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Employee Tracking Tech and the Gamification of the Workplace

raul harman
Updated ·5 min read
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monitoring system

Believe it or not, but 92% of companies monitor their employee's email correspondences. So the next time that you sit down to type an email to your buddies from your company's account – think twice before hitting send.

Unfortunately, monitoring a workforce to such an extent is a double edged sword. While it is in the best interest of the employers to keep up with their workers' assignments, and make sure that the investment they are putting in is well worth it, the fact that those same workers are underperforming under pressure makes this practice potentially counterproductive. In fact, employees feel that the level of difficulty of a certain task is growing exponentially with the level of micromanagement.

Professor Alexandra Michel, from the University of Pennsylvania, found that intelligent and ambitious workers are willing to work to the point of exhaustion if they are provided some autonomy. When monitored and micromanaged, the best performing workers quickly become less productive and are generally not motivated to put in the same amount of effort.

On the other hand, you may be surprised to find that only 29% of employees are actually engaged in their work. The great majority of them consider their duties just duties and are not motivated to put in any extra effort.

teamwork


If you are wondering how can you engage the rest of your working force (the astonishing 71% of them), but still keep track of their performance, here is an idea that is becoming more and more popular very fast.

Gamification of the Workplace: The Structure


In the year 2016, gamification is becoming not just a trend but, ironically, a game changer in the world of business strategies in general. This concept relies on our own natural love of competition. Introducing gamification in the workplace is a form of initiative that was proved to be far more efficient than any other.

By implementing certain challenges, different grades and levels of performance evaluation and ranking systems, even badges and different types of rewards - your workers will quickly become far more interested in their work. This is only natural since we are, individually, competitive beings and we always strive to outperform our competition.

On the other hand, this is a great opportunity for employers to implement different tracking devices and systems in the workplace! By doing so, your workers won't resent this decision, instead they will focus on individual milestones and the results they have to achieve in order to get their rewards.
If you are thinking about the rewards you can include in order to keep workers motivated, there are several options that you can consider.

If you came here because you were looking for cool tracking technology, apps that will help you monitor your workers and such – you are in for a treat. The following list of apps will help you determine your milestones, individual goals, and set up a reward system through indicators that will clearly show levels of performance through reports.


employee tracking

Cool Tracking Tech


If you have ever worked as a freelancer, than you are probably well familiar with apps similar to the one Upwork has. This application tracks time, performance and even the level of activity when you start your working session. Not only that, but it also takes screenshots, reminds the worker about the task, and all in all – it provides a very transparent system of employee monitoring. On the other hand, this type of system, and similar, can be perceived as a little bit spooky as well.

Fortunately, there are certain apps that are handy, comprehensive and even fun to use. Let's start with Toggl.

  • Toggl is a timesheet software that is a very efficient time tracking tool as well. This app, which is available both for desktop and for mobile devices, keeps track of tasks that you are working on at the moment, records the time that you spend on those tasks, synced across multiple devices. The best part about Toggl are the custom reports that you can generate for each worker individually, and if your company is small in size (less than 5 employees) this app can be used for free.

  • FreshTeam is an app that is extremely useful if you are working in sales, or if you have workers in the field in general. Through this application, you can track your worker's location, expenses, and time spent on individual tasks. A great addition to this mobile app is a group chat option that is available for up to 100 workers. One thing that seems just a little bit excessive is the fact that your employer can check up on your battery life as well. Although this may be considered an invasion of privacy, bosses certainly appreciate this option.

  • Wrike is a project management tool that is a great alternative for collaboration platforms such as Asana. With this app, you are able to track your time, performance, and even your budget without even leaving your app's dashboard. Wrike is extremely efficient as a management tool, it helps with the organization of work and tasks individually, and the best part of it are the custom reports which allow employers to track every single factor involved. It is also a nifty collaborative platform and a document sharing platform as well.

employee interaction


Do you have a favorite work tracking tool? Let me know in the comment section. In the meantime, think about the apps that we have mentioned above, and look into their performance indicators before you start devising a strategy for the gamification of your own workplace.