Best Remote Employee Monitoring Software in 2025

Remote employee monitoring software has gained more importance as organizations acknowledge that the future of work is hybrid. However, while global companies have allowed remote work well before the pandemic, shelter-in-place directives created challenges for managers. These include issues not just in the area of monitoring employee productivity but also in keeping tight control over intellectual properties. Today, employee monitoring software for remote teams offer features that can address the unique concerns of both small businesses and large enterprises.

When choosing an ideal solution for remote employee monitoring, you can start by leveraging the free trial and demo offered by service providers. By using each platform on your shortlist, your company can evaluate how each software complements and enhances your work processes. Based on your experience in trying out the software, you may do a comparison and even consult remote computer monitoring software reviews so you can get a full view of the tools and their unique features.

For your convenience, you may check our reviews of the top remote employee monitoring software, which include Connecteam, Insightful, Time Doctor, Flexi Server, and RescueTime.

Every business requires tools that can monitor employee productivity. The remote employee monitoring tool is ideal for companies with hybrid and fully remote work setups. Below, we have identified the types of organizations that will reap huge benefits from using remote employee monitoring tools.

• Companies with a fully remote setup. Organizations that have employees working remotely across the globe will find remote employee monitoring useful in day-to-day management. The admin can easily keep track of employee work hours spent on specific projects and any device can be turned into an employee time clock.
• Companies with a hybrid work setup. For businesses that accommodate hybrid setups, employee monitoring by employers outside the workplace can facilitate a seamless transition each time employees shift to working outside of the office.
• Companies with remote teams, field teams, or freelance contractors. By using cloud-based tools and remote employee desktop monitoring software, admins can manage employees and monitor their online behavior, email usage, websites visited, and also identify specific times that they have connected to the Internet for other purposes
• Companies that want to boost productivity. Gain real-time visibility into employees’ activities and determine the productivity level. Work from home employee monitoring software can easily collect data that can give you insights on how to address productivity concerns.
• Companies with highly sensitive data. Businesses have to protect confidential data. Data leaks could compromise an entire organization and put years of research and development to waste. This is where remote employee monitoring tools become very useful as they can surveil the activities of employees and identify breaches of confidentiality agreements.
• Freelancers. While freelance professionals do not have a requirement for employee monitoring, they can also use the employee remote work monitoring software for tracking billable hours. This specific feature streamlines the accounting work of freelancers and simplifies client billing.

• Connecteam. This platform keeps track of employee hours with digital timesheets. It also offers employee scheduling features, including comprehensive collaboration and HR modules. Connecteam streamlines the timesheet review and approval process.
• Insightful. This software provides real-time employee monitoring and automated time tracking. It also includes project management tools that track the time spent on each task and optimize time spent on projects. With this at your disposal, you can improve employee productivity and operational efficiency.
• Time Doctor. Whether remote or on-site, this time tracking software helps you to track the exact number of hours and minutes spent per project. Ideal for businesses as well as freelancers, Time Doctor seamlessly integrates with CRM and other apps for project management.
• FlexiServer. This platform for employee monitoring offers a comprehensive set of tools for recording employee hours on projects and monitoring computer usage. Aside from time tracking, this software solution also monitors attendance and emails to help organizations evaluate and improve efficiency and productivity.
• RescueTime. This software for time management monitors the computer use of employees and also includes tools for measuring productivity. It is an effective remote employee monitoring tool as it can track websites visited, computer activities, and active windows so both employees and employers can see how time is used during official work hours.

Employee monitoring software offers standard features. This particular category has no distinct types, although users tend to group them based on how teams intend to use this business tool.

• For productivity monitoring. One purpose of using employee remote monitoring software is to track employee productivity. For employers, this provides a mechanism to ensure that employees are indeed working during designated hours. This context makes the remote employee monitoring software a productivity tool.
• For project management. Almost all project management tools include time tracking and task management features. This makes for another type of remote employee monitoring software because project management tools also keep tabs on employee productivity. However, it is important to make a distinction between an app that is basically a project management tool, against an app that is for monitoring remote employees.
• For protecting confidential data. For organizations that enforce strict data privacy policies, remote employee monitoring software can track the unauthorized activities of employees. This is crucial to avoid or at least arrest, major damages brought about by a data breach. Remote employee monitoring software can automatically disable user access once a data breach is detected.

The best remote employee monitoring software includes tools for time tracking, capturing video playbacks, taking screenshots, and sending real-time alerts. These platforms must also cover monitoring internet usage, email, file activity, social media, and employee keystrokes. While some remote employee monitoring platforms offer more tools to surveil employees, adding these features will depend on the organization’s main objective for using remote employee management software.

• Employee time tracker. Remote employees need to be monitored to track logins and logoffs. You can also use the platform to track active time and idle time. This includes real-time desktop screen capture. Time tracking ensures that payments are accurate, and promotes transparency.
• Video playback and screenshot. To evaluate specific concerns, screenshots and video playback provides your admin with the exact context. Monitoring the online behavior of remote employees can become challenging but remote monitoring software ensures efficient documentation of activities.
• Real-time alerts. This feature is crucial for teams that intend to safe keep confidential data. To promote good user behavior among remote employees, real-time alerts are sent to the admin once protocols are violated or when there is a security breach.
• Email monitoring. This feature records and alerts all emails and email attachment activity. This means that even emails deleted by employees would still be captured as kept by the remote monitoring software. This gives the admin greater access to possible pieces of evidence when investigating data breach incidents.
• Internet usage monitoring. Monitoring web browsing and search activity of remote employees is critical to avoid possible security compromises. This easily spots company internet policy violations as well as identifies activities that waste employee time, which also translates to stolen hours from your company.
• File activity monitoring. Using employee monitoring software, work from home employees’ file activity can be easily tracked. This is important to avoid insider data leaks, including copying, deleting, and editing sensitive documents. This also includes real-time alerts on suspicious access.
• Social media monitoring. Discourages the use of social media during work hours and keeps distractions at a minimum. This feature specifically creates a productive and professional environment and makes every employee accountable.
• Keylogger/keystroke monitoring. This feature is typically an add-on for organizations that opt to have the capability to detect insider threats. It is a necessary tool to investigate fraud, compliance auditing, and other security concerns.
• Silent mode. Also known as stealth tracking, this type of monitoring does not notify employees that they are being monitored. While federal legislation does not require employers to disclose monitoring activities, when using this feature it is still important for companies to have clear policies.
• Remote desktop control. This feature can disable the keyboard or mouse of a company-issued laptop once a violation of policies is detected. It is capable of real-time monitoring of remote devices, which includes live tracking and screen capture.
• GPS tracking. Some companies also use the GPS tracking feature to monitor the use of vehicles. Locations are logged in real-time for the admin to have a complete view of employee and vehicle location, as well as other company assets.
• Employee analytics. Beyond tracking time, analytics is also a feature of most remote employee monitoring software. It shows how time is being used by every employee. Through this, the admin can assess whether an activity or process is productive or wasteful of time and resources.

Employee monitoring is an essential part of management. Now that hybrid work is here to stay, deploying remote employee monitoring software may require significant outright investment, but the benefits of using this platform will ensure that there is consistent management control even in a hybrid work setup.

• Keeps employee productivity and efficiency in check. One challenge for the company admin is monitoring the activities of remote employees. This software solution ensures that efficiency is consistently measured and productivity is always evaluated. It also enables the management to immediately address the inefficient use of time.
• Keeps your data secure. Protect your sensitive data and track unauthorized activities. Arrest every breach at once and prevent further data leaks. Remote employee monitoring software helps detect potential threats to your critical assets by guarding the date and time of file transfers, password change attempts, user keystrokes, database logins and logouts, and internet activities.
• Streamlines the billing process. The time tracking feature delivers transparent and accurate billing. This eliminates disputes on time spent on projects and is applicable to professionals servicing clients or those tapping contractors. This ensures that only billable working hours are being paid.
• Facilitates fair employee evaluation. Evaluation of employee performance includes metrics on productivity. Although working remotely, employees are given fair evaluation because this software solution provides accurate reports on all employee activities during their work hours.
• Ensures efficient project management. When employee productivity is monitored, it significantly helps in ensuring that the completion of tasks is aligned with the overall objectives of the organization. In addition, possible causes of delay can be immediately identified with every dip in employee productivity. With the real-time data provided by the remote employee monitoring software, projects are efficiently managed.
• Helps in the formulation of data-driven strategies. Having a remote employee management platform significantly contributes to the effective formulation of company policies and best practices. It also helps in streamlining processes by analyzing the data collected by the software.

The latest trends in remote employee monitoring software include the increased focus on employee wellness, the shift towards ethical monitoring, and advances powered by artificial intelligence.

• Focus on employee wellness. Aside from the intention to keep workers healthy and productive, many organizations believe that focusing on the wellness of employees will provide value to the organization. Companies are now distributing fitness wearables to all employees with the aim of keeping their overall health monitored as they perform their jobs.
• Shift towards ethical monitoring. Among the most-tracked activities of employees include email, calls, video, and messages. This practice, however, has encountered a backlash in relation to upholding the privacy of employees, as well as their families, when they work remotely. As a result, there is a growing trend on ethical monitoring, which encourages organizations to be transparent on how they monitor remote workers.
• People analytics. Since remote employee monitoring platforms can collect huge amounts of data, these software solutions are now also being used by companies to get important insights on employee work practices that can be used to inform policies. The trends revealed by the data also contribute to business decisions.
• Sentiment analytics. This trend also makes use of data from the remote employee monitoring platform. It essentially measures employee engagement and informs solutions to boost employee morale. This trend also aims to help in the identification of problems and issues that affect overall employee performance.

While companies may get many benefits from using remote employee monitoring software, it is equally important to have an awareness of the potential issues in using these types of platforms. Among these are issues on privacy, the effect of surveillance on the productivity of employees, as well as the impact of strict monitoring on employee morale.

• Privacy issues. Among the potential issues in using remote employee monitoring software is privacy concerns. There is an ongoing debate on ethical issues surrounding the surveillance of employees while they work remotely. While it is true that there is no federal law prohibiting remote employee monitoring, it is illegal to surveil citizens based on the National Security Act of 1947. Given this, it is important to know particular state laws to avoid any legal entanglement as you deploy your remote employee monitoring platform.
• Decreased productivity. While the premise for employee monitoring is to keep employees productive as they know they are being monitored, the opposite might also happen and cause undue stress. As a result, this might affect overall productivity as it might agitate them and lose their focus on their tasks. In an environment where there is a lack of trust, the level of motivation decreases, and it becomes difficult to share ideas and collaborate.
• Poor employee morale. Surveillance has a huge impact on employee morale as it implies that there is a lack of trust in employees. As a consequence, it makes the workplace dynamics less engaging because of suspicions. Excellent work that stems from a sense of ownership might be reduced to lackluster performance as employees are not focused on their tasks all the time.
• High employee turnover. All the potential issues mentioned could lead to employees deciding to leave the company. Employees will always prefer employers that build an atmosphere of trust as it sustains relationships and at the same time provides motivation to deliver the best performance. One possible solution is for the management to specify only the specific business processes that need to be strictly surveilled to protect both the company and the employees’ welfare.

Among the most popular payment schemes used by vendors of remote employee monitoring software include the free plan, monthly plan, yearly plan, and one-time payment.

• Free Plan. The free plan offers limited functionalities but can be very useful to companies that only require the basic features of remote employee monitoring software.
• Monthly Subscription. For this type of software, service providers typically offer two types of subscriptions. The blanket plan offers fixed pricing for a predefined number of users, while the per employee subscription has a fixed fee per employee.
• Annual Subscription. The annual plan requires higher outright investment but typically costs lower than the monthly plan. This is ideal for companies that have already established operations and are looking for long-time service providers.
• One-Time Payment. This type of employee monitoring software issues perpetual licensing and is typically downloadable and can be used offline. These types of platforms, however, would often require frequent additional purchases for every update.

Another way to distinguish among the types of employee monitoring software is the manner of deployment. This can be on-premise, cloud-based, or hybrid.

• On-Premise. This type installs the software on-site on a central server. The user may also download the software installer from the web. This typically requires a one-time license purchase.
• Cloud-based. This type of deployment does not require on-site installation. Instead, the vendor provides the server for the software and is accessed by users via a web browser. The advantages of a cloud-based deployment are lower investment, accessibility, and scalability.
• Hybrid. This type of deployment allows users to run a cloud-based employee monitoring app or download a client. It offers flexibility but syncing employee status may take longer between client and web portals