Employee Monitoring Glossary: 20 Terms Every Employer Should Know
Employee monitoring has its own vocabulary, and most of it is simpler than it sounds. This glossary explains the 20 terms employers actually encounter - from active time to works councils - in plain language. The Core Terms 1. ACTIVE TIME: time with observed input activity on a device (keystrokes, mouse, active applications). A measure of activity, not of value. 2. IDLE TIME: the opposite - periods without input activity. Says nothing about whether someone is working; a developer reading documentation produces no input. 3. WORKTIME TRACKING: recording when and how long employees work, for payroll, attendance and scheduling purposes. 4. ATTENDANCE TRACKING: recording presence - clock-in and clock-out, shift coverage, breaks. 5. APPLICATION USAGE: reports on which software employees use and for how long, used for resource allocation and license planning. 6. WEBSITE USAGE: reports on which sites are visited, typically aggregated and policy-bound. 7. PRODUCTIVITY ANALYTICS: pattern analysi...