Things You Should Know About Employee Monitoring

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Constant monitoring and surveillance of employees have a number of benefits for businesses and organizations. Monitoring and invigilation increase accountability, boost production, and make the employees alert so that they commit fewer errors, among other advantages.

The employees deviate less from their duties and responsibilities because of monitoring, and no wastage of time occurs. Monitoring also helps you to retain the best talent and the most sincere and honest workers. Monitoring has benefits for deciding on the “viable pay” and may also be necessary to ensure the security of data.

Below are some of the forms of employee monitoring prevailing today.

1) Internet

A number of businesses today monitor the way their employees use the internet. A survey held by AMA or American Management Association revealed that more than 75% of the business organizations are monitoring the website surfing behaviors of their employees.

Around 30% of businesses also use proxy systems for blocking inappropriate surfing. Internet monitoring will reveal to you which websites your employees are surfing and whether they are using the computer and web for the right and job-related purposes or not. Some businesses block some websites while their employees access others.  

2) Email

Organizations may also monitor the emails of their employees. The monitoring provides for better anticipation of the problems that may occur in the future and may help the managers and businesses to prevent these adverse situations.

Sometimes, email monitoring may also have benefits for the settling of disputes. Monitoring of email and computer liabilities may help to lower the legal liabilities and provide for more efficient employees.

3) Phone

Monitoring of phones is very common nowadays, especially for customer service job roles. The way the employees interact with suppliers, prospects, users, clients, and customers has a very important impact on the business itself. In some job roles, merely answering the calls is not enough/sufficient, and the employees’ conversations should also convey politeness, courtesy, and other generosities.

The etiquette monitoring ensures that the clients and customers are happy and remain tied to the business. Monitoring of phone calls may also help managers improve the quality of a customer service process and know what information the employees are exchanging with others within the business organization or outside it.

4) Location

Monitoring of employee location may also be very important, especially for field jobs and supply chain efficiency. Improvement in communication and GPS technologies ensures that businesses can track where exactly employees are at any point in time. Location monitoring and tracking help to boost efficiency and decrease lead times. It also brings more accountability to the field and supply chain jobs.

5) Video Surveillance and CCTV

Companies can deploy video cameras and CCTV for ensuring the safety and security of their premises as well as the employees. The CCTV cameras can also be installed specifically for monitoring the performance or behavior of the employees.

CCTV surveillance is nowadays common in production and manufacturing scenarios and industrial units. The coverage provides “live” feedback to the managers on aspects including employee performance and workflow competence.

6) Social Media Monitoring

Social media (including Facebook and Twitter) is very popular today among students as well as professionals and is the most common web platform where employees interact with their colleagues, friends, family members, and other acquaintances.

Because businesses want to have a good reputation online and on social media, they don’t want their employees to bad mouth their workplace and bosses. Social media monitoring helps a company maintain confidentiality, and also provides for reputation management.

Final Words on Employee Monitoring

Employee monitoring may be necessary for today’s business work scenarios for protecting proprietary information and trade secrets, for controlling quality, and for managing the reputation of businesses, among other benefits and reasons.

Inefficient and undisciplined employees can be fired for using inappropriate language, violating the company policy, using company resources for personal use excessively, and for breaching the confidentiality rules, among other valid and justified reasons.

While the law does not restrict companies from monitoring their employees’ behavior, it is good to have a legal employee monitoring policy and to announce this to the employees as well. Employees will definitely be scrutinizing and evaluating their own behavior if they know that they are monitored constantly.  

Employee monitoring is a regular activity that is necessary to ensure competitiveness and productivity, among many other benefits, and the use of technology gives more teeth to the vigilance.