    Key features

    • Intuitive and easy-to-use software.
    • Offers insights into project budgets to reduce project costs. 
    • Gives 80+ reports on timesheet management, resource utilization, billable hours, etc.
    • Detailed project reports to help analyze ROI (Return on Investment).
    • Available on web, desktop, and mobile.

    Productivity tracking technology

    ClickTime lets you attribute hours worked to specific projects so you can ensure tasks are completed on time and on budget.

    Pricing

    All plans have a free 14-day-trial period. Paid plans start at $10/user per month. 

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.6/5 (675+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.6/5 (205+ reviews)

    5. Toggl Track

    Toggl Track Homepage

    Toggl Track is another great productivity tracker for businesses of all sizes. 

    Available both as a web and mobile app, this time tracking tool offers real-time employee productivity tracking in an easy to use interface.

    Unfortunately, Toggl doesn’t allow you to capture screenshots for advanced productivity tracking of remote teams. Additionally, the starter paid plan comes with minimal reporting functionality.

    Key features

    • Supports manual and automatic time tracking for effective time management.
    • Detects and tracks idle time.
    • Allows users to set a Pomodoro timer.
    • Schedule alerts to notify you when projects go over their estimated time.
    • Integrates with tools like Freshbooks, Asana, and Basecamp.

    Productivity tracking technology

    Toggl Track integrates with 100+ apps via browser extensions and a built-in calendar.

    Pricing

    Toggl Track offers a free plan with the basic features for teams of up to five members. Paid plans start at $9/user per month.

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.6/5 (1525+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.7/5 (2150+ reviews)

    6. Teramind

    Teramind homepage

    Teramind gives managers a strong employee monitoring space with advanced monitoring features and productivity reports.

    However, the in-depth computer monitoring software features can be complex, and it can take a lot of time before you understand how they work.

    Key features

    • Intuitive UI and user-friendly dashboard.
    • Video recording of all remote workforce actions.
    • Built-in remote desktop control (RDP) and real-time alerts.
    • Excellent privacy compliance and data security features.
    • Data loss prevention features like fingerprinting, OCR (Optical Character Recognition), etc.

    Productivity tracking technology

    Teramind records work sessions on desktop, laptop, or mobile devices, providing behavior analytics to improve productivity.

    Pricing

    Teramind offers a 7-day free trial. Paid plans start at $10/user per month, for a minimum of five users. 

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.5/5 (90+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.7/5 (85+ reviews)

    7. DeskTime

    desktime

    DeskTime is a popular employee tracking software that can help increase your team’s productivity. 

    It also offers a private time option for employees. When the option is enabled, employee behavior isn’t tracked – giving them the freedom to browse non work related websites during breaks.

    However, Desktime only connects with a handful of third-party apps – so you might not be able to integrate it with your favorite work tools. 

    Key features

    • Track time spent on different projects, desktop apps, and websites.
    • Identify top performers and employees who are constantly underperforming.
    • Manage employee scheduling and attendance tracking processes.
    • Create accurate invoices based on the tracked time.

    Productivity tracking technology

    DeskTime offers automated URL and app tracking as well as periodic screenshots to monitor employee productivity.

    Pricing

    DeskTime is free for a single user. Paid plans start at $7/user per month.

    Customer ratings

    • G2: 4.6/5 (180+ reviews)
    • Capterra: 4.5/5 (510+ reviews)

    Benefits of an employee productivity tracking software

    Employee productivity tracking offers countless benefits. Let’s quickly go through a few of them:

    1. Evaluates and improves the productivity of employees

    With real-time reporting of employee performance, managers can:

    • Track employee performance and know when they’re productive or unproductive.
    • Build a better relationship with employees by understanding and interacting with them about improving their work skills.
    • Give underperforming employees more training and assistance.
    • Reward, recognize, and assign more responsibilities to highly productive employees.

    With useful productivity management software in place, managers don’t have to be involved in every task. They can monitor employees without having to micro-manage tasks.

    2. Improves employee engagement

    When your team members know that they’re being tracked with the employee monitoring tool, they’re more aware of their performance. 

    Consequently, employees can also take proactive steps to improve their performance, such as:

    • Blocking distractions.
    • Reducing idle time.
    • Taking frequent breaks to prevent burnout, etc.

    When the management is tracking employees’ work and active hours, your employees are also more accountable for your organization’s goals and objectives.

    Improved focus on work means employees are more productive and engaged in the workplace.

    3. Effective project management

    The time tracking feature of productivity tracking apps will help you estimate the time taken on various tasks so you can finish the project before the deadline.

    You can use this estimated timeline to proactively plan, schedule, organize, and prioritize tasks for efficient project management. 

    With productivity monitoring software, you can also track hidden tasks that are not directly related to the project, like client meetings, administrative tasks like scanning, uploading files, etc., and factor these to better estimate project timelines.

    Employee activity can also be recorded and viewed later by the supervisors so that they can take the necessary steps to manage employee performance and optimize high ROI (Return on Investment) tasks.

    Time Doctor makes it easy to track your team’s productivity

    Productivity tracking software can be an extremely versatile tool for any company. 

    The tools mentioned in this list can increase the efficiency of your company’s workflow, spur your employee performance, and make your business flourish.

    However, not every tool will be able to track productivity as well as Time Doctor.

    It’s got lots of useful features that allow you to see how employees use their time, track idle and active time, and reports to analyze overall productivity.

    So get started with Time Doctor’s 14-day free trial and see all the benefits of tracking productivity yourself.

    View a free demo of Time Doctor

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