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5 Tips for Effective Employee Monitoring

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Effective Employee Monitoring

Employees are the assets as well as precious resources for any company. A good employee forms the backbone of the organization more than any management technique, infrastructure, hierarchy, or HR policies can.

Unfortunately, sometimes it can be difficult to know who is a good employee and who isn’t  But the age of Technology that we are lucky enough to call ourselves inhabitants of also offers solutions to such dilemmas. Employee monitoring is the best way to know which of your employees are keepers and which of them are simply wasting your resources and money while taking up office space.

However, simply filling up all the gadgets in your office with computer and internet monitoring software or key-loggers isn’t enough.

There are ways to approach employee monitoring so that it does not affect employees negatively nor does it affect your company’s reputation. More importantly, what you as an employer are attempting to do is multi-faceted. You need to protect your employee’s rights and integrity, your company from bad repute and litigation/legal issues, and effectively carry out the employee monitoring.

May sound a bit tough but following some tips and precautions will make sure that everything is handled smoothly.

Here they are:

1- Let Them Know

Keeping employees completely in the dark about monitoring them while they work or use official devices is not a good idea. If anything, it will harbor resentment and anger when it is found out and at some point, it will have to be found out.

Make it clear what company policies are regarding internet usage, company devices, and break time. That way they too will know to be on their best behavior and hopefully performances will boost.

Although it is not wrong to monitor employees using computer monitoring software but they should not be kept in the dark.

2- Block Some Sites

Instead of leaving social networking and other entertainment sites open to access, acquire software which allows you to block certain sites such as Facebook and pornography sites. This way instead of having to constantly keep an eye out and going through web history to see who has been naughty, you will have no worries regarding time management.

3- Install computer and internet monitoring software

Besides blocking certain sites, in order to protect the company from malaise such as corporate espionage and having company secrets leaked, you should be aware of who your employees are communicating with when they are at the workplace as well as what activities are being performed on the computer.

Any signs of disloyalty or business information leaks should be investigated instantly to halt any damage to the company.

4- Involve Everyone

No department should be kept out of the loop. When you are monitoring employees, do not restrict this to a few individuals who are in the know and are managing things. If your company grows and this practice carries on, a lot of things can get very messy.

Having your IT, Executive, Legal, and HR all in the loop is the best way to implement a long term policy.

5- Be Discrete and fair

There is no need for heads to roll if you find some employees slacking. Instead, adopt a policy of punishment which gets stricter as offences increase. For example, a first offence can be highlighted with only a warning then reprimand and so on. Remember, your aim is not to just fire employees but to make their work more efficient.

I hope you find these tips useful for your business.

About

Natalia David, a blogger by profession an author significantly contributes towards PC security, cell phone monitoring and iPhone spy software.

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{ 8 Responses }

  1. Racks says:
    I am one of those people who are against of this employee monitoring because you're just giving your employee a hint that he/she is a person whom can't be trust and doesn't perform his/her work well. It is wise that you should let the employee enjoy the working environment and educate them the value of work ethics.
  2. Sai Chu says:
    Natalia, Your 5 tips for effective employee monitoring technique is very easy to read. I totally agree with you about letting the employees know that they are being monitored. When employees are aware of the Internet monitoring policy, they are less likely to break the rule. In tip #3, you mentioned installing an Internet monitor software but you did not make any recommendations. We\'re a small company that has less than 10 employees. We have been using a great tool for Internet monitoring. Would you like me to suggest the product in the comment?
  3. Dion says:
    I'm not against monitoring employees using this "monitoring softwares". Any business has the right to protect their own assets and resources and if using this kind of system helps them more, then I don't see the wrong in it. Although I also believe that any business strategy also has risks and disadvantages, not just the positive side of it. It is definitely a good option to let employees know of what is expected of them and be open about any systems your business is applying. This way, you will both be aware of what to prioritize and be goal oriented as a whole.
  4. Servando Silva says:
    I normally recommend using an advanced hardware/software combination with Intel Small Business Advantage technology nowadays. However, if there's no money for that, I'll normally ask for a weekly report or something similar, but to do it less boring, we share it on the cloud via Google Drive so everyone can update their part and we can have a tracking of who isn't.
  5. Aditya says:
    Monitoring of employees is very much important within an organization.Keeping an eye on them by letting them know that they are being watched makes a sense of responsibility among them to be more productive.
  6. Danny Mullen says:
    I agree with monitoring when in large organizations. Monitoring can be a reasonable method to implement the required security policy. I do however disagree with 'blanket Blocking' some of the social media sites. My belief is that blocking can cause more harm than good. My example I once worked for a company that blocked my banks online banking, as an employee I had a choice. I could try to ignore what I needed to do that day at and not focus on my job, take a long lunch and go take care of the business. In this case I took a longer lunch break because items needed to be paid, but had the online banking been enabled I would have simply spent 2 minutes doing what I needed to do. The net gain to the company in this case was zero. Over the years working for large corporations I have run into sites being blocked and in most cases it proves to be counter productive. I believe you should be engaged in your employees work and monitor their performance vs their use of the internet. If you have enough work to justify them being in your company other than downtime during breaks and lunches, they will be focused on their work vs Facebook. Besides with the advent of smart phones, an employee can waist just as much time on their phone and that is rarely monitored. I have a blog post scheduled on my site later this week titled 'Balancing Security with Productivity' it talks of this very topic.
  7. Abhik says:
    Amm!! I work alone.. Was a nice read though. Anyway, I'll always prefer giving some spaces to employees if I ever be a boss.
  8. Herman says:
    Hi Natalia this is a very important topic you have written about and I have one question how do you block sites of your staff, is there a software to do this and do they give you access to do this on their computers. Thanks