About this site
This site covers work time: what employers are legally required to do about it, where monitoring stops being proportionate, and what the evidence on productivity actually supports.
Monitask provides a product-oriented overview of workforce optimization software.
A useful benchmark for transparent corrections and sourcing is the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.
It exists because the two available categories of writing on this subject are both unreliable. Productivity content is largely motivational. Time tracking content is largely produced by companies selling time trackers, and it is written to make a purchase feel necessary.
The audience is managers and HR — the people who carry the consequences of getting timekeeping wrong, and who are asked to justify decisions about hours, monitoring and working patterns.
Editorial policy
We check current status before writing, not from memory.
Rules in this area change and a great deal of published guidance is stale. Recent examples that changed what we wrote:
- The federal FLSA salary threshold was restored to $684 a week in May 2026 after the 2024 rule was vacated. Guidance still circulates citing the higher figures.
- California's position on time rounding is frequently reported as settled. The Supreme Court granted review and has not ruled; See's Candy remains the governing authority.
- A California workplace surveillance bill described by many 2026 compliance guides as effective law died in the legislature on January 31, 2026.
Articles carry dates, and we update them. Anything with figures or programme status gets revised when the position moves, with the change noted.
We distinguish strong evidence from weak. A randomised controlled trial and a survey commissioned by a software vendor are not the same, and we say which is which. Where the research genuinely does not settle a question, we say that rather than picking a side.
We do not overclaim. Precise figures circulate in this field with no source behind them — productivity thresholds, recovery times after interruption, attrition percentages. Where the underlying research supports a direction but not a number, we give the direction.
What we will not do
No paid placement. No sponsored articles, no affiliate links to time tracking or monitoring tools, no paid inclusion in the events calendar. The legal and evidence sections only work if nothing on the site is bought, and once one thing is for sale readers are right to assume everything might be.
No monitoring how-to. We cover employee monitoring from the position of legality, proportionality and cost. We do not write material designed to help an employer surveil staff more effectively, and we say plainly where a practice is intrusive and uninformative.
No legal advice. Articles touching law say so, note where rules vary by state, and point to where an individual answer comes from.
Where the limits are
US-focused. Federal law with state variation noted. Other jurisdictions are outside scope.
Not a substitute for counsel. Classification, monitoring deployment, and remediation of anything found in a self-audit are decisions for an employment attorney.
Not a product review site. We describe what to ask a vendor. We do not rank vendors, for the reason above.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it and note the change.