Are you getting the most our of your workforce? Recent studies suggest that more than half of employees feel too stressed to work at their best.

How Does Employee Productivity Affect Your Business?

When productivity is low, your business is going to suffer. You may have plenty of clients and work to be done, but an uneven spread of workload and responsibility can cause some of your most valuable employees to underperform. Studies by Towers Watson’s Global Benefits Attitude Study uncovered just how badly stress can cause workers to feel unable to perform in the workplace: 57% of employees who felt stressed claimed to be disengaged, while only 10% of those who didn’t feel stressed shared the same opinion. That means that over HALF of your workforce could potentially be working below their optimum.

What’s All The Stress About?

“A third of respondents said they are often bothered by excessive pressure in their job and this can lead to higher instances of disengagement and absenteeism – clear indicators of low productivity in the workplace.” Towers Watson

Not all employees cope well with high pressure. Looming deadlines, frequent overtime and an uneven spread of responsibility can cause your employees to produce work that’s below standard. In such cases, it’s time to take action and uncover the reasons for high stress levels.

How Can You Promote A Less Stressful & More Productive Workforce

Rebekah Haymes from Towers Watson notes: “If business leaders want to promote a lower stress environment in their workplace it’s vital that they understand the real causes of stress in their organization. These can be specific areas that are not immediately visible to management if good communication and feedback structures are not in place throughout the organization. Without this, even the most well-meaning management team can find itself focusing energy and resource on the wrong areas.” So, how can you find out what those causes are? Sometimes stressed and over worked employees may be reluctant to voice their opinion, some on the other hand may prefer to go unnoticed so that they can spend more time on social media. It’s crucial you uncover the truth and act up on it – and that’s where employee monitoring software comes in.

Employee Monitoring – Why You Should Take It Seriously

By monitoring employee productivity, you’ll open up a whole new world of reviewing your employees and discovering the key areas in which you need to implement changes. See who isn’t being productive and discover why. Is it too much work, or is it too much Facebook? Once you know the cause for low productivity, you can address it. How Employee Monitoring Software Lets You Calculate Employee Productivity:

• Track the amount of hours logged-in to business devices.
• Monitor applications used for productivity.
• Check use of social media or other non-work related websites during office hours.
• Check up on employee absence and holiday leave.
• Monitor emails sent and received.

The best employee monitoring software suites do much of the data analysis heavy lifting for you, presenting you with succinct and actionable information. Some solutions are even available as easily implemented Software-As-A-Service packages, so billing is really on a per-use basis. SAAS models simplify the decision making process – trying them out is a very low risk exercise…

“Employee talent is a valuable asset…and it needs to be tapped to its fullest by keeping the employees motivated to perform.” TweakYourBiz

Employee Monitoring Reduces Stress and Drives Productivity

Once you’re using employee monitoring as per our recommended best practices you’ll easily be able to identify, address and even preempt stress inducing issues. Furthermore you’ll be able to:

• Reduce the risk of employee disengagement and absenteeism.
• Motivate the workforce effectively.
• Spread the work load effectively
• Help employees avoid stress, fatigue and overtime.

Not only will productivity rise, but also morale, resulting in the kind of workplace that people will want to work in. If you’d like to learn more about KnowIT, please click here.