Once your business grows beyond a certain size, it is approximately impossible for management to keep tabs on every employee around the clock. At some point – perhaps when the company employs more than twenty people – you’ll need another method of just in case.
Sadly, monitoring unpopular staff. People do not like the idea of their employer watching all of them the time. Even if you pay for their time, they still want to feel as if they’ve freedom and autonomy. It should not taste like them operating in a totalitarian state.
The trick here is to find a smart solution that enables you to monitor your staff and supply them with value at the same time.
But how do you do it?
This concept may sound a little strange when you first hear it, but it can make a big difference in how people feel about working in your organization. You can monitor your employees from the start of the day to the end, without them really feeling like they’re being watched. And in the end, that is what you want. They must feel like free agents.
The case for monitoring employees is very strong. Thank you for data protection law, preventing data theft is now the main reason to keep tabs on what they do. Disgruntled employees can use their access rights to send files to competing companies or hackers.
Monitoring also lets you know if you experience harassment or bullying at your workplace. This lets you intervene in situations quickly before they go to court or court.
Finally, supervision tells you whether employees are following company policies or not. You want to believe you can trust them when you turn away, but that’s not all the time the case. Sometimes they download illegal programs or fail to operate the correct security protocols when interacting with clients.
So how do you monitor employees without letting them down? Let’s look at some strategies to make this occur.
Enter Your Surveillance Policy In Writing
Most employees really like a high level of supervision in a company. There are several reasons for this:
- Feel protected. Many employees like the idea that a supervisory policy protects them from the malicious activity of others. If someone keeps a log of events someplace, then it protects them from sabotage, and helps them make their case if they trigger disciplinary action.
- Work for professionals. High quality companies all the time use monitoring as a standard practice. They do this to protect their employees – and workers know this. That’s why it is so popular.
- Help them to focus. Ultimately, most employees prefer to spend their time at work productively rather than browsing on Facebook. The reason for this comes all the way down to their career goals. The majority of workers want to get ahead in the world of work, and sometimes they need encouragement to propel them in that direction. That’s why security monitoring can help.
Putting your surveillance policy in writing can help sell all of these benefits.
Tell Employees What You Do And Why
The next step is to tell your employees directly what you do and why. Don’t say things like “to stop you all from stealing”. Instead, focus on the positives, like protecting everybody from false accusations and driving better job performance.
Please note that constructing the dialogs here correctly is extremely important. If staff members walk out of a meeting with the impression that you do not trust them, it will show instantly in their work. Their productivity will drop, they will become less engaged, and they may even slack off fully for a while as they consider their options.
Don’t frame security measures as something to keep your employees in line. Instead, speak about how it will protect the business as a whole, catch wrongdoers, and maintain brand reputation – something everybody in your organization wants.
Hold Regular One-on-One Meetings
Monitoring staff goes beyond tracking their internet activity and monitoring them with CCTV. It’s also about finding out more about how they feel about their job in general. This can often warn you of problems long before they become serious problems for your business or lead to disciplinary action. If an employee can voice their concern, you can often defuse the situation before it occurs.
Take Advantage of Modern Technology
There are many ways to implement technology, monitor employees and ensure a safe work environment.
The apparent solutions include CCTV cameras and internet trackers. Other technologies include things like Watch card, which lets you track fleet expenses. You can even use the vehicle’s GPS system to see where a driver is going in real-time.
Again, you can sell this monitoring method as a positive for workers. For example, with a fleet shopping card, you can make it very easy to top up when you arrive at the gas station. Or with GPS, you can show that you know where to send help, if they get into trouble.
Watch Employees Work
You may additionally want to watch employees at work to see how they behave at work. Often after a couple of minutes of interacting with the customer, you can see if there’s a problem with the behavior or attitude of the workers. Maybe there was something wrong with their tone of voice or choice of words.
An incident like this is an ideal opportunity for you to intervene. You need to make sure that your employees represent the company brand faithfully when interacting with people outside the business. Sometimes, attitude problems can sink in, and they find themselves talking badly to customers, in an rude manner.
If you notice an ongoing problem with an employee, you might offer to shadow them. Again, you can sell this as a chance for them to get expert feedback and improve their skills. You can even tell them that this is an awesome way to evaluate their performance and make their job easier.
Watching employees work can be a little awkward if you frame it the wrong way. Don’t mention monitoring at all. Instead, set it up like a buddy system. Here you are simply partnering with people to find out more about the problems they’ve at work and what can be done about them. A small gesture like this will be all you need to get them on the straight and narrow for some employees.
Review Their Work Regularly
Millennials want regular feedback for their work. They have a longing to understand how they’re doing and what they can do to improve.
Most of the time, they will be fine and perform to the level you expect. However, sometimes, there will be problems.
If anything, sell the review as a chance for them to get significant feedback and improve their marketable skills. With them, they can build a company and get promotions.
Remember, reviews are a chance for workers to speak about the value they bring to your organization. Therefore, they can act as an incentive to pro-actively drive projects and get work done faster.
Encourage Self Monitoring
You do not want your business to feel like a school where all the managers act like teachers, and all the workers like students. You prefer a situation where employees monitor themselves and make sure that they meet their own goals and deadlines.
Get them in and out and reporting precisely when they’re working throughout the day – and when they are not.
