It’s possible to monitor your employees without physically shadowing them or watching back recorded footage on a camera. Using cloud-based software, you can monitor individual employees in real time from any location. This could include monitoring their GPS location, listening in on phone calls live or seeing what sites employees are visiting on their work PCs.
Of course, just because you have the power to digitally monitor your team’s every move, doesn’t mean you should necessarily use this power. There are drawbacks to snooping in on your team that you need to consider. To help you make the right decision as to whether to use software to monitor your team, consider weighing up these pros and cons.
The pros of monitoring your team with software
Track and improve employee performance
Software can be used to track all kinds of performance stats such as how many sales each barman makes in a bar, how much fuel each driver is able to save or how many VoIP calls a telemarketing worker is making each day. These stats can be used to see which employees are performing well and which employees are performing not as well. High-performing employees can be rewarded, while low performing employees can be supported to help them improve.
Detect rule/law-breaking behavior and take action
Using software, you can check who is taking overly long breaks or skipping duties, and you can reprimand them. You can also spot criminal behavior such as stealing from tills or leaking sensitive data.
Keep on top of equipment maintenance
Software such as small fleet maintenance software can also be used to monitor the condition of vehicles. Faults can be spotted early and repaired before your equipment fails completely. This can save time and money spent dealing with emergency breakdowns.
Make sure your business (and team) is safe and secure
You can also use software to keep you and your team safe and secure. This could include spotting cybersecurity threats on employee computers, or spotting potentially dangerous machinery faults early so that action can be taken to prevent them.
The cons of monitoring your team with software
Extra work to monitor employees
Checking in on employees’ lives could take precious time out of your day. If you’re already struggling to get everything done on time, introducing this software could be more of an inconvenience to you.
Additional cost of software
Employee monitoring software comes with extra fees each month. While it can help you to save money, you need to be sure that such software is truly profitable.
Resentment from employees
This is the biggest downfall of using employee monitoring software. Employees may feel that you do trust them and this could negatively affect morale. Allowing employees the freedom to act independently without supervision could help provide a sense of freedom.
Restrictions regarding personal privacy and consent
There are laws as to what activities you can monitor. For example, you cannot declare that you want to install keystroke logging software on the personal computers of your employees. You also cannot implement this software without telling employees and must ask for consent in many cases – which you may not always get from your team.
Conclusion
It is up to you as to whether you want to attempt to introduce employees monitoring software. Take the time to weigh up the pros and cons. Seeing if it is the norm among your competitors and gaging employee reactions can also help you to determine whether it is a good idea.
