Productivity is not only essential: it must be continuously optimized. Workplace monitoring tools are a highly effective tools that can deliver substantial and continuous productivity gains.
But, let’s be honest, people have concerns, including employees. There is no point pushing through those concerns, and it is counterproductive to ignore or dismiss them as they can have negative impacts on your business, from recruitment and retention to corporate reputation and compliance.
That means concerns around workplace monitoring tools need to be addressed head-on. A good starting point is to understand how and why the concerns are misplaced.
Why Concerns Around Workplace Monitoring Are Misplaced
In simple terms, concerns around workplace monitoring are misplaced when they are confused with employee surveillance. This is because employee surveillance and workplace monitoring are different – very different. And the distinction matters.
Employee surveillance is secretive, controlling, and designed to catch people out.
Effective workplace monitoring, on the other hand, is transparent, empowering, and designed to help employees perform at their best.
Tough When It Needs to Be
Transparent and empowering workplace monitoring doesn’t mean the slackers and cheats can rest easy in some sort of politically correct, work-as-little-as-possible utopia. Those types of employees will be identified and can be dealt with quickly and decisively.
But the vast majority of workplace employees are not slackers or cheats. Most employees want to do their best, they want to be productive, and they want to contribute, not least because it gives them a sense of worth and belonging. Being productive also helps employees achieve their own personal career and professional development goals.
The problem is, being hard-working and being productive are not always the same thing. In fact, working too hard can have disastrous consequences on productivity when it leads to burnout.
Furthermore, processes can be inefficient, structures can become out-of-date, excessive management can stifle performance, bottlenecks can slow progress, and, yes, standards can slip, even for the best employees.
All this leads to productivity losses.
Workplace monitoring tools make it possible to identify areas where productivity can be improved, benefiting the company, of course, but also benefiting individual employees and teams as well.
The Differences Between Employee Surveillance and Workplace Monitoring
| Employee Surveillance | Workplace Monitoring | |
| Trust vs. Fear | Employees feel they are under a constant cloud of suspicion, leading to actions aimed at avoiding punishment rather than actions aimed at improving performance. | Employees feel part of the process of productivity improvement, increasing engagement, and ensuring enhanced buy-in to the process of improving productivity. |
| Empowerment vs. Micromanagement | Employees feel their every move is being watched and scrutinized, flatlining morale, hampering innovation, and causing significant frustration. | Employees welcome data-driven insights to help improve productivity and performance in ways that make the job more rewarding and successful. |
| Transparency vs. Secrecy | Employees don’t know where they stand, they don’t know how they are being watched, and they don’t know what is expected of them. This corrodes productivity and enhances stress. | Clarity and openness dissipate distrust and tension as employees know where they stand, why the insights are important, and the steps they can take to improve and progress. |
| Collective Improvement vs. Blame and Control | Fosters a blame culture where employees feel they are being constantly accused and controlled. | Creates a culture of improvement, where individual performance can make a tangible difference to collective success. |
| Accountability and Autonomy vs. Reduced Morale and Increased Stress | Employees feel the monitoring is being done to them rather than in collaboration with them, so it is demoralizing and stress-inducing. | Accountability increases as employees feel integral to the process, owning their contribution. |
| Meaningful Change vs. Short-Term Compliance | Employees focus on what they can do to stay out of trouble, regardless of whether their actions make any difference to productivity or performance. | Employees strive to make meaningful change based on data-driven insights in a culture of improvement and collaboration. |
The Distinction Matters
Getting the balance wrong between employee surveillance and workplace monitoring can have significant consequences. Employee engagement and job satisfaction rates fall with employee surveillance, and you are likely to encounter recruitment and retention issues. As mentioned previously, your brand reputation can also suffer. This all adds up to the opposite of what you want to achieve, i.e., employee surveillance is more likely to harm productivity than improve it.
So, how do you get the balance right? Approaching the issue with the right mindset is the best starting point. You then need to implement the best tools and work with the best workplace monitoring team. We can help at WatchPoint. Get in touch to arrange a consultation.
