Now that remote work has become more commonplace, employers are increasingly turning to employee monitoring software to track worker behavior and productivity. In fact, according to this survey of 2,000 employers, 78% started using it in the last 6 months.
However as monitoring software has become more popular, many employees and privacy advocates have serious concerns about its implications. The main thrust of these concerns is that employee monitoring software adds a level of stress that can feel unsustainable, and that it impedes the privacy of employees.
While those concerns are justified, the truth is that employee monitoring doesn’t have to impede privacy. In fact, it is possible to track productivity without being intrusive if you go about it the right way.
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Only Track What is Necessary
Employee monitoring software like WorkExaminer has numerous features. It can record keystrokes, capture screenshots, display live video feeds of employees’ screens, track messages, and much more. However just because it can track and capture all that information – it doesn’t mean that you need to use it that way.
As a rule, you should only track the data that is necessary for your business to measure productivity and other important details. By restricting the use of monitoring to only what is necessary, you can obtain the data that you need without employees feeling that it is too intrusive.
To sum it up, less is more when it comes to the depth of your monitoring using any type of tool. In WorkExaminer it is easy enough to set up what you want to track, and what you don’t want to.
Restrict Access to Monitoring Data
Employees are often concerned about who can view the monitoring data that is collected – and rightfully so. It is best to adopt a privacy-first approach and restrict data so that it is only accessible by people who need to know.
In WorkExaminer that can be accomplished quite easily. It will let you set the level of access to data that different users have, and set up profiles for groups of users to make it easy to manage. If you want you can even set it so that employees can see their own data to allay any fears they may have about what is being tracked.
Giving your employees access to their own data on WorkExaminer can also provide them with insights about their own productivity, behavioral analytics, and weaknesses so that they can improve.
Be Upfront About It
Last but not least, you should be upfront about how you intend to monitor employees. Unless there is a specific reason, you don’t have to be surreptitious or use the ‘stealth’ feature in WorkExaminer.
Generally speaking, it is best to engage employees and come up with a clear policy regarding how WorkExaminer will be used, what it will monitor, and explain why it is necessary. For example, you could explain that the app activity, as well as active and idle time, will be tracked as a productivity metric.
Once that policy has been created, you can then communicate with employees, solicit their feedback, and get them involved.
Conclusion
As you can see it is possible to use Workexaminer for employee monitoring without impeding privacy in any way, shape, or form. At the end of the day, it all boils down to a question of how you use it and what approach you take.
The one thing you should take note of is that privacy laws vary in different jurisdictions. For the most part, you don’t have to worry much if you are informing employees and have a clear policy, but it is still a good idea to look up the regulations in your jurisdiction so that you can comply with them.
So long as you do that, you can make sure your monitoring is privacy-first – both legally as well as practically.
