Should employers be able to monitor employees?
|
Employee monitoring is not without its risks. Before monitoring your employees with employee monitoring software you must first evaluate the pros and cons of employee monitoring to see if it’s the right choice for your company. This article will outline the advantages and disadvantages of monitoring employees to help you make an informed decision. Show
Want Transparent Employee Monitoring?Click here to learn more about monitoring with BrowseReporter Table of ContentsClick to Show / Collapse Types of Employee MonitoringBefore evaluating the pros and cons of employee monitoring, it’s important to understand the different methods of employee monitoring. The laws, regulations, and perceptions will be heavily influenced by the tool that companies use and the reasons for its use. Internet Usage TrackingThe 2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey from the American Management Association (AMA) found that 66% of employers monitor employee internet use. 65% of those surveyed also use web filtering software to block websites. Employers primarily monitor and restrict internet access to prevent employees from accessing inappropriate websites. Why do employers monitor employee web activity?
Email Monitoring43% of employers in the AMA report monitor the email activity of their employees. Email monitoring is typically done with automated tools that scan for keywords, though 40% of the employers in the report stated they track email activity manually. Why do employers monitor employee emails?
GPS TrackingGPS and other forms of location tracking are often reserved for roles where frequent travel is required. Employers will often use location tracking on company-provided vehicles and mobile devices. Why do employers use GPS tracking?
Video SurveillanceVideo surveillance is commonly performed through closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems. These technologies are commonly used as security systems rather than for measuring productivity. It is common for companies that interact with the public to use this form of employee monitoring in locations where there are concerns surrounding the security of employees and theft of company assets. Why do employers use video surveillance?
Call MonitoringEmployee telephone monitoring (recording phone conversations) is most often used to monitor the performance of phone-based customer support roles. Calls are often recorded to investigate complaints, assist in employee training, and ensure that employees are adhering to the quality standards of the organization. Why do employers monitor telephone calls?
Data Loss PreventionData loss prevention (DLP) software monitors employee computer activity to prevent data breaches. This software tools monitor, detect, and block actions that put sensitive information at risk.
Screenshot MonitoringScreenshot monitoring software is a type of employee monitoring software that monitors employee computer activity by capturing screenshots of their desktops. These tools will take screenshots at set intervals, when specific actions occur on the employee’s computer, or when an operator manually captures a screenshot. Examples of screenshot monitoring
Why Do Employers Use Employee Monitoring Software?Click for Transcript Thanks for checking out the latest CurrentWare Video. In this video, we’re going to cover the reasons why you should monitor employee computer activity. If you like this or other videos we’ve produced, hit the subscribe button below. Stay tuned to the end to learn how to get a free trial of all of the software I demo today. Employee monitoring involves understanding how your employees are using company provided technology during work hours. There are five main benefits and considerations to employee monitoring that we will cover today:
So let’s start off with how monitoring can help employee productivity. 44% of employees admit to being distracted by the internet at work, and employees in the US have admitted to wasting 1-2 hours a day browsing the internet. Employees that know they’re being monitored will avoid excessive personal usage of the internet and computer applications. In addition, in the event an employee is underperforming, employee monitoring reports on their computer activity can be used to help the employee understand their actions and enhance their productivity. The second important reason to monitor activity is to address inappropriate internet usage & avoid legal liability. As compliance requirements increase for various businesses, industries & jurisdictions, employers have a responsibility to ensure their employees are complying with regulations such as HIPAA, CCPA, CIPAA and GDPR. By enabling computer monitoring, you can ensure that your staff are complying with these requirements. In addition, by monitoring & setting alerts, you can instantly be notified if employees are visiting inappropriate websites such as pornography, adult or other websites. The third reason to monitor computer activity is for cybersecurity purposes & to prevent data loss. By knowing which websites an employee is visiting, which files are being downloaded or shared, and which external devices and endpoints are being used, company administrators can manage cyber security risks and data loss prevention efforts. Data breaches and associated risks can cost businesses millions of dollars in damages along with reputational risk, so being aware of these risks and monitoring them can provide significant benefits for every organization. In addition, by using alerts, and setting up risk profiles for users, you can audit activities and groups for questionable employee behavior. Due to Covid-19, the year 2020 has seen a significant shift to remote work for various companies and organizations. This brings us to our 4th reason to monitor an employee’s computer usage: remote workforce management. 52% of CIOs surveyed suspect that one or more of their mobile workers have been hacked or caused a mobile security issue in the last 12 months. Employee monitoring software can be used to monitor for high-risk activity and verify that employee activity on company networks is legitimate. The final reason to monitor employees is for bandwidth management purposes. With CurrentWare’s BrowseReporter tool, you can determine who is hogging bandwidth by streaming videos and uploading/downloading excessively large files. Employees who are hogging bandwidth can slow down the entire network, negatively affecting the productivity of other employees and reducing the performance of business critical operations. That’s it for this video. If you have any thoughts on this video or other reasons why computers should be monitored, feel free to comment below. If you’d like to give any of CurrentWare’s computer and device monitoring solutions a try, please check out our free trial at currentware.com/download or get in touch with us and we’d be happy to help! Note: The above video showcases a legacy user interface for BrowseReporter. To see the most up-to-date features and interface please visit the BrowseReporter product page
Even before COVID-19 pandemic many companies have used monitoring tools to track their employees. The top reasons for tracking employees
While employee productivity management is a use-case for monitoring software, it is only one of many reasons for monitoring employees in the workplace. According to a 2017 Spiceworks survey of IT professionals the most common reasons that their employers monitor employees is to protect against malware and phishing scams, to prevent unacceptable user behavior, to prevent users from visiting inappropriate websites, for liability management/compliance purposes, and to protect sensitive information. The Pros of Employee MonitoringThis section will overview the pros of employee monitoring and provide examples of how employee monitoring is used by businesses. Overall, the greatest pro of employee monitoring is the level of visibility it provides into employee work habits. These insights are used to improve operational efficiency, meet compliance requirements, and improve security in businesses. Monitoring Reduces Employee Time TheftAt its core, time theft occurs when an employee accepts payment for work or time they did not actually complete. Time theft comes in a range of degrees of severity, from employees mismanaging their allocated break times all that way up to intentionally fraudulent claims. Examples of Time Theft
Employee monitoring improves the accuracy of employee time tracking by verifying that employees are active on their work devices. For example, in most cases, a data entry employee that clocks in at the start of the workday will reasonably be expected to be working on their computers shortly after. If an excessive period of inactivity is found throughout the workday for such an employee it may be a sign that the employee is engaging in time theft. Monitoring Improves Employee ProductivityGallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. between $483 billion to $605 billion each year in lost productivity. One of the pros of using employee monitoring software is gaining the ability to detect early warning signs of disengagement such as excessive unproductive web browsing. This is especially true in the case of monitoring hybrid and remote employees using a work computer to work from home. The lack of visibility means that employees need a tool that verifies their work hours and demonstrates their efforts to their employer. When employees work remotely their productivity data will prove that they are actively engaged and working as expected. How employee monitoring is used to improve productivity
Monitoring Improves CybersecurityComputer monitoring software is used to ensure that employees are using company systems safely and handling sensitive information in a way that is compliant with the company’s security policies. This includes DLP tools that audit file transfers to portable storage devices and internet monitoring software that tracks the websites visited by employees. How employee monitoring improves security
Monitoring Helps Enforce Company PoliciesEmployers need to ensure that their employees are behaving in an appropriate and professional manner. Allowing employees to engage in unsavory actions on company-owned computers is a significant contributor to a hostile work environment. Having a formal computer use policy is an essential first step for communicating expectations to employees, but it’s not the full solution. Employee monitoring software is a valuable tool for enforcing policies as it can alert HR and management to computer policy violations such as visits to adult-oriented sites. How employee monitoring helps enforce policies
Monitoring Reduces Software WasteThe Software Usage and Waste Report 2016 report from 1E found that as much as 38% of enterprise software is underutilized or simply not being used at all. This total cost of underutilized software to these businesses is estimated to be $34 billion per year. How employee monitoring helps reduces software waste
The Cons of Employee MonitoringThe greatest cons of employee monitoring relate to the potential impacts on employee privacy, workplace culture, and morale. As the spectrum of what is considered “employee monitoring” varies widely, the cons of monitoring will vary depending on employee perceptions, who has access to their information, the invasiveness of the chosen monitoring methods, and how the information is used. When monitoring your employees you should consider both the pros and cons of the monitoring tools you intend to use. FREE WHITE PAPER Best Practices for Monitoring Employees In today's privacy-conscious world employers need to monitor employees in a way that is transparent, minimally invasive, and respectful of employee privacy Get Access Now Employee Monitoring vs Workplace PrivacyIn today’s privacy-conscious world employers need to monitor employees in a way that is transparent, minimally invasive, and respectful of employee privacy. They need to carefully balance the demands of organizational productivity, employee privacy, and regulatory compliance requirements surrounding the storage, use, and protection of their employee’s data. One of the cons of employee monitoring software is that potentially sensitive personal information may be captured. If employees doubt whether or not their personal information is adequately protected from misuse there is a legitimate concern that their web browsing history can be unfairly used against them. Before you monitor your employees you must have them sign an employee monitoring policy that outlines what will be captured, who will have access to it, and how the data of workers will be used. The most common employee privacy concerns
Workplace MonitoringPolicy Template
Get started today—Download the FREE template and customize it to fit the needs of your organization. Get the FREE Template Invasive Monitoring May Lead to Legal IssuesWhen monitoring employees in the workplace it is essential that you are in compliance with any laws or regulations that pertain to an employee’s privacy rights in the workplace. When it comes to what you are allowed to monitor, many believe that if an employee is using company equipment, on company time, and getting paid by the company, that the company has every right to monitor their equipment and what the employee is doing with it. While in the majority of cases a company can monitor their employees so long as they have a legitimate business reason for doing so, it’s not always that simple. A variety of factors influence what employers can and cannot monitor. For example, keylogging software is an invasive form of employee monitoring that can potentially capture personal data such as passwords. Even with a policy in place an employer may not have the legal right to use this type of monitoring. Legal factors that influence an employer’s right to monitor
H&M Fined Millions Under GDPR for Invasive MonitoringIn 2020 the clothing store H&M received a €35.3m ($41.3m USD) fine for invasive employee monitoring practices. H&M received the fine due to non-compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a data protection and privacy legislation that protects data subjects in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Why was H&M’s monitoring considered invasive? Managers at H&M collected sensitive personal information through extensive employee surveys and even notes from informal conversations. The data included how staff conducted their holidays, medical symptoms, diagnoses for illnesses, family issues, and personal religious beliefs. That data was then made available to up to 50 managers who used that data to make employment-related decisions. Since this collection was excessively invasive and collected information that was beyond any legitimate business need, the Data Protection Authority of Hamburg (HmbBfDI) opted to issue the fine. Want Transparent Employee Monitoring?Click here to learn more about monitoring with BrowseReporter Potential Impacts on Employee Morale
Another con of employee monitoring is that some forms of monitoring can have a negative impact on employee morale. Employee perceptions of monitoring may also contribute to added stress that affects work performance. Providing employees with autonomy is essential for maintaining morale. If employee monitoring is used to micromanage employees and punish them for minor infractions they will feel like they are being unfairly treated. When using employee monitoring software it’s important to avoid reducing human employees to mere numbers. Workforce analytics tools are excellent at capturing quantitative data, but they cannot reliably track qualitative data. Even if that is not the intention of the employer, a lack of communication and transparency can cause these sentiments to form. That’s why it is critical that the deployment of employee monitoring software is done with the input of a representative sample of employees. Involving employees in the planning process gives business leaders the opportunity to proactively address any privacy or management concerns before any monitoring takes place. Employers must also do all they can to clearly communicate their intended use of employee data, especially if that data will be used to make any sort of judgement on employee performance. How employee monitoring software can harm employee morale
Misuse or Breach of Sensitive Employee DataMany data privacy laws require that data collection is performed for a specific purpose. This is a preventative measure to ensure that the informed consent provided by the data subjects (the employees) is respected during collection, processing, and use. A successful employee monitoring strategy requires a clear understanding of the company’s goals and how the data collected will be used to meet them. If employee data is collected under one stated purpose and used for another it can lead to data privacy compliance violations and severe impacts on employee morale. Employee monitoring data must also be treated as sensitive and protected accordingly. This includes limiting who can access the data, restricting the use of the data to its intended purpose, and implementing necessary safeguards. The risk that an employee’s data could be leaked to an unauthorized third party may contribute to an employee’s hesitation to be monitored in the workplace. The risks of misuse or breach of employee data
Resource & Financial RequirementsAnother con of employee monitoring is the cost of purchasing, deploying, and managing the solution. Monitoring employee computer activity generates a large volume of data. Actively reviewing employee reports may be viable for a small business but it is not scalable, nor is it an efficient use of time for most use cases. For this reason, the majority of organizations will not actively examine each employee. Instead, they will limit auditing to an as-needed basis or when the software alerts them to specific activities that they are monitoring for. Alerts are typically set for high-risk activities such as anomalous file transfers, attempts to visit inappropriate sites, or the use of unauthorized portable storage devices. The costs of monitoring employees
What Employee Activity Should Employers Monitor?The exact pros and cons of employee monitoring will depend on the methods used to monitor employees. The perceived invasiveness, legal requirements, and potential impact will vary heavily based on what data is collected, how it is used, and the context of the employee’s work. Employers should use :
General Principles for Monitoring EmployeesWhen deciding what to monitor, an employer must consider employee monitoring from both a legal and ethical standpoint. Though not all jurisdictions will have privacy laws that limit an employer’s right to monitor, they should abide by these general principles.
Want to learn more about the best practices for monitoring employees in the workplace? Download our white paper Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring: Best Practices for Balancing Productivity, Security, and Privacy Want Transparent Employee Monitoring?Click here to learn more about monitoring with BrowseReporter Conclusion & Further ReadingWhen deciding whether or not to monitor employees in the workplace it is essential to understand any privacy laws, union agreements, employee concerns, the pros and cons, and any other factors that may limit an employer’s right to monitor their employees. Even when it is legal to do so, an employer should factor in the pros and cons of employee monitoring so they can address any privacy, security, ethics, and workplace culture concerns that their employees may have. The best practice is to monitor employees in a way that is transparent, minimally invasive, and respectful of autonomy and privacy. This will increase employee buy-in and help to ensure that workplace monitoring is ethical, lawful, and reasonable. Ready to start monitoring employees in the workplace? Get a free trial of CurrentWare’s employee monitoring software suite. Track internet activity, application usage, USB activities, and more – free for 14 days. Get My Free Trial Chat With CurrentWare Further reading
Sai Kit ChuSai Kit Chu is a Product Manager with CurrentWare. He enjoys helping businesses improve their employee productivity & data loss prevention efforts through the deployment of the CurrentWare solutions. Is it ethical or unethical for employers to monitor their employees?The number one monitoring practice that is considered unethical, and in most cases even illegal, is monitoring employees without their knowledge or consent. This practice is considered legal when employers are suspecting malpractice, and want to catch employees red-handed.
Does a company have the right to monitor?In general, employees have no legal expectation of privacy in their workplace activities, particularly in their use of company computers. Employers are entitled to utilize reasonable methods such as video surveillance or computer monitoring programs to monitor employee activity on company time.
Is it morally permissible for employers to remotely monitor their employees?According to law, businesses have a right to keep an eye on the activities of their employees. A monitor on the company's server is a proper way to track what's happening. Also, providing a workspace through the company makes it clear to the employees to understand that they are under surveillance.
How does workplace monitoring affect employees?Tracking employee performance can help you see which areas need more attention and which are performing well. Tracking employee performance gives you the information you need to make better decisions for the future. Employee monitoring also provides insights into how morale affects work performance.
|
