When it comes to remote work, one of the main obstacles employers have noticed is that their team is… well, remote. This means they aren’t able to monitor them the same as they would in the office. This leads employers to come up with ways they can, like installing webcams or productivity trackers. Today, we’re going to explore remote employee monitoring and why we don’t recommend it.
Privacy Concerns
Privacy has become an issue for everyone in the public, and some aren’t up to speed on all of the best privacy practices. Especially when it comes to being in the privacy of your home, employees might have feelings about that.
Why Would Employees Need To Be Monitored?
Most of the time, employers simply want to make sure their employees are staying focused and are getting paid fairly for the time and effort they are putting into their positions. Even so ExpressVPN recorded a survey of 2000 workers and found:
59 percent felt increased stress and anxiety when monitored
43 percent felt monitoring was a violation of trust
36 percent felt pressure to work longer hours because of monitoring
28 percent felt underappreciated because they were being monitored
Is Monitoring Allowed?.
Consent to monitoring is usually in employee handbooks, meaning employees have already agreed to it. So, yes, technically, it is allowed.
How Can an Employer Balance How They Monitor Their Team?
Now that we know it is allowed, si there a way for it to be done fairly and safely? There are many tools available right now in use from collecting keystrokes to screen captures. Here is what we recommend.
Communication is Essential
First of all, you need to communicate with your team. Instead of creepily monitoring them, you can actually just check up on them and ask them how their work is going. Simple, right?
It’s a Question of Trust
You should trust your team enough to get their work done without breathing down their necks. If you don’t, maybe you should reconsider your team – not choose to monitor them. Instead, provide your team with the tools they need to do their jobs. Give MyTek a call to discuss your solutions and more about remote employee monitoring, along with what your team might actually need to succeed.