5 Remote Employee Monitoring Mistakes to Avoid

In recent years, especially with the surge of remote work, many companies, not just remote ones, are beginning to implement employees monitoring software.

Tracking the work your employees do can be beneficial for your company in many ways. For example, by using employee monitoring, you can ensure that your employees are not slacking off at work, their productivity can be improved vastly, you can plan your projects more accurately, and so on.

While the benefits of employee monitoring are quite apparent, the drawbacks are not so obvious. If you do not implement employee monitoring properly, it can have substantial negative consequences on your business. 

Here in this post, we explore some of the most common mistakes with remote employee monitoring and how to avoid them.

Not Being Transparent With Your Employees

If you are looking to implement remote team management software in your company, you need to inform your employees about your intentions before moving any further in the process. 

By letting your employees know what you are looking to do, you will avoid any potentially harmful situations. Remote team management software will most likely create a massive shift in your company culture. To prevent your employees from becoming less productive and efficient, you need to be transparent throughout the entire process and ensure that your employees understand why employee monitoring is necessary and that they are on board with the idea.

For a more in-depth overview of the benefits of implementing a remote team management software, be sure to read Employees Monitoring Software and 100% Remote Teams: Benefits and Concerns.

Not Securing Employee Data

If you do not secure the data that remote team management software collects appropriately, you run the risk of sensitive info such as employee payroll or your work processes, ending up in the wrong hands.

The first step in securing your employee data is to implement a data protection policy. The basics of your employee monitoring data policy should state the means and ways you will be collecting and storing data and who will be able to access it.

For more information about how to secure your employee monitoring data, read How Secure Is Your Staff Monitoring System Data.

Measuring the Wrong Metrics

Most software for monitoring work from home productivity can measure various metrics. But just because they can do that, it does not mean that you should keep a tab on them. 

To track just the right metrics, you will need to find the employee monitoring software that matches your business needs and goals. If you choose Insightful as your remote team monitoring software, you can get customized reports that include only the data that is important to you.

Breaking the Law

You have to be familiar with employee monitoring laws in your remote team’s countries before implementing it. 

Most of the time, it is legal with differences whether you need to notify your employees beforehand and if they need to sign a consent form. However, all countries are different, and you should consult a lawyer or familiarize yourself with the regulations in each country where you have employees. This is the only way to protect your company from lawsuits and your employees' rights.

Monitoring Your Employees On Break and Outside of Work

We all know that personal matters should be addressed outside of work hours. However, we are all humans, and sometimes we cannot wait after work. Taking a short break from work to answer a text or pay a bill is understandable. 

As a business owner, you should be respectful of your employees' privacy and only monitor work-related activities. While it is okay to track the number of hours your employees spend browsing social media during work, it is not okay to monitor what your employees are looking at on social media.

Since your employees are working remotely, they may use their personal laptops for work. If that is the case, you should not track what they do outside of their working hours. If you are concerned about protecting your company's data, you should restrict access to sensitive company information outside of work hours.

Also, most trackers have a clock-in/out button which gives your employees control over the tracking. They can clock out, or take a break when they need to handle personal matters. It’s the best way to ensure you don’t collect any sensitive information or violate your employees’ privacy.

Final Thoughts

Employee monitoring can be beneficial both for the company and the employees, as it gives you a detailed overview of how your employees spend their time at work and how that affects your business. 

However, if it is not implemented correctly, it can create many issues. To ensure this does not happen to you, you need to be transparent with your employees, measure the right metrics, keep your company data secure, comply with all the laws, and respect your employees' private time.