Employee Monitoring - Why You Shouldn't Do It?

Yes, employee monitoring can be awesome, and it has a vast amount of benefits. The reasons why you should and shouldn’t implement an employee monitoring software are numerous. 

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Many of our blogs speak about why you SHOULD track employee computer usage, and what are the benefits of it, so this time we decided to turn things around and show you why you SHOULDN'T track your employees.

Installing an employee monitoring software for the wrong reasons can cause a lot more harm than you would anticipate, so if any of these below are the reason you want to track your employees - sit back, and rethink your decision.

I Need a Better Way to Micromanage My Employees

If this is the case - don’t do it. Plain and simple. Employee work tracking system can benefit micromanagers become “better” in this management style, but micromanagement destroys teams. A survey conducted by Trinity Solutions a few years ago found that 69% of employees who dealt with micromanagers thought about switching jobs, while 36% actually did move on to another company.

In this same survey, 85% of those surveyed agreed that micromanagement negatively impacted their morale. 

Do you really want to be that manager? The one who peaks behind everyone’s shoulder to see if they’re browsing Facebook or actually doing some work? Employee monitoring software can help you sit at your desk and still look what each one of your employees is doing - but that’s not the point of monitoring.

Reducing People to Numbers

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Now, employee work tracking software will give you a lot of handy insights. However, you shouldn’t rely only on these when making decisions related to your employees. 

The fact that you now have these numbers, doesn’t mean your employees are numbers. Using the insights from the analytics dashboard within your monitoring software will help you see how your employees could improve. It will give you grounds for promotions, pay raises, as well as demotions and downgrades. However, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket and rely solely on the data you receive from the software.

Build relationships with your employees, help them see they’re more than just a number. Gather comments from their peers and coworkers to determine whether they really deserve a promotion or not.

Everyone Else Is Doing It

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Employee monitoring software is more popular than ever. With over 90% of organizations are monitoring employees at work - whether it’s keycards, CCTV, IT monitoring software, or any other kind of tracking. So, it makes sense you would think like you’re missing out on a new practice. 

I hate to break it to you, but just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean that you should too. Most of those companies probably have valid reasons for monitoring, such as security, accurate time management, productivity improvement, and so on.

Conclusion

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All of this brings us to one point - make sure you have a legitimate reason for monitoring your employees before you start. Not everyone’s going to be hyped when you break the news, but you’ll be saving yourself a lot of time, money and effort if you just do everything by the book.

If you’re still unsure why you want to track your workers, you should definitely read more about about the ethics of this practice, legalities, as well as advantages and disadvantages that could arise from it.

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