Why does monitoring backfire?
Software that counts keystrokes, tracks mouse movement or takes a screenshot every few minutes measures activity. Activity isn't work. A consultant thinking through advice for an hour is inactive to such a tool; someone with a mouse jiggler is not.
What you measure steers people. If sitting still counts as ‘idle’, people start looking busy instead of doing good work. And people who feel watched log more cautiously: an extra hour on a safe client rather than an honest ‘this ran over’.
- Trust. Monitoring tells a team: we don't believe you. That costs more than it brings.
- Wrong incentive. People optimise for the meter, not the client.
- Noise. Keystrokes and windows say nothing about quality, discussion or thinking.
- Privacy. Under the GDPR, processing personal data needs a clear purpose, should collect no more than necessary, and people must know what happens. Continuous screen monitoring is hard to reconcile with that; get a privacy specialist to look at it if in doubt.
So what do you measure?
Good productivity numbers answer a business question, not a supervisor's. They come from data people recorded deliberately: registered hours, budgets and invoices. That also means you can discuss them without anyone having to defend themselves.
| Number | Question | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Billable share | What part of our time can we invoice? | Registered hours with a billable activity |
| Budget versus actual | Are projects staying within the agreed hours? | Budget hours per project and registered hours |
| Capacity and utilisation | Do we have room, or are we full? | Available hours versus registered hours |
| Aging | How long does finished work sit unbilled? | Hours not yet invoiced, by age |
| Profitability | Do we make money on this client or project? | Revenue from hours versus cost |
How to define the billable share and where it leaks is in Billable hours.
Why at team level?
Most productivity problems sit in the organisation, not in a person: too many internal meetings, a project that's always underestimated, a client asking for a lot of non-billable work. You only see those when you look per team, project or client.
Individual leaderboards lead away from those causes. They invite comparison while people do different work. Use individual numbers in a conversation between employee and manager, as a question (‘what's getting in your way?’), not a verdict.
Keep your personal timeline separate from registered hours
Automatic time tracking collects a lot: apps, websites, locations. That helps you forget nothing, but those raw signals belong to the employee, not the organisation. What the organisation needs is the result: the hours someone registers on purpose. How that works is in Automatic time tracking.
This separation isn't a detail. As soon as raw activity counts toward productivity numbers, you're back to monitoring under a friendlier name. The same goes for AI features: which data an assistant may use is in Privacy and AI context.
How to start
You don't need an elaborate dashboard. Start with a few numbers you review monthly and add more only when there's a concrete question.
- Decide which activities are billable and give projects an hours budget.
- Agree that everyone registers their hours with a short description, and that raw activity stays private.
- Review per team every month: billable share, budget versus actual and what's still to be invoiced.
- Discuss outliers as a question: what's taking time here, and what can we do about it?
How Half5 does it
In Half5, productivity numbers are calculated from registered hours, not from the timeline. The timeline is end-to-end encrypted: “Only you can read your timeline. Half5 cannot access your timeline.” Admins see numbers for the whole organisation, department managers for their departments, and everyone else only their own.
The reports include “Capacity & utilization”, “Team performance”, “Profitability”, “Project health” and “Aging”. The AI summary for managers is instructed not to name individuals and not to draw conclusions from timeline or monitoring data.
Frequently asked questions
Am I allowed to monitor employees' computers?
That depends on purpose, necessity and how you inform employees; the GDPR sets requirements for that. It's a legal question per situation, so have it checked before introducing such software.
Is a high billable percentage always good?
Not always. Time is also needed for training, sales and internal improvement. Look at the trend and unexpected drops rather than one target figure.
What's the difference between capacity and utilisation?
Capacity is how many hours a person or team has available. Utilisation is the share of that spent on registered work.
Can my manager see my timeline in Half5?
No. The timeline is end-to-end encrypted and not shared with your organisation. Your manager only sees what you register yourself, such as hours and trips.
How do I measure knowledge work that has no countable output?
Use hours as a means, not a goal: compare hours spent with budgets and with what you can invoice. Discuss the gaps; that's where the information is.
