As remote and hybrid workforces become more common, companies have felt a greater need to connect with employees. Employee monitoring has gained popularity in recent years as a way to help companies keep their in-person and remote workers aligned and working towards common goals. It can also be a good tool to manage employee schedules, increase productivity, and motivate high performers—not to mention the myriad data and security benefits.
At first, some employees may associate employee monitoring software with surveillance, distrust, and micromanagement. Implementing an ethical employee monitoring program requires complete transparency with employees, delineating clear reasons for starting the program and the benefits employees can expect to gain from it. You also need to find the right software for your business to help the organization reach maximum productivity.
While monitoring software is common for Windows-based devices, Macs and MacBooks have a surprising lack of monitoring software. If you’re a Mac-based company considering a monitoring solution, check out the best employee monitoring software for Macs and MacBooks below.
The 9 Best Employee Monitoring Software for Macs
The best employee monitoring software for your organization depends on your unique needs and budget. There are many choices on the market. We’ve outlined the top solutions for Macs and highlighted their strengths, weaknesses, and budgetary requirements.
1. Teramind
Teramind is one of the most robust employee monitoring tools on the market. With a long list of advanced features, Teramind offers activity logs, location tracking, regulatory compliance, security enforcement, and more. A fully customizable solution, Teramind allows you to tailor a service that makes sense for your business.
Whether your organization works in an industry with strict data regulations and compliance parameters, like healthcare, or you have remote employees you want to incentivize to be more productive, Teramind provides versatile solutions that work seamlessly with your company policies. It also offers dedicated customer support.
Key Employee Monitoring Features of Teramind
- Remote Desktop Control: In the event of a regulatory compliance violation or security risk, Teramind allows authorized administrators to remotely take over an employee’s Mac to resolve the issue.
- RDP Session Recording: Besides allowing remote takeover, Teramind facilitates best-in-class session recording to document incidents for educational and legal purposes.
- 15+ Monitoring Channels: Teramind can monitor practically any communication channel your organization uses, from email to social media to internet usage. It even includes keystroke logging to protect against insider threats.
- Smart Rules & Automated Alerts: You don’t need to know every click employees make, so Teramind allows you to set smart rules for what you want to monitor and send automated alerts whenever those rules are triggered.
- Unproductive Work Time Analysis: Teramind’s real-time monitoring tools identify unproductive and idle work time, giving you complex data to understand employee habits during their active time.
Additional Teramind Features
- Data Loss Prevention: Teramind protects your sensitive data and IP from breaches, thefts, leaks, and other cybersecurity threats with real-time activity logs and keystroke monitoring.
- Insider Threat Management: Teramind analyzes security risks within your network, flagging suspicious employee behavior before it escalates.
- User & Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA): Enhanced by machine learning, Teramind’s UEBA protects your business from today’s complex cyber threat landscape.
- Business Process Optimization: Teramind makes it easier to identify workflow bottlenecks and improve employee productivity and performance.
- Hybrid Workforce Management: Accurately forecast operational, resource, and labor needs for projects and tasks to better allocate your hybrid workforce where needed.
Teramind Pricing
Teramind’s pricing is typically structured around the number of users and the specific features required, with several tiers to accommodate different sizes and types of businesses:
- Starter: Starts at $15 per user per month
- UAM: Starts at $30 per user per month
- DLP: Starts at $35 per user per month
- Enterprise: Tailored for large organizations needing full functionality, including video recording, forensic auditing, and more.
What Are Customers Saying About Teramind?
- Excellent product with a wide range of use cases.
- The #1 most important productivity and employee management tool for any workplace.
- With Teramind, I feel empowered to manage my team effectively while maintaining a secure work environment. Highly recommend it!
- The real-time monitoring capabilities have been incredibly helpful in keeping track of my team’s progress, and the user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate and customize alerts.
2. ActivTrak
One of the more affordable user activity monitoring and analytics tools, ActivTrak is a cloud-based software making it accessible from any Mac. Unlike some other employee monitoring software, ActivTrak prioritizes privacy above all, so rather than tracking sensitive data like keyboard strokes and cameras, it focuses on identifying broader trends like efficiency roadblocks and burnout trends.
Key Features of ActivTrak
- Employee activity logs: ActivTrak emphasizes employee mental health and success, providing analytics on employee habits to prevent burnout and promote collaboration.
- Productivity software: ActivTrak proactively analyzes employee work patterns and processes to identify waste, bottlenecks, and opportunities to improve day-to-day operations.
ActivTrak Drawbacks
- Difficult to track individual employee activity history
- Limited time-tracking feature compared to competitors
- No monitoring of suspicious employee behavior like keystroke logging or emails, which can lead to more significant security risks
ActivTrak Pricing
- Free: $0
- Essentials: $10/per user per month
- Professional: $17/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
ActivTrak is one of the most affordable employee monitoring solutions for Macs and offers great value for the money. However, it lacks an in-depth history of employee activity, which can expose organizations to future compliance and insider threats.
Learn how ActivTrak compares to Teramind.
3. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is primarily a time-tracking and productivity tool. It is user-friendly for distributed teams that need a productivity software solution that tracks employee active time. Additionally, it offers location tracking, automated payroll, online invoicing, and budget management tools to optimize operations.
Key Features of Hubstaff
- Time-tracking: Hubstaff’s intuitive user interface and productivity features are helpful for managing employee schedules, tracking individual contributions to projects, and tracking contractor time. They’re also useful for delineating billable and non-billable hours.
- Reporting: Automated time reporting and cost management tools help larger teams stay under budget on projects.
Hubstaff Drawbacks
- Limited beyond time-tracking feature
- Mac monitoring tools have a reputation for crashing
- No monitoring solutions for data, compliance parameters, and other valuable features of other software
Hubstaff Pricing
- Hubstaff Time
- Time Free: $0
- Time Starter: $5.83/per user per month
- Time Pro: $8.33/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- Hubstaff Desk
- Desk Free: $0
- Desk Starter: $5.83/per user per month
- Desk Pro: $8.33/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- Hubstaff Field
- Field Pro: $10/per user per month
- Desk Field: $12.50/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Hubstaff is a user-friendly solution for small teams of remote workers who want to track active time and keep payroll under budget. However, it falls short of other employee monitoring software if you’re looking to bolster security, enforce regulatory compliance, and incentivize better employee performance.
Learh how Hubstaff compares to Teramind here.
4. Toggl Track
Toggl Track is a highly customizable, user-friendly time-tracking tool that eliminates the tedium of manually filling out timesheets. Its intuitive dashboard helps manage larger teams, cross-departmental projects, and freelancers.
Key Features of Toggl Track
- Ease of use: Highly customizable with an intuitive user interface, Toggl Track is effortless to integrate into your business.
- Payroll assistant: Toggl Track lets you track billable and non-billable hours across projects, making it a valuable payroll assistant.
Toggl Track Drawbacks
- Lacks project management features
- Offers no real-time monitoring tools beyond time tracking
- Lightweight analytics prevent serious insight into employee productivity and time
Toggl Track Pricing
- Free: $0
- Starter: $9/per user per month
- Premium: $18/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
A user-friendly option for teams or organizations on a budget, Toggl Track offers a customizable, easy-to-use billing and time-tracking solution. However, it lacks security solutions and analytics for other employee monitoring solutions.
5. Time Doctor
Another tool primarily focusing on time tracking, Time Doctor goes further than competitors by providing detailed analytics into how employees use their time, from websites to app usage. The intuitive online dashboard makes it easier to support employee performance reviews.
Key Features of Time Doctor
- Productivity analytics: Powerful, user-friendly analytics offer data-driven insights at the task and project levels, which can help an organization improve employee time management.
- Integrations: Time Doctor offers many third-party integrations, making it fit seamlessly into existing workflows with other platforms.
Time Doctor Drawbacks
- Some users feel it’s too expensive for the service it provides
- Certain integrations are reportedly clunky and challenging to implement
- Lacks valuable features for security and compliance
Time Doctor Pricing
- Basic: $5.90/per user per month
- Standard: $8.40/per user per month
- Premium: $16.70/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Time Doctor is a good tool for better understanding how employees are using their time, managing employee schedules, and identifying high performers. However, as an employee monitoring tool, it falls short of more robust tools.
Learn how Time Doctor compares to Teramind.
6. Monitask
Monitask is a user-friendly, cloud-based solution that allows business owners and/or managers to track online timesheets, app usage, screenshots from employees, mouse/keyboard activity logs, and more. Unlike some of the previous tools, it goes well beyond time tracking.
Key Features of Monitask
- Employee activity history: With tools for location tracking, accessing screenshots from employees, and activity logs, Monitask offers better security solutions than many competitors.
- Central dashboard: Monitask’s live intuitive dashboard offers real-time updates on employee productivity, desktop screenshots, project success, and more essential business details.
Monitask Drawbacks
- Clunky time-tracking tools make it challenging to build break time slots into timesheets.
- Some users complain that poor tech causes online dashboards to break down.
- Comparatively, on the expensive side.
Monitask Pricing
- Pro: $5.99/per user per month
- Business: $8.99/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Monitask goes beyond many time-tracking solutions to offer real-time updates on employee activity history and project status. It’s an effective project management tool and, due to keystroke monitoring, offers some security and compliance management. However, it remains a less comprehensive employee monitoring solution than Teramind, and some users complain of clunky tech.
7. Desktime
DeskTime is an employee monitoring tool that tracks app, internet, program usage, and employee habits. The fully automated, user-friendly platform registers when employees start and stop working and provides detailed reports on productivity, performance, and more.
Key Features of Desktime
- Detailed document tracking: DeskTime can track the titles of documents and files employees work on — not just internet usage.
- Private time: When working on something outside of work during business hours, employees can toggle private time to avoid being tracked temporarily. This is a nice feature to give employees a tracking option.
Desktime Drawbacks
- Due to automated tracking, sometimes idle time slots are not accurately registered.
- No task assignments and limited project management solutions
- Lacks valuable features for security and compliance
Desktime Pricing
- Pro: $6.42/per user per month
- Premium: $9.17/per user per month
- Enterprise: $18.33/per user per month
DeskTime is helpful in identifying employee work patterns and the time they spend on specific projects. This is useful for identifying bottlenecks and improving employee performance. However, it falls short as a security and project management solution.
8. Workscape
Workscape is comprehensive productivity software that lets you track time and actively manage employee schedules and success. You can configure work-related and non-work-related websites and applications to track employee activity history and app usage, take desktop screenshots from employee monitors, and more.
Key Features of Workscape
- Superlatives: Designating “most active” and “least active” workers is an easy way to identify high performers and those who could use an extra push.
- Silent installation: You can install Workspace without employees’ knowledge, which does not give employees the option to refuse monitoring.
Workscape Drawbacks
- Keystroke logging is not available on Mac
- No project management solutions
- Features are primarily geared toward employee surveillance rather than remote monitoring.
Workscape Pricing
- Starts at $1 per device per month
Workspace is valuable productivity software for organizations that want to track employee habits and keep them off time-wasting sites. That said, it can quickly feel like more of a surveillance and control tool to employees, given its options for secrecy and lack of performance improvement tools. Likewise, the Mac version does not have a complete feature suite.
9. Insightful
As its name suggests, Insightful prioritizes insights into your real-time and historical time-tracking data to increase productivity and support better performance reviews. It offers tiered, versatile solutions based on your organizational goals, allowing you to save money if you want to gather less data.
Key Features of Insightful
- Tiered pricing: Insightful offers productivity tracking, time tracking, process improvement, and enterprise solutions, allowing you to tailor a program to your business needs.
- Real-time tracking: The user-friendly online dashboard offers real-time monitoring of employee work patterns so you can understand what’s on track to be done on time and what’s at risk. This also helps you identify billable and non-billable hours.
Insightful Drawbacks
- Lacks valuable features for security and compliance
- Users often complain about time-tracking feature failures
- Limited project management features
Insightful Pricing
- Productivity management: $6.40/per user per month
- Time tracking: $8/per user per month
- Process improvement: $12/per user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
Insightful makes it easier to track what employees schedule and what they are working on at any given time thanks to real-time tracking. However, it lacks project management and security features and doesn’t offer more robust remote monitoring tools like screen recording or popular integrations, such as Google Drive or Slack.
What to Look for in Employee Monitoring Software for Macs
The best employee monitoring software for Macs comes down to your particular business’s needs. There are a few things to remember before making such a significant business decision.
Track Multiple Monitoring Channels
Organizations use multiple communication channels, so your employee monitoring software should be able to track them, too. Many solutions are restricted to internet-connected channels like email, web, and Slack. Some don’t even extend to Slack or internet usage. When considering an option for your business, ensure all your channels — including documents and files — are covered.
Ease of Use
Nobody wants to struggle to learn a new platform or tool. Simple time-tracking solutions are more straightforward but may not offer all the unique features you want. When looking for an employee monitoring solution, demo all the various features to understand precisely how user-friendly a program is, even as the features get more complex. For instance, if you suspect remote employees aren’t working, look for a solution that can help you identify unproductive vs. productive time.
Scalability and Flexibility
Most employee monitoring solutions become more expensive as you add users. They can also become clunkier or slower when servicing large organizations. Ensure that any employee monitoring software can support the number of users you’ll need it to help and that it stays within budget.
Additionally, less versatile solutions have a reputation for making it difficult to delete users or change users. You want a flexible solution that can grow and change with your company policies and staff.
Audit & Forensics Capabilities
In the event of a security breach or regulatory compliance violation, it’s invaluable to understand how the issue occurred. Most employee monitoring solutions cannot support system auditing and forensics, and, to be fair, many companies don’t need such robust capabilities. However, companies working in healthcare or tech that are trusted with customer data and responsible for adhering to complex data regulations should have this capability.
After all, the best way to avoid future issues is to identify how one occurred.
Remote Desktop Control
An essential element of averting security breaches or data violations is catching potential threats before they happen. Whether an employee mistakenly opens a corrupted file or sends an email that doesn’t correctly protect a client’s information, remote desktop control allows admins or IT to step in and mitigate threats before they become real problems.
Session Recording
Finally, a crucial tool for preventing future organizational and employee slip-ups is being able to record remote desktop sessions for educational purposes. These recording sessions can help explain to employees why or how something was done wrong and how to approach similar issues in the future. Should the organization ever have to defend itself in court over security breaches or data violations, recording is also an invaluable tool to demonstrate what actions were taken to resolve any issues.
Conclusion
There is no shortage of employee monitoring apps for Macs and MacBooks on the market. Depending on your organization and the structure of your remote team, a simple time-tracking feature may suffice. On the other hand, if you want to implement an employee monitoring program that maximizes productivity, bolsters security and regulatory compliance, and enhances employee performance, you’ll need a more comprehensive solution.
