Employee Monitoring – Harmful or Favorable?

Businesses may want to monitor their employees for a variety of reasons. It is usually advantageous for larger companies that are unaware of what is going on around the company as they cannot have eyes and ears everywhere. Other benefits may include ensuring that the business is constantly moving forward.

Employee acceptance, on the other hand, plays a significant role in this, as employee monitoring raises certain serious issues that companies should address before implementing such a change. When presented incorrectly, it is frequently seen adversely by employees. However, often than not, the fact that employee monitoring might be beneficial to the employees themselves is overlooked.

Issues with Employee Monitoring

According to Aigerim Berzinya (Turtler, 2017), when it comes to monitoring, employees may have concerns with privacy, deception, data leak and trust.

Employees do not want companies to cross the line and infringe on off-work privacy. Negatively viewed issues, such as monitoring employees’ whereabouts, activities outside of business hours or installing tracking programs on their personal devices, should be always avoided by the company.

Similarly, employees are put off when companies lie, deceive and hide apps or tracking systems on their business and personal devices without informing the employees first.

With monitoring comes the issue of security measures, as well as the risk that the extra data collected would land in the wrong hands and be misused.

All of these issues boil down to a lack of employer-employee trust. Without trust built between the company and its personnel, the company cannot succeed. If the employer portrays that he/she trusts this system more than his employees, it will have a reverse effect and further reduce employee trust, morale and company productivity.

Overall, if such a monitoring system is used incorrectly, employees may feel deceived, concerned about their privacy and data, and may lose trust towards the company.

Using a Monitoring System the Right Way

Even though a monitoring system can provide significant benefits to both the organization and its employees, it is critical to retain employer-employee trust.

The key to a thriving organization is trust between employers and employees, and any system employed should be established on this trust as a further building block for improving the company’s effectiveness. Companies shouldn’t put their trust in such a system over their employees. They should be understanding and sympathetic towards their employees and work together with them in order to achieve company goals.

This is why it is important to properly present such a change in a corporation. According to Rachel Pelta (Flexjobs, 2020), companies should be transparent about employee monitoring and disclose to employees what the organization is monitoring, how it is monitoring it, and most importantly, for what purposes. This will contribute to the development of a trusting company culture, which will encourage employees to cooperate and engage with such a system.

According to Cherone Duggan (Workable, n.d.), it is a good idea to allow employees manage their own monitoring and offer them the freedom to utilize the data to improve themselves and solve any problems that they may encounter. Empowering employees to take control is built on trust and allows them to solve their own problems, define goals, and manage themselves in order to maximize their own work processes. Another useful strategy for increasing employer-employee trust, when it comes to monitoring systems, is to demonstrate what the organization is doing to protect the greater amounts of personal data collected from this system.

When Using it the Right Way

Monitoring in a respectable way and remaining transparent with your staff may benefit both them and the company in a variety of ways.

First and foremost, it may aid in the tracking of hours and activities as it can collect accurate data in real time. This may help with attendance difficulties or recordkeeping for invoicing.

Employees may receive feedback on their work and activities based on the collected data. This also enables to identify any possible errors or issues with performance and productivity. By identifying problems, employees and employers can collaborate to resolve them and review their work processes.

Employee monitoring is also an excellent technique to improve or maintain their productivity and efficiency. By monitoring workers, companies can pin-point accurate rates of employee productivity. When their working activities are analyzed, it is simple to identify and resolve concerns. By resolving any difficulties that have been found, the company’s productivity and efficiency will improve.

Furthermore, this method may uncover and highlight employee strengths as well as positive achievements when performing tasks. As a result of this, employees that are trustworthy and hardworking will be identified and recognized. The data gathered by these employees can be also utilized to train new employees.

Health and safety can be also greatly improved with a monitoring system. It can help to ensure that safe practices and company standards are followed in the workplace, particularly around dangerous areas. Hazards and emergencies can be identified considerably more quickly with monitoring. To learn more about all the health and safety benefits from a monitoring system (e.g. NIVY Watch), you can read this blog.

Finally, monitoring has the potential to improve relationships within a company. Employees will be able to receive negative feedback without resentment or hostility because it will be provided through evidence-based data rather than their supervisor. Employees might sometimes take negative feedback from a supervisor personally, which can strain relationships and create a unpleasant work environment.

Conclusion

Overall, a monitoring system should accomplish an improvement in company’s processes. It is frequently seen unfavorably, which is why it is critical to maintain trust between employees and an employer when implementing such a system. When a monitoring system is presented and used incorrectly, trust can be broken, and the system will be viewed negatively. However, when presented correctly and implemented in collaboration with employees, this approach can provide several huge benefits to both the organization and its employees.