Logically, the employee monitoring industry reached new heights in 2020. At some point, thanks to lockdown restrictions, around 80% of world workers were working from home. Keeping in mind that many of them have never experienced working remotely, it’s not a surprise that we’ve seen increased employee tracking software use.
The software is beneficial in measuring productivity and keeping track of employees’ attendance, break times, etc. However, managers can easily fall into the trap of tracking and collecting data that isn’t useful for their business goals and micromanage their employees.
Given the popularity of the software and how easy it is to fall into the trap we mentioned earlier, we realized it would be a good idea to turn to those things you shouldn’t be doing if you’re monitoring your employees.
Don’t Track Everything.
Depending on the specific employee tracking software you’re using, you could be dealing with several dozens of features. From activity monitoring to website and app usage, all the way to alerts for low productivity. Some of these will be quite useful to you, while others aren’t. To decide which data to collect and monitor, you need to understand why you want to use this software.
If your only concern is time and attendance tracking, there’s no need for you to have the screenshots turned on. Use the software as a clock in the device, and you’ll have all the necessary data for that specific need if you’re worried about productivity, label apps and websites as productive/unproductive to get these calculations, and so on.
Turn on Screenshots Only if You Need To
Screenshots are seen as a very intrusive feature in the monitoring world. If they’re programmed to work every few minutes and take snapshots of your team’s screens, you could be getting the information you don’t need – such as social media feeds, private emails, bank account details, etc.
Some companies block the use of these websites anyway, so it’s impossible to catch private data of this sort; however, you need to take a different approach if you’re not one of them. No one can expect their employees to sneak peek at their social accounts during working hours. So, if you still want to let them do that and avoid taking screenshots of their feeds, you should try to find software that will allow you to block the tracking of certain apps and websites.
This feature is also useful in the healthcare industry since employees spend much time looking at private patient data. The software will still indicate that an employee was using the app X, but there won’t be any screenshots of what they were doing there.
Let Employees See Their Data
Giving employees access to their own data will help you comply with regulations in some parts of the world, but it will also give them peace. There’s rarely anyone that’s completely comfortable with employee tracking software, so your employees could be stressing about what it is that you see.
The best way to keep them relaxed is to let them see their data whenever they want to. This way, they’ll know what you know and won’t lose any sleep thinking whether they could be sanctioned for something they’ve done.
The benefits of employee tracking software are numerous – from increasing productivity, better time management, optimized workload, and project management. However, these benefits only go as far as you let them. The more strict you are with the system, the higher the chances are that it’ll backfire. So, be careful with what data you’re collecting, who has access to it, and how you’re using it in the long run.
