Monitoring Your Employees While Respecting Their Privacy
The novel coronavirus has made working from home a necessity for most working individuals across the globe. Although there were already those individuals who were working remotely before the pandemic hit, the number of employees who have had to move their office and workspace to their home dramatically increased during the months of 2020, and there is no doubt that working individuals will continue to work remotely for a long to come. With this being the case, most employers were left wondering how much work was actually being completed by employees who are working from home. This fear of loss of productivity and work ethic resulted in many corporate leaders ramping up their employee monitoring efforts. Although there is currently no shortage of digital tools that enable employers to monitor the work efforts of their employees, employee monitoring comes with real risk to companies that choose to pursue it.
Recommendations on How to Ethically Monitor Your Employees
-
Choose Your Metrics Carefully by Involving All Relevant Stakeholders
In order to get the right metrics, you must involve relevant stakeholders in the process of choosing which metrics to use, such as hiring managers who will be supervising the monitoring process. It is important to reach out to both experienced and new employees who will be able to deliver valuable input with regards to choosing metrics.
-
Always Be Transparent About The Process of Monitoring Your Employees
It is of utmost importance that your employees are well aware of what exactly it is that you will be monitoring, as well as the reason behind it. Respect involves open and honest communication. You need to give your monitored employees the opportunity to provide feedback with regards to being monitored.
-
Don’t Use Monitoring Your Employees as a Form of Oppression
It is important to understand that the use of employee monitoring software should not be used as a tool to oppress or punish your employees. Your employees should not see employee monitoring as a negative, but rather as a positive tool meant to benefit them. Employee monitoring should be used as a means of figuring out and identifying the areas in which you can best help your employees where they are struggling the most. Employee monitoring, in essence, is a tool to help employee productivity and to reward employees for their hard work.
-
Accept That There Will Be Specific Circumstances in Which Employees Will Not Be Able to Do Good Work All the Time.
Because employees are working from home, they are sometimes subject to circumstances that would not be an issue were they working in the office. A few of these may include family duties or the lack of school or childcare during the pandemic. This means that employees might need to attend to the needs of others in the house and will not be able to always put their best foot forward. Employee monitoring should be focused on reflecting an understanding of an employee’s situation and developing creative solutions to address it.
CloudDesk Employee Monitoring Software as a Means of Monitoring Employees
CloudDesk employee monitoring software provides real-time visibility into distributed workforce activities to increase productivity, improve compliance, and optimize performance. The cloud-based solution helps corporations empower their employees to work from any location by monitoring time and attendance, breaks, and actual time spent working. If you wish to learn more about this solution, please contact m2sys for more information.
