Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Do your employees leave the computers on overnight?

Published
by
Adrian Roman
on March 13, 2009
in Cyclope and HowTo
. 6 Comments

For as long as computers are around, there’s been a debate about whether you should leave the computer on overnight or turn it off at the end of the day. Computers aren’t the most greedy electronics component when it comes to energy use, but they can sure pull their weight.

For a company, leaving the computers on overnight means unnecessary costs. A study from 2007 revealed that 30%  of corporate computers are not switched off at night. The cost that overnight computing? 14.4 million metric tons of CO2 and $1.72 billion.

Why are computers left on overnight?

Most computers are left on because people see shutting down the PCs as simply too much trouble. Other employees use the company’s computers to download movies and music from torrents sites.

What can be done?

It depends on the policy of the company, but firstly you need to measure and only after take actions. Cyclope, our productivity tool, let’s you see whether the computers are left on overnight or not. Let’s take, for example, the following charts generated by the “Overview” report.

Computer not left overnight

Computer left overnight

Continue reading ‘Do your employees leave the computers on overnight?’

Cyclope officially launched on the Russian market

Published
by
Anca Suciu
on March 13, 2009
in Cyclope
. 0 Comments

Thanks to our partner, Profy Inc., Cyclope is now present in Russia. March 11, 2009 is the date of the officially launch of Cyclope.ru – the dedicated website for Russian managers interested in having an employee productivity tool in their company.

Russian flag“Considering the global financial crisis, many companies are forced to seek ways to reduce costs and increase business efficiency”. These are the words of Ilya Korsun, General Director of Profy.com and Cyclope-Series partner on the Russian market, who is confident that by introducing Cyclope – Employee Monitoring Software on this market, organizations from various profiles will not have to pay anymore for matters that do not represent any value for the company.

Moreover, the need for this kind of solution in Russia is higher because statistics show that “office workers spend up to half of their time on activities not related to work: playing computer games, socializing with friends in ICQ and in social networks, visiting entertainment sites and writing blogs.”

Wish you good luck, Cyclope.ru, and let’s do our best to help Russian companies improve their business processes and performances.

The entire press release can be find here (Russian version).

10 Quotes and Sayings about Productivity

Published
by
Adrian Roman
on March 12, 2009
in Misc and Productivity
. 0 Comments

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.(Franz Kafka)

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. (Paul J.Mayer)

The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager. (Peter Drucker)

Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite. (Paul Gauguin)

I think we spend too much on K-12 education a.k.a. teachers’ salaries. It’s the only industry where you never see any productivity increases. (Peter Brimelow)

The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity. (Thomas J. Peter)

Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well. (Margaret J. Wheatley)

I have always advocated for funding and programs that increase our productivity and competitiveness. (George Allen)

In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create. (Raoul Vaneigem)

Productivity and the growth of productivity must be the first economic consideration at all times, not the last. That is the source of technological innovation, jobs, and wealth. (William E. Simon)

[Via Brainyquotes.com]

Bureau of Labor statistics: productivity decreases while costs increase

Published
by
Eli Ghidiu
on March 11, 2009
in Misc and Productivity
. 0 Comments

For the fourth quarter of 2008, the news is not so pleasant regarding productivity and costs in the economical sectors. It seems that the financial crisis involving cut jobs, made economy sensitive and vulnerable.

The statistics for this period made by the US Bureau of Labor indicates that productivity cut down at a 0.4 percent, while costs increased at 5.7 percent more than the prior predictions. The problems will continue to appear as long as companies will cut jobs in order to reduce costs. In this way, the labor markets will confront with more problems because consumer will limit its further spending magnifying the risk this recession may be even worst.

This productivity decreasing firstly surprised the economists who were expecting an increase with 1.5 percents and not a 0.4 percent decrease. As a consequence, a revision for the annual rate is required considering that the estimated dates indicate rises of 3.2 percents. A comparison chart for all sectors is available on the official site of Bureau of Labor, starting with 2004 until 2008 and the differences are significant. Unfortunately at this moment no one can certainly say how and when this recession will end.

Fight Over Internet Filtering Has a Test Run in Europe

Published
by
admin
on March 11, 2009
in Internet Filtering
. 0 Comments

Europe’s influence over technology regulation has led U.S. companies to send lobbyists to try and influence European lawmakers as they debate Internet access policy.

“The U.S. companies see the outcome of the fight in Europe as key,” says Jeremie Zimmermann, a lobbyist for French Internet advocacy group La Quadrature du Net. “Each side is hoping to score points on the issue here so they can take it back to the [United States] to influence the outcome there.”

Net neutrality is supported by free-speech advocates and Internet businesses that want to prevent network operators from filtering Internet traffic, but Internet service providers say that basic traffic management is needed to deal with the soaring demand for bandwidth. The outcome of the debate over net neutrality could affect whether consumers will continue to have access to unlimited bandwidth for downloads on a flat-rate plan, or if they will have to pay higher fees based on the amount of data they download.

Continue reading ‘Fight Over Internet Filtering Has a Test Run in Europe’

How to Monitor Employee Attendance

Published
by
Adrian Roman
on March 10, 2009
in Cyclope, Employee Monitoring and HowTo
. 2 Comments

One of the most delicate issues an employer has to deal with is how to handle an employee’s attendance problem. Managing staff needs patience, compassion and a firm attitude, but firstly need relevant information.  Attendance records should be reviewed regularly to ensure that staff members attendance problems do not go unnoticed for an extended period.

Cyclope, our productity tool, is able to record and show relevant attendance information (for any considered time interval): 

  • -  Start work time - the time when the employee has started the computer (ideal for employees that work mostly on computer)
  • -  End work time - the tiem when computer activity ended (the computer is stopped)
  • -  Total work time - the total time as the diference between the End work time and Start work time (time period from the starting and shutting down the machine)
  • -  Active - the active time spent on computer (while mouse was moved or keys were stroken)
  • -  Overtime – the active time spent over the working hours
  • -  Idle – the idle/pasive time spent on the computer (while mouse was not moved and keys were not stroken)

Take a look below to the report sample. The time interval considered was “Last week”, between 2nd and 8th of March. The report shows only 5 records as there were only 5 working days.

Cyclope attendance report Continue reading ‘How to Monitor Employee Attendance’

Employee productivity affected by job recognition

Published
by
Anca Suciu
on March 10, 2009
in Business Tips, Misc and Productivity
. 1 Comment

Job recognition seems to be an important motivating factor for employees in Middle East. A study conducted by Byat.com concluded that in this region’s workplace the bigger barrier to employees’ productivity is the lack of job recognition. A high percentage of the respondents, 41% more exactly, confessed that their efforts at work are not appreciated enough and this affects the level of their productivity in a negative way.motivate-employees

Another aspect that has a bad influence over the employees’ productivity is the ambiguity of roles. For 31% of the respondents of the poll this is a big barrier to their professional development as their productivity is negatively affected.

Other important conclusions of the study of performance appraisals are: Continue reading ‘Employee productivity affected by job recognition’

Finlanda’s new law allows e-mail monitoring

Published
by
Eli Ghidiu
on March 9, 2009
in Employee Monitoring, Misc and Productivity
. 3 Comments

gavelLast week, Finland’s parliament has approved a very controversy law regarding electronic communications monitoring for data protection. The law’s name is “Lex Nokia” because the mobile telephone company Nokia asked authorities to monitor the employees’ emails suspected for revealing private information to competitors.

The case opened a huge controversy especially after the media indicated that Nokia has blackmailed the authorities threatened to leave the country if the law will not be accepted. A spokesman for Nokia said: “Nokia categorically denies making a threat to Finland…the law up till now has been problematic as it can be interpreted in many ways.” (Source)

Now that the law is accepted, employers are legitimized to track the activities of employees who are suspected of leaking company’s information, copying copyrighted resources or any other activity that might put the company at risk. Not only the law is controversy but also the people’ opinions because many of us are considering this as an attack to privacy rights. Are you thinking the same?

Cyclope.pl has been launched

Published
by
Anca Suciu
on March 6, 2009
in Cyclope and Misc
. 1 Comment

We were mentioning in the latest posts that efforts are made by Cyclope-Series team for expanding our partners’ network. In this respect, beside translating the software’s user interface in many languages, different versions of websites are currently under development. Now, it’s time for Polish version to come into the light.

polandThe Polish people can now find all the information they want about Cyclope – our employee productivity tool – in their language. Cyclope.pl has been launched this week and the recognition is for CRDE Sp. j., our partner from Poland.

Languages available, beside English :) of course:

Croatian users stay around because Croatian version of Cyclope-Series will be here in the nearest future.

P.S. Do not forget about the demo versions available in Czech, English, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Spanish. Find their exact location here: “Cyclope-hungarian-online-demo-available”

How to identify the most active employees

Published
by
Adrian Roman
on March 6, 2009
in Business Tips, Cyclope, Employee Monitoring and HowTo
. 0 Comments

The most active employees are not necessarly the most productive ones, but the effort may also may be relevant when it comes to activity evaluation. Let’s see how you can measure how many hours an employee has spent on the computer.

Starting from version 4.0, Cyclope productivity tool shows a new set of statistics that we called “tops”. One of these statistics shows the most active 15 users from a department or from the entire organisation.

‘Top Active’ report adds the active times spent on the computer for each user/employee for a time period (day, week, month) and orders them in descending order (the most active at the top). Thus, you can identify the employees that have spent the most time on the computers.

Cyclope Top 15 Active Users

The important aspect of this report is that only the active time is considered. The active time is the time period while keys are stroked or the mouse is moved. If during 15-30 seconds there is not user activity, the time is not counted as active time.

How to use this report

As mentioned, this report identifies the most active employees as computer users. This means the employees that use computers the  most. It does not mean they are the more productive.

Let’s consider, for example, an employee that spent 10 active hours on the computer, but only 5 using productive applications (project related tools). This employee is less productive than another one that spent 7 active hours and 6 hours using productive tools.

In order to identify the productivity level for each user another report is provided, called ‘Productivity Report’, that will be explained in a future post.