Is Employee Monitoring Taking a Toll on Trust and Productivity?
Time Trackers — tools for tracking and monitoring the work of freelancers and employees. Most of them work by taking random screenshots of the screen and counting keystrokes and mouse clicks. They are especially useful for tracking worked hours and enabling the freelancer to charge for worked hours. In the same way, the client or the employer needs these tracked hours for paying accurately.
Time trackers became prevalent especially during and after the pandemic. Whole companies went from office-based to remote. In the beginning, there were obviously doubts about keeping the same level of performance in remote teams. That’s why this transition from office-based to remote called for the use of time trackers.
Generally speaking, just like in the case of most novelties, trackers were also met with resistance and opposition by employees. Their approach is totally justified, as nobody wants their screen captured and their actions monitored all the time. However, many employers went ahead and imposed the trackers anyway.
It is very important to make it clear that trackers are not for surveillance and micromanagement.
Employees need to know that the sole purpose of trackers is performance improvement. It must by no means be surveillance, micromanagement and reprimand.
Where does this opposition towards time trackers come from?
The reason for employee resistance here stems from poor introduction to trackers rather than the time tracker itself.
Here is what most employees think about trackers:
- High level of intrusion into personal boundaries
- Feelings of lack of trust
- Constant feeling of being on pins and needles
- Loss of focus from being watched
Unfortunately, forums are full of employees claiming to feel alienated, less productive, and less motivated because of trackers. When they know they are being monitored, employees report not being able to focus, perform well and feel trusted. They describe feeling like there is someone constantly peeping over their shoulder to see what they are doing.
As their main purpose suggests, time trackers are indeed highly intrusive.
In fact, they need to be intrusive to be able to track and monitor the work being done. Some trackers have screenshot modes that snap the screen at every 10-minute interval. The latter is considered one of the questionable issues with trackers. Basically, privacy violation. Doesn’t matter if it is for work or the good of the company, there is still a chance of personal information leak.
The latter is a question of debate, as one side doesn’t see anything wrong with being monitored as long as it is for work, while the other resents it.
But wait.
It is important to make the first introduction of trackers to employees informative and accurate. Because some companies failed to do so and still do, the resistance persists.
This resistance comes from the wrong assumption that trackers are used for surveillance so that employees do not waste a minute not doing work. Unfortunately, there is no smoke without fire. Some managers use them to micromanage their employees, which leads to the infamous assumption.
In the ideal parallel case, employees know that trackers are used for the good of them all in the long run. They know they benefit from trackers as well because they have their time and work process right in front of them in a visually compelling way.
So, how do you solve this?
- Start with the right introduction, even if you are already using trackers
- Explain to employees their benefits from trackers as well
- Ask and listen to them
- Consider their worries and thoughts
- Find solutions to their worries
- Reconsider the use of screenshots or go for the blurred mode
Trackers are proven to be beneficial both for the company and the employees. In order for employees to see the benefits, companies should strive to make the right introduction and use of trackers. That way employees will feel monitored or watched but will know that their work is tracked for their own benefit. The important thing is to listen to your employees and consider their worries, even if it means giving up some of the tracker’s features, such as screenshots.
Want to start using a time tracker yourself? Try WebWork Time Tracker. It has 4 screenshot modes (including blurred and no screenshot) that you and your team can use depending on any privacy level.
Don’t forget about discussing this with your team first!
