More Harm Than Good? – Employee MonitoringByRaymond D. Matkowsky
With the onset of Covid-19 pandemic, many staffers would work from home. This caused an increase in the use of productivity monitoring. Not unexpectedly this raised concerns about worker privacy. How monitoring is done, why it’s done, and how it is explained to workers will determine its acceptance and effectiveness.
First of all, the majority of your employees are conscientious. Many would assume that monitoring would reduce employee misbehavior. However, because of mistrust, studies show that monitoring can actually increase the likelihood of rule breaking. This can take the form of excessive breaks or talking negatively about the employer to other employees or customers. In spite of monitoring a floor manager should be on the lookout for any infractions. A manager also needs to keep in mind the tendency to unionize to solve grievances or plain resignations. Neither is beneficial and it is costly to management.
Fair Treatment
Monitoring is designed to control employee choices and to inform management how those choices are implemented. Even though there is general feeling that monitoring is invasive and mistrustful, it doesn’t instill strong feelings in those that have been previously treated fairly. They assume that they will be treated fairly in the future.
I could attest to the many problems caused if monitoring is not done right by having worked for a company that monitored its line workers with an “eagle eye.” They spent years and millions of dollars fighting law suits. Some plants unionized. All that stopped and a new era of cooperation started when a more enlighten management took over.
Also, there are good reasons for monitoring. These have to be fully explained and demonstrated to workers with concrete follow up by management. Workers are very quick to realize when management is just paying them lip service.
Reasons for Monitoring
Discounting the desire of some managements wanting monitor misbehavior, there are good reasons for the introduction of monitoring. Some environments are more hazardous than others. Safety is a good reason to monitor the workplace. The improvement of productivity is a good reason as long as it isn’t used against employees. If you have employees that are struggling, monitoring might help identify the problem areas (it might be mechanical or work flow) and actually be constructive. Documenting regulation compliance is another good reason. Whatever the reason, it has to be justified to the employees in order to gain support.
Do You Need Monitoring?
Before implementing any system, give some hard thought to whether or not you actually need monitoring and what benefits would you get out of it. If the benefits are minor or nonexistent, don’t go to the expense and the possible ramifications.
Ask yourself “What will the employees get out of it?” You need their buy-in. You want their buy-in.
There are certain jobs in which productivity ebbs and flows. Keep this in mind. Research is a good example. The productivity of a knowledge worker is not linear. He or she may even come up with an answer years later, accidently, or during their off hours. More than once I heard stories of a researcher coming up with an answer in his or her sleep.
If you have an assembly line maybe monitoring will help. Chances are if your employees work in a non-uniform environment, it will not. You must weigh the pros and cons. A mistake can be very expensive both financially and in employee sentiments.
If you have any comments, let us know. Email me at rdm@datastats.com. We will try to print it in our next newsletter.
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