Monitoring software takes a firm position in the business industry due to boosting the employees’ productivity and securing sensitive data. But its nature has a dual character including its use as a parental control software. So, this article will further reveal these two faces of comprehensive monitoring software.
Monitoring Software For Families
Kids are one of the most vulnerable layers of society. Parents cannot spend 24/7 looking after them, that’s why they are constantly in search of an effective tool to track their location and online activities.
What first to pay attention to is the mode of operation. The majority of monitoring software operates in a stealth mode that is rather difficult to detect.
Moreover, parental control software allows parents to reveal the secrets of social media lives, thus preventing possible troubles such as illegal content, online bullying, content labeled 18+, etc. It gives access to messengers like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, and others where their kids spend much time of the day chatting sometimes with unknown people.
Younger children are tracked for how long they spend time online watching YouTube or playing games, and how much traffic they use. As a result, parents may take a decision to shorten the time online.
Monitoring software makes it easier to bring children up, somehow preventing constant quarrels with kids. If a parent is aware that his kid is safe, he is peaceful and in balance with all family members.
The overall reasons why to use parental control software are:
- Online safety
- Social media and communication oversight
- Screen time management
- Location tracking and safety
- Preventing exposure to illegal activities
- Parental peace of mind
Benefits of Parental Control Software
Parental control software plays a crucial role in providing the safety of the kids. The received records are utilized as a solution to many hypothetically possible troubles. What, in general, such software brings:
- Ensure online safety
- Monitor social media and communication
- Limit screen time
- Track location for added safety
- Prevent exposure to illegal activities
- Provide insights into online behavior
- Facilitate responsible online use
- Reduce parental anxiety
- Control app downloads and usage
- Encourage a balanced digital life
The above benefits encourage parents to use monitoring software, as it helps protect their kids from online threats.
Monitoring Software for Businesses
Monitoring software for businesses is a cornerstone used to boost productivity, protect confidential data, and prevent data leakage. The tendency to implement employee monitoring software persists as employers strive to keep track of their businesses. Moreover, post-pandemic times still maintain a remote and hybrid mode of work, so this instrument is irreplaceable plus effective.
The effectiveness of this tool is confirmed by a wealth of features. For example, such a feature as face recognition proves whether the right employee starts the target computer. Additionally, an employer is able to assess the active vs. idle times, surf the web history, and applications opened. In general, this monitoring software is positioned to understand whether your personnel operate on a proper level and work on related tasks only.
Common features included in almost all available employee monitoring software:
- Web camera viewing
- Messengers monitoring (Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, etc)
- Screen and webcam recording
- Call recording
- Face recognition
- Printer Monitoring
- Web history + blocking unscrupulous sites
- Alert keywords
- Сompany analytics
Each company developing employee monitoring software constantly updates the functionality to draw the attention to its product as there is a high degree of competition on the market.
Such a high competition contributes to the introduction of new features and advancement of the previously designed. Besides, each company-user gets as many benefits as possible; among them, there are:
- Increased productivity
- Improved time management
- Enhanced data security
- Detailed reports on the staff productivity
- Remote team management
- Employee well-being tracking
- Geofencing for field workers
- Enhanced integration with business tools
The above benefits reveal the main reasons why business niches implement this software. However, it is mandatory to maintain transparent relations among employers and employees, not violating the rights of the second ones.
Comparison: Similarities and Differences
These two faces are closely connected with each other united by similarities and separated by differences. Sometimes, parents are confused about buying the software not functioning as a parental control, that’s why it is mandatory to assess the similarities and differences of monitoring software.
Similarities include:
- Ensuring safety and accountability
- Tracking activities
- Stealth mode
- Real-time notifications and records
- Reports and analytics
- Control and restrictions (both parents and employers are able to block certain websites, apps)
If you are parents aiming to monitor specific activities of your children and have confused these two products, you can still use it if you find the necessary features in the list of similarities.
As speaking about differences, the first to mention is the objective to implement monitoring software. Parents are eager to protect kids from online threats, when business leaders set it up to boost productivity and monitor work-related activities.
The next difference lies in data security; parents try to safeguard children from external threats (online, first of all), businessmen – to prevent internal ones. The type of monitoring activity is also different for both sides; parents seek to get records on the web history, apps’ usage and incoming and outgoing chats and call logs. Business type of monitoring is a little diverse; additionally to browsing and application usage, businesses monitor employee productivity, time management, project engagement, and use features like screen and webcam recording, call recording, or document tracking. Type of monitoring is closely connected with features necessary to track the activities in both cases.
Having analyzed the above facts, there are more differences than similarities but still employee monitoring can be utilized partly as a parental control software. Besides, it becomes obvious that monitoring software is an effective instrument with diverse applications. Are you parents aiming to protect your kids? Are you a businessman with burn out personnel and low productivity? Both of you may max over all features of monitoring software.
