MSP Clients' Struggles With Employee Monitoring Tools: Redefining Productivity Solutions

For years, MSPs have received requests to find solutions that aid their clients in enhancing productivity and performance. However, constrained by limited options, they frequently default to recommending products primarily geared toward employee monitoring.

You and your clients have decided to avoid employee monitoring and traditional productivity tracking tools. The main reason is simple: These tools often violate employee trust and fail to address the underlying issues that hinder workplace productivity.

However, the challenges of optimizing work efficiency and ensuring effective collaboration still persist. So, what’s the next step?

What factors of work are impairing productivity?

First, let’s understand the ongoing challenges of digital work!

We spend a lot of time discussing employee productivity but often overlook the biggest factors that impair it. Distracting communication tools, excessive time lost in meetings, and the high costs of context switching significantly undermine knowledge worker productivity.

These issues create a fragmented work environment, where constant interruptions and shifting focus prevent teams from achieving deep, meaningful work. To truly enhance productivity, we must address these underlying challenges and implement strategies that minimize distractions, streamline communication, and reduce the inefficiencies caused by frequent context switching .

1. Excessive time wasted in meetings and collaborations

Scenario: Your clients don’t realize how much time is being lost via unproductive meetings and excessive collaboration. Without clear data, it's difficult to identify and eliminate these time sinks.

Solution: Rather than using monitoring tools to micromanage team interactions, focus on gathering data to understand the discrepancy between planned activities and actual occurrences. This will help your client’s team identify and reduce ad hoc meetings, which often unexpectedly consume significant portions of the day. Providing MSP clients with this insight allows them to regain control over their schedules and prioritize their tasks.

2. Distractions from messaging apps and emails

Scenario: Your client’s team struggles to stay focused due to constant interruptions from messaging apps and email notifications, which can severely impact productivity.

Solution: Empower your clients to understand their work habits and make informed decisions about managing their time and applications. Encourage them to adjust notification settings and plan their day to minimize distractions. By fostering a culture of self-awareness and personal accountability, they can develop strategies to maintain focus and enhance their productivity.

3. Time spent on work about work

Scenario: Your client’s team spends significant time on "work about work," which leads to productive time leaks. This includes context-switching between multiple tasks, searching for information across numerous apps, and using tools that do not align with organizational goals.

Solution: Help your client gain a clear understanding of how workflows are costing them time by providing them insight into their workday. Analyze how they switch between tasks and identify tools that cause inefficiencies. Encourage the use of applications that support the organization's objectives and facilitate focused work on high-impact tasks. This approach ensures the client’s team’s efforts are aligned with overall goals, thus maximizing productivity and effectiveness.

A new approach to productivity

To address these three factors impairing the workday, help your clients implement a solution that provides actionable insights without compromising employee trust. Digital work analytics platforms like Produce8 offer a comprehensive view of how work is being done, enabling you to make informed decisions that benefit both the organization and its employees.

Produce8 differentiates itself from monitoring tools in three distinct ways:

Empowerment through transparency: Produce8 provides employees with visibility into their work patterns and productivity metrics. By giving individuals control over their data and insights, Produce8 enables them to actively participate in the optimization of their work habits and performance by running personal productivity challenges.

Insightful analytics for actionable solutions: Instead of inundating users with raw data, Produce8 distills complex metrics into clear, actionable insights that empower organizations to make informed decisions. Whether it's identifying bottlenecks in workflows, detecting trends in collaboration patterns, or optimizing resource allocation, Produce8 equips businesses with the knowledge needed to drive meaningful improvements.

Focus on collaboration and engagement: By providing visibility into collective work patterns and collaboration dynamics, Produce8 encourages communication, knowledge sharing, and synergy among team members. This collaborative approach enhances productivity and cultivates a sense of camaraderie and cohesion within the workforce.

What’s the difference between employee monitoring tools and work analytics?

Unlike employee monitoring tools, which may focus solely on surveillance and compliance, a digital work analytics tool provides deeper insights into how work is performed.

Ultimately, a digital work analytics tool identifies productivity challenges while equipping organizations with the insights they need to make impactful changes and take control of their workday.

Join the Produce8 Partnership Program

If your goal is to maintain trust and morale, avoiding employee monitoring and traditional productivity tracking tools is a step in the right direction. However, the need to address productivity challenges remains.

By leveraging digital work analytics, you can empower your clients and their teams to understand and improve their work habits and align their efforts with organizational goals. This approach ensures that they have the tools and insights needed to work more efficiently and effectively — without the invasive scrutiny of monitoring tools. Embrace this solution to drive meaningful change and enhance productivity across your organization.

Reach out to our team of productivity experts and we can get you set up in the Produce8 Partner Program . This way, your MSP will have everything it needs to empower your clients to take back control of their day.