Protected: How Muhlenberg Township Gained Workforce Visibility and Eliminated Guesswork in Decision Making

Muhlenberg Township wasn’t trying to monitor employees more closely. They were trying to answer a much simpler question: What is actually happening during the workday?
For a municipality managing public safety, public works, and administrative operations, that question matters. Because without clarity, every performance issue becomes an assumption, and every decision carries risk. Muhlenberg Township didn’t just gain visibility into employee activity.
After deploying CurrentWare, they gained the ability to:

• Understand how work actually happens
• Identify the real cause of performance issues
• Make decisions based on evidence, not assumptions

The Challenge: No Clear Visibility Into Employee Activity

Muhlenberg Township operates with a workforce of roughly 90-100 employees across multiple departments. Each role has different responsibilities, workflows, and system usage patterns. But before implementing CurrentWare, visibility into that activity simply didn’t exist.

“Before CurrentWare, we struggled with not really knowing what people were doing with their systems.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager | Director of IT and Communications, Muhlenberg Township

There were basic controls in place, DNS filtering, category blocking, and security safeguards. These helped prevent access to known malicious websites. What they didn’t provide was insight. The team could block threats. They could not understand behavior. And that gap showed up in daily operations.
Performance concerns couldn’t be validated

• Time usage couldn’t be measured accurately
• IT lacked the data to distinguish between inefficiency and workflow issues
• The result: decisions based on interpretation, not evidence.

What They Needed: Visibility With Context, Not Surveillance

The goal wasn’t to monitor employees, it was to understand work patterns in a meaningful way. In a municipal environment, context matters. The same activity can mean very different things depending on the role.

“It was less of a big brother approach… it was more of a security slash efficiency approach.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager | Director of IT and Communications, Muhlenberg Township

For example:
One employee might spend hours on Amazon as part of procurement

• Another might rely on news and research platforms for reporting or planning
• Without context, both could appear “unproductive.”

“You want that ability… not create a cookie-cutter base that could be unfairly used.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager | Director of IT and Communications, Muhlenberg Township

What the Township needed was:

• Granular visibility into application and web usage
• The ability to tailor productivity definitions by role
• Data that could be understood by both IT and non technical leadership

“Even if you’re showing this data to people that have no IT experience… they could take a look and be like, oh, okay, that’s what’s going on.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager | Director of IT and Communications, Muhlenberg Township

Why CurrentWare: Practical, Lightweight, and Easy to Deploy

During evaluation, many solutions were ruled out quickly not because they lacked features, but because they were too complex for the environment. CurrentWare stood out because it didn’t require heavy infrastructure or specialized resources.

“Some of them were a no… they wanted a full-blown $12,000 server just to run the software.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager Director of IT and Communications, Muhlenberg Township

For a lean IT team in a government setting, that wasn’t viable.

Costs and ease of implementation are a big thing for me because I don’t have a large staff. Anyone… even a power user could implement this solution.” Joe Mench, Muhlenberg Township

Implementation: Fast Deployment With Minimal Overhead

Implementation was straightforward and aligned with existing systems. Even with competing priorities and limited IT bandwidth, deployment was completed efficiently. The only challenge came from existing security configurations, not the platform itself.

“Very easy implementation. Very light lift. It only took me about two weeks… if I focused only on this, it would have been two days. Never was there a problem implementing CurrentWare.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications ,Muhlenberg Township

The Turning Point: When Data Proved Assumptions Wrong

Shortly after implementation, the Township encountered a situation that highlighted the value of real visibility. An employee had been flagged for inconsistent performance. Deadlines were slipping, and the assumption was clear. But the data showed something entirely different.

“The speculation was this was someone who was wasting time. Her performance score was close to 100% every single day… almost zero unproductive site visits.”

The employee wasn’t disengaged. She was fully working within expected systems for most of the day. That forced a different question: If time and activity weren’t the issue, what was? The answer had nothing to do with system usage.

“It actually was just the employee’s lack of organization and their physical space.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township “

Paper based workflows, physical document handling, and workspace constraints were slowing down output.

“We had actually been focusing on the wrong issue.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township

Without this visibility, the conclusion would have been incorrect, and the response would have been misdirected.

What Changed: From Assumptions to Evidence-Based Decisions

Now we have concrete, clear data and we can make informed decisions fairly quickly.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township

Once visibility was in place, decision making shifted. Instead of relying on perception, the team could:

• Review actual application usage
• Analyze time spent across systems
• Investigate specific time periods

“CurrentWare shows literally what they’re doing every minute of the workday.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township

This allowed managers to move beyond surface-level observations and identify real issues, whether behavioral or operational.

More Accurate Performance Evaluation

The data also changed how employee performance was evaluated. In some cases, it confirmed concerns. In others, it corrected them.

Managers could now differentiate between:

• Low productivity
• Process inefficiencies
• External workflow constraints

“You want to make your decisions… based on facts. CurrentWare gives you those facts.” Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township “

Visibility Into Both Underperformance and Overperformance

One unexpected outcome was identifying employees who were exceeding expectations. This created opportunities to:

• Recognize high performers
• Balance workloads
• Identify potential burnout

“You can find people… giving you 200% versus the person giving you 80.” Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township”

Operating in a government environment means constant exposure to external threats. CurrentWare became part of a broader security layer, helping reinforce policies and maintain control over system usage.

“Some months can be in the thousands… they’re bots, they’re automated. It adds another layer that makes me sleep better at night.”
Joe Mench, Muhlenberg Township

The Impact

At its core, the value of CurrentWare wasn’t just visibility, it was what that visibility enabled.

“It’s visibility, accountability, and the ability to make better decision making.You could wrap that all up in confidence in our decision-making process. We don’t have to guess… we have the facts.”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township

Before CurrentWare:
No clear understanding of system usage. Decisions based on assumptions. Limited ability to validate performance

“We were flying blind – Not really knowing what people were doing with their systems” Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township

After CurrentWare:
Full visibility into application and web activity. Data-backed performance insights. Faster, more accurate decision-making.

“Now we have concrete, clear data. We can make informed decisions quickly”
Joe Mench, Assistant Township Manager and Director of IT & Communications, Muhlenberg Township “