Employees are the backbone of a company they are responsible for its growth and income. Thus, If any one of them doesn’t give their 100%, the company’s production will be affected. So, to ensure such a thing doesn’t happen, a monitoring agent is deployed.
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Monitoring employees is not a modern concept; people are doing it for a very long time. In the 18th century, English philosopher Jeremy Bentham created a new design called ‘Panopticon’ for prisons and factories. It was designed to continuously monitor employees/inmates in order to increase productivity, and decrease the loss of time.
The same approach is being taken today; the only difference is that ‘Panopticon’ is replaced with CCTV.
Software-For-Monitoring-Employees
Every business owner, big or small, needs something to monitor the employees. It can be a human being or a camera or software. Now, what is this employee monitoring software that you keep hearing about?
Also Read – How Employer Monitor Employees’ Computer?
What And Why?
Employee Monitoring software is nothing but a set of codes that tracks an employee’s system. And it also alerts the responsible person if an employee is wasting too much time doing something else.
It is a software which is generally used by employers to increase productivity and decrease wastage of the company’s valuable time. It works in the background and tracks their activity throughout the day. You can use monitoring tools like Empmonitor, ActivTrak, etc to keep an eye on your employees.
Here’s how you can check the productivity of your employees – EmpMonitor Video
The main reason behind this tracking is that employees are often found to be misusing the company’s resources, by surfing the internet or using mobile. Which eventually results in pending tasks, and lost deadlines. So, to prevent all this, software for monitoring employees is deployed on their system.
Also Read – All-In-One Guide: Different Aspects Of Employee Monitoring Software
Maintaining A Healthy Environment
Coming back to the topic in hand, if you have decided to monitor employees activity, then you need to follow the steps below
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Be Upfront
Monitoring someone else’s activity without them knowing is wrong. It is both illegal and unethical, so it is best if you are upfront with your employees about the tracking software.
You can inform them while they are joining your company or when they are in their training period. By telling them everything, you are free from any acquisition of spying on employees.
Another thing you can do is formulate a well-written policy covering all the areas that you are going to be monitoring/tracking in employees. And after making a policy hand it over to the employee when he/she is signing up for the job so that they can learn more about tracking software and clear their doubts.
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Be Vary While Tracking
Tracking is good and beneficial as long as you follow the rules and don’t overdo it. By watching/monitoring employees activity continuously, you are invading their privacy. Hence it is better to give a little breathing room to your employees.
You should also avoid extensively tracking employees activity, as doing so ruins the employer and employee relationship, which will be affecting the productivity of your company.
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Avoid Banning Of Cell Phones
Phones are also one of the main reasons for the loss of productivity in an office. Employees are often found playing games or using social media on them. So, how do you minimize the use of mobile phones?
Banning the usage of mobile phones inside the office is prohibited as you can’t stop the employee from using their own resources. You can ask the employees to keep it’s usage to the minimum, but asking them to not use it at all is wrong.
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Use Of Internet
The Internet is the most important thing in an office, and also the most abused one. You will always find an employee on the internet wasting valuable time, which could and should be spent better on completing the given task.
Thus, to avoid such behaviour, some employers ban the use of the internet, but they shouldn’t.
Giving your employees some leniency helps in maintaining a positive vibe inside your office. Which in turn; increases the productivity of the employees.
One of the great examples of this is china. Companies there allow their employees to take a nap during working hours inside the office. And this is why you will find employees sleeping in the office in China. It is a great technique to increase mental awareness and to reduce stress, which increases productivity. Therefore, giving people a little free time works wonders.
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Avoid Real-Time Tracking
People always confuse Real-time tracking with Real-Time Monitoring; both are different. While tracking is illegal monitoring is not.
What’s the difference between the two?
In Real-Time tracking, the employer can track the employees even after he/she has left the office building. Whereas in Real-Time Monitoring; the employers can monitor the system of the employees continuously for as long as the employer wants.
Tracking is done in those companies where the employees need to do a lot of fieldwork, for example, delivery services. Here employers need to track them outside the office building in order to see if they are working or not. In such cases, it is an exception, as companies generally provide their own device which they track.
Therefore, you must avoid Real-Time tracking, and if you fall under the above category, then more power to you.
Conclusion
There you have it, five different ways with the help of which you can maintain a healthy environment in your office. You can use software for monitoring employees but don’t cross the line. Be professional about it and leave some breathing room for your employees.
Alright, that’s enough from me. If I have left any points or you have any new ones feel free to mention them in the comments.
