With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets along with escalating number of telecommuters, employee monitoring has become critical for businesses. The failure to
Only if it were too easy to monitor employees. Data breaches by malicious or careless employees are detrimental for a business. According to Ponemon Institute, episodes of insider breaches cost $3.4 million to a business per year. This further adds to the productivity loss caused by unmonitored employees, costing a business more than they realize. All the more reason to consider installing an employee monitoring app! Through this, employers can access employee data to ensure company information remains confidential. Besides, they can make sure that there is no waste of company time.
An Employer’s Perspective
There are various reasons as to why employee monitoring is gaining popularity. Enterprises are facing risks due to emerging technologies. It is, therefore, vital to mobilize monitoring tools for efficient business workflows.
#1. Managing Employees Globally
The location of employees is of little importance. The founder can be in Silicon Valley, California while managing his team all across the globe, with programmers in India and distribution teams in Europe. This is not a pipe dream anymore, thanks to augmented reality. Due to cost advantages, companies try to outsource jobs to employees who are skillful and talented. Installing a monitoring app on their devices can enable employers to remotely monitor their activities.
In order to ensure both accountability and collaboration, entrepreneurs should embrace some cool monitoring apps. An employer is not always around so he needs to know what the employees are doing behind his back. Using monitoring software, the employer can become aware of his employee’s daily schedule. Sheer transparency fosters growth and productivity.
Tracking the employees and monitoring their email or message correspondence via a spy app enables an employer to analyze individual employee performance. The Tool Report actually has an article on one such app called mSpy, check out their in-depth mSpy review. They can rely on the necessary information provided by the monitoring app. Employers can set instant alerts on spying software. This way, they can receive notifications when employees share confidential information or some unauthorized activity takes place.
#2. Offer Flexibility in Various Business Models
An employee monitoring app is a state-of-the-art technology for which many firms are opting. A report that Mobile Security and Risk Review evaluated states that usage of mobile monitoring software is heating up. Now, 80 percent of companies in the United States are using more than 10 spy apps for their business. It goes without saying that a firm that encourages remote monitoring ought to have tech devices and gadgets – laptops, smartphones, etc. Many firms allow BYOD (Bring your own device) policy so that both the work and personal life of an employee can coexist on a single device. However, there are companies that provide their own tech gadgets to employees to ensure smart monitoring.
Mobile monitoring is indeed result-driven. Instead of reviewing performance reports each month, the employers can easily assign responsibilities to their staff and track the progress by accessing data from their cellphone. This not only lowers the overhead costs but also facilitates employers in case of work from home businesses.
#3. Retaining the Best Talent
Often due to decreased motivation and change in company dynamics, employees decide to quit from their current workplace. As the future of business continues to shift, companies do their best to benefit from the expertise of the best staff. Efficient employees are a valuable asset to a company. Therefore, they would tempt the employees to stay back instead of looking for other jobs.
With the competition heating up, businesses go to any lengths to steal the best employees of their rival firms. They may offer attractive financial rewards so that the employee exiting his firm would not only bring in his unique skills but also walk out with his previous company information. Monitoring apps can ensure surveillance on employees so that a firm knows beforehand if any employee is quitting. By monitoring web history of the employees, employers can determine which job-hunting sites their employees are looking for. They can determine what types of jobs are being searched in google search engines. Accessing both the personal and work email id of the employees can also enable the employer to know about job applications being sent or received.
An Employee’s Perspective on Employee Monitoring
When approaching an employee about remote monitoring, he would not show openness to the idea. Their attitude is quite clear: offer breathing space to the employees and trust in their capabilities. Setting up such a precedence would ensure efficiency and advancement opportunities for a firm. Employers consider monitoring on employees as their right but as they combine forces with IT, employees believe they are actually being manipulated rather than spied. Using employee monitoring software is one of the insidious ways employers keep a tab on their employees.
#1. Tracking Social Media
Employers do not have any fundamental rights to monitor the social media activities of their employees. Employers view online activities of their employees on social media platforms even after the office hours. These forums contain a lot of personal information of the employees. Hence, the employer can use it to coerce employees into doing some secretive task.
Using a spy app, an employer can read Facebook Messenger chats of his employee. He can also view all the photos and videos of his employee posted on Instagram and determine whom is he following. If an employee is on Tinder, it’s his personal choice as long as it’s not hindering his work performance. The employer can read his chat conversations and stalk people on his contact list. This way, the worker feels targeted and insecure. They feel the boss might hold it against him if he has made some negative comment about the current workplace or is an acquaintance of an unapproved person on any social media portal.
#2. Creating a Prison Environment 24/7
Re-branding of employees from workers to human resource signals that bosses consider them as capital, just like finances and property. To promote transparency, they are engaged in redesigning the work policies so that there is no privacy left for the employees. There is forever a check and balance over employees whether at workplace or home. They are always under the nagging suspicion that they are being watched by their employers so they are forced to be at their best behavior. This creates stress among the employees. Such an environment resembles a prison design with a single watchman (boss) who controls and observes many inmates (workers) by monitoring their calls, texts, email, location, and web history.
Last Words
Remote monitoring software is the new reality of the digital age. Employee management is ‘work in progress’ that fosters business growth. Instead of rebelling an opportunity to monitor workforce, enterprises should embrace it so that they can avail grants offered with it. With corporate espionage being rampant, monitoring software should be used by businesses with a sense of urgency. As far as concerns of employees are concerned, employers can avail limited number of features to make sure a happy medium between both employers and employees is sustained.
Man using a laptop on an outdoor table -DepositPhotos
