WorkTime employee monitoring for outsourced teams

May 29, 2024

15 min read

Employee monitoring improves the quality of outsourcing

Welcome to the WorkTime website! This article has been prepared by the WorkTime team. We have specialized in non-invasive employee monitoring for over 20 years.

An example of outsourcing

The most common industries for outsourcing examples are IT services, customer service, accounting, legal services, HR or talent acquisition, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, and cleaning services.
Many companies opt for outsourcing, as evidenced by the booming global logistics outsourcing market, currently valued at $986 billion.
Outsourcing tasks such as advertising, cleaning, call centers, and website development are the most common. Business owners often rely on remote professionals for accounting, maintenance, and staffing. This allows them to focus company resources on core activities. Among the world-known examples of outsourcing companies are WhatsApp, Alibaba, Google, and Skype.
H&M, a major global fashion retailer, exemplifies outsourcing manufacturing. Instead of owning production facilities, the company rents them across over 50 countries.
WorkTime provides non-invasive monitoring solutions designed to assist companies in overseeing outsourcing processes and maintaining a focus on the efficiency of remote employees. This becomes particularly crucial as businesses expand, necessitating the automation of control processes.

An example of foreign outsourcing

This is an example of outsourcing, in which the company transfers certain processes to a team that is not in-house. In this case, the companies generally outsource employees to another country. Here is an example of outsource to foreign countries: The US software development company outsources its customer support services to a call center in India. This call center is staffed by agents fluent in English and trained to handle technical inquiries and customer service issues. By outsourcing customer support operations to India, a US company can benefit from lower labor costs while providing quality customer support. Toyota, as a multinational corporation, extensively utilizes U.S. suppliers due to its significant market presence in the country.
Approximately 70% of Toyota's vehicle production is outsourced, but the company retains control over engineering and design aspects.
This strategy is one of the successful outsourcing examples that led to a strong reputation and goodwill in the U.S., as the company hires local employees and effectively navigates cultural differences, which can hinder relationships with foreign suppliers in the industry.

What is the meaning of BPO?

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the delegation of business functions or particular tasks to an external vendor. The history of BPO started as a component of the manufacturing industry in the 1950s and transformed into a business strategy in the late 1980s. Nowadays, BPO is one of the most common outsourcing trends, increasing in popularity from year to year.
WorkTime employee monitoring for outsourced teams
Source: Market.us Which is the best example of outsourcing business processes? Perhaps, it is BPO call centers. Still, it is just one of the many variants of this strategy application. It is possible to single out two main categories of BPO: back office and front office functions. The most frequent processes for outsourcing are the following:
  • IT services;
  • Customer support;
  • Accounting and payroll;
  • Manufacturing;
  • Marketing;
  • Human resources.
Companies worldwide choose to outsource their processes to the best outsourcing companies for several reasons. Cost reduction is the first (and most widespread) cause of BPO. Flexibility and access to top talent are also among the reasons for outsourcing.

What is the difference between outsourcing and BPO

Outsourcing is a broader concept compared to BPO. “Outsourcing” includes all types of hiring a third-party contractor, such as data processing outsourcing, data entry outsourcing, onshoring, insourcing, offshoring, etc. Business process outsourcing is just one of the outsourcing forms. Outsourcing examples involve a variety of tasks, processes, and services contracted to a vendor, while business process outsourcing examples refer to specific business features/processes only.

Which is the largest outsourcing country in the world?

Several leading countries serve as the primary outsourcing hubs globally due to various factors: affordable costs, work ethics, government support, taxes, a highly skilled talent pool, etc. India is one of the most successful outsourcing examples. It is widely regarded as the largest outsourcing country in the world. India has established itself as a global outsourcing hub, particularly in industries such as IT, customer service, software development, and business process outsourcing (BPO), which is one of the outsourcing trends nowadays. India's outsourcing industry benefits from factors such as a large pool of skilled and English-speaking professionals, competitive labor costs, a favorable regulatory environment, and robust infrastructure.
India boasts an employment rate of 93.5% for software engineers, and its revenue market is projected to reach US $7.72 billion in 2024.
Other significant countries that are appealing for foreign outsourcing are the Philippines, Poland, Malaysia, Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. How to monitor outsourced services? Implementing employee monitoring is an effective strategy to ensure high productivity when to outsource contractors. WorkTime aids companies in managing outsourcing tasks and processes by employing non-invasive monitoring. WorkTime reports provide comprehensive metrics on efficiency and productive time. Furthermore, such monitoring contributes to the security of outsourcing processes, particularly when data confidentiality is of utmost importance.
WorkTime non-invasive real-time employee monitoring
WorkTime the best non-invasive employee monitoring

In a non-invasive way, WorkTime reports what employees are doing at the moment: who is active, who is idle, off work, or on vacation; who is productive, who is not; and what applications and websites are on employees' screens.

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Employee monitoring software can be beneficial for both employers and outsourcing agencies. Employers will be sure of their outsourced employees' high performance. As for outsourcing agencies, they can stand out from their competitors because the quality of their services is guaranteed by contractors’ productivity monitoring.

5 common problems with outsourcing

1. Cultural gap

Cultural differences may significantly affect cooperation. Sometimes, the approach to work can differ drastically across countries, resulting in misunderstandings and even conflicts. A language barrier is another problem, as it will be hard to stay confident that you remain on the same page with your contractors.

2. Different time zones

Different time zones are a problem if you want to stay in touch with your employees. Also, a lack of overlap in hours requires effective management to coordinate meetings and tasks. Monitor productivity regardless of time zone

3. Security risks

Many companies refuse to outsource because of data leak risks. That’s why the question of security should be a priority when choosing outsourcing service providers. Otherwise, your data can fall into the wrong hands.

4. Quality risks

You cannot be 100% sure you will get high-quality services when outsourcing processes to third parties. Besides, businesses often decide to outsource to reduce costs. By choosing low prices, employers can face poor quality.

5. Management challenges

Effective management is also a challenge when it comes to outsourced employees. The managers cannot guarantee the high performance of a remote team. Hence, employee monitoring software can become a great solution. WorkTime will be useful for tracking outsourced workers' productivity, attendance, active time, and other individual metrics.

Employee monitoring improves attendance, active time, and productivity

Effective monitoring, regardless of employee location

It’s important to ensure the team’s high performance, especially when employees are working remotely. WorkTime employee monitoring is a working tool to help businesses assess the productivity of their employees in any part of the world. Compare in-office and outsourced teams' productivity, attendance, and active time. Ensure that your remote team is at work and uses working time productively. With WorkTime employee monitoring, you will be confident that you are paying for productive time.
WorkTime monitors remote outsourced employees

WorkTime monitors and compares the performance of employees in different offices. With WorkTime, you can skip the guesswork and compare employee attendance, active time, and productivity across various locations.

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Ensure the required performance and high productivity

WorkTime monitoring tools help ensure your outsourced employees stay productive during the day. With non-invasive screen productivity analysis, you can access the productivity statistics for each employee when necessary. WorkTime analyzes the screen in numbers, showing what apps and websites are on the screen and whether they are productive or not.
WorkTime non-invasive employee screen monitoring

The non-invasive screen productivity analyzer from WorkTime offers numbers instead of images. For example, an employee's screen could be 50% unproductive due to YouTube use and 50% productive due to MS Word use. With WorkTime, you can identify the most unproductive and the most productive screens, and more!

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Moreover, the “What’s now?” report provides a comprehensive analysis of employee performance, including:
  • Current employee status;
  • What apps and websites are on the screen;
  • The duration since the last activity;
  • Active time per hour;
  • Active time timeline;
  • Whether the employee is in office/remote;
  • Employee’s arrival time;
  • Attendance, active time, and productivity goal.

Improve employee engagement

When you outsource, monitoring services will come in handy to keep employees engaged. Distraction is a common problem, no matter whether the employee works in the office or remotely. Even more, the distraction level of outsourced employees can be even higher. WorkTime monitoring software helps reduce distraction levels instantly. Comprehensive reports provide valuable insights on distraction score progress. You can easily detect distracted employees. Set goals for employees for attendance, active time, and productivity, and observe their progress.

Automatic active time monitoring

There is no problem with different time zones for WorkTime. The employee monitoring software tracks active time from various locations, regardless of where your workers work. And you will get detailed reports on active/idle time per employee/day/office.
WorkTime active time monitoring

Guaranteed data protection

Online outsourcing has a lot of benefits for companies. At the same time, such widespread business practice involves some risks. Information leakage is one of them. Track web and app usage with WorkTime employee monitoring to stay confident that sensitive information is safe and protected.
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WorkTime internet website URL use monitoring

WorkTime monitors employees' internet activities and measures productivity.

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Prevent employee overtime fraud

WorkTime employee monitoring is effective in revealing the early signs of employee overtime fraud. Be sure that if the employee tends to commit time theft, overtime fraud, or data theft, you will catch it on time.

Balance privacy and productivity

WorkTime is designed to be non-invasive, making it possible to monitor your employees without going too far. There is no need to break employees’ privacy to analyze their productivity. WorkTime provides a safe alternative to invasive screenshot recording. Instead, the software analyzes workers' performance in numbers based on numerous factors. You will get more than 60 comprehensive reports with statistics, providing valuable insights on each employee's attendance, active time, productivity, and more. Green employee monitoring is an effective way to boost productivity and maintain employee trust and respect. Get a free 14-days-trial right now to take advantage of WorkTime employee monitoring!

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