The internet has many advantages for both employers and employees. It has made getting work done easier, faster, and more efficient. Due to the current pandemic, more companies rely on the internet and emails to get their work done and manage business communications.
However, the use of technology at workplaces has also surfaced new areas of concern. Due to this, many employers have resorted to using employee monitoring apps to keep a check on their workers remotely. Employee monitoring software programs such as XNSPY, mSPY, and Spyera are becoming a very popular workplace surveillance tool. These apps can record every digital move made by the worker. By using these apps, the employer gets access to the workers’ emails, text messages, GPS location, social media accounts, call logs, browsing history, and even the microphone of the monitored device. Many of such monitoring apps are hidden or invisible to the person whose device is getting monitored. The monitoring of employees for their internet abuse has resulted in quite a few lawsuits between employers and employees.
However, the question remains about how the internet makes any impact on the workers’ productivity. How does having workplace surveillance affect the relationship of the employer with his workers? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using surveillance at workplaces? Let us have a look at these questions in this article.
How having workplace surveillance can increase employee productivity?
It is hard to know when an employee has started working on a task and how much time they are spending on working on their assigned project. Access to the internet often tempts the workers to do leisure browsing rather than finishing off their work. It is even more tough to manage if your employees are working remotely. Using employee monitoring software can help address these concerns. An efficient employee monitoring tool can give the employers a record of:
- What time the employees logged in?
- What they worked on?
- How much time they took to complete a project.
- Which websites were visited to complete the project?
When the employees know that their time on the internet is getting monitored, they would less likely waste that time, hence increasing their productivity levels.
Tracking productivity rates gets easier. Employers cannot know how productive their employees are without a clear-cut monitoring system. Evaluating employee performance also gets tough, which is essential for calculating rewards and giving recognition where it is due. If you have workplace surveillance tools such as monitoring apps, they will allow you to identify productivity weakness and lets you work on its improvement. Employees can also get access to their productivity stats, helping them assess and correct any time-wasting behavior.
It helps to protect your company from malware attacks. When you monitor your employees’ internet usage, you can deter them from accessing websites that are unproductive or dangerous. They will not open a suspicious link if they know that their employer is monitoring them. It also increases their productivity levels because less time would get wasted in fixing any malware attacks.
If you have employees such as freelancers who get paid according to an hourly basis, it can get tricky calculating exactly how many hours they spend doing the assignment. Employee monitoring software can help you get the exact number of hours according to which you can pay the employees. It would also motivate the employees to spend more hours doing their work to get paid more.
It helps to highlight the employees you can trust and show you who is not performing well. An employee monitoring software will make it easy for the employer to find out who is loyal to the company, reaching their deadlines and achieving their targets. When you know who these employees are, you can trust them more and give them more authority in their workplace. It, in turn, will increase their motivation levels and will increase their productivity further. Employee monitoring apps also let you address the workers who seem to be dishonest or lazy. You can reach out to them to address their concerns and help them get to work more effectively.
Disadvantages of having workplace surveillance
It is evident that employee monitoring tools come with their fair share of privacy concerns. Many employees may get worried that their non-working hours are also getting monitored. They might feel uncomfortable that their private conversations on browsing history can get access by their employers at any time. Some employers use monitoring apps to spy on their workers secretly. It can get them into legal complications and trust issues between their employees and them. That will also lead to a decrease in their productivity levels.
Employee monitoring apps can lead to the workers feeling that their employers doubt their commitment to the company they are working in. It can lead to a toxic work environment, decreased morale of the workers, and higher employee turnover.
How can you combat these problems?
A way to make the best use of workplace surveillance is by first asking for your employees’ consent before installing any software on their devices. A written consent form signed by the employees is the best solution to combat any legal issues. You can also give your employees thorough information about what exactly does the surveillance software monitor. If there is any aspect of the monitoring that they feel uncomfortable with, employers can think of ways to alter or turn them off from the device. The employers must highlight to their workers the advantages of monitoring software will have for them also. For instance, it will give them a fair chance to prove their commitment to the company. Once they realize that the monitoring software will not be used to spy on them, they will feel more comfortable using it. They need to know that using the software would boost their productivity, establish accountability, help build better schedules, and also smooth the billing process.
It will also help if the employees know that everyone in the company will have surveillance software installed in the work phones. It includes the CEO of the company as well. For their privacy concerns, they can use their phones after work hours for their comfort. By addressing all these issues and efficiently communicating with your employees, business owners can enhance their trust in them. That will make them less hostile towards getting monitored. It would also help them benefit from all the advantages that monitoring software brings to the company, without compromising on the company’s work environment.
Summary:
Workplace Surveillance
Tracking productivity rates gets easier. Employers cannot know how productive their employees are without a clear-cut monitoring system. Evaluating employee performance also gets tough, which is essential for calculating rewards and giving recognition where it is due. If you have workplace surveillance tools such as monitoring apps, they will allow you to identify productivity weakness and lets you work on its improvement. Employees can also get access to their productivity stats, helping them assess and correct any time-wasting behavior.
