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5 Best Practices When Implementing Employee Monitoring Software

monitoring software

5 Best Practices When Implementing Employee Monitoring Software

Implementing employee monitoring software can be challenging. While the software itself is very user-friendly nowadays, implementing it will invariably raise various privacy, ethical, and security concerns.

If you want to get around those problems and have a much smoother time implementing employee monitoring software, here are five best practices you should definitely follow:

1. Determine Why You Are Using Monitoring Software

Before you start implementing the software, take a step back and clearly determine why you need it. Are you interested in productivity monitoring, improving security, tracking employee attendance, or something else entirely?

It is important to be completely clear on what you intend to achieve by monitoring your employees so that you can make better decisions about how to use it and what data you need to gather.

2. Check the Legal Requirements and Regulations

The law governing employee monitoring varies in different jurisdictions. For example, in the United States, it is legal to monitor employees in most ways without notifying them. On the other hand, in the European Union, it is necessary to obtain employees’ consent, and some forms of monitoring (such as capturing keystrokes or screenshots) may be illegal.

By checking the legal requirements in your jurisdiction, you can then make sure that you comply with them and don’t get into trouble with the law.

3. Create a Detailed and Clear Policy

Based on the reasons you’re using monitoring software and the legal requirements in your jurisdiction, you should write a clear and detailed policy. Ideally, it should explain the monitoring process, why it is necessary, and how you will protect their privacy and security.

The reason why it is so important to create a policy is so that employees and managers all know what to expect and what is expected of them. It will also demonstrate that you are transparent and not secretly ‘spying’ on employees.

Although not required, asking your employees to sign off on the policy and give their consent is a good move.

4. Avoid Being Invasive

The golden rule of successful employee monitoring is to avoid being invasive. To put it simply, you should only track the data you need to fulfill your goals (which you’ve defined previously) – and no more than that.

Generally speaking, the less invasive you are, the more employees will find the monitoring acceptable. Try to steer clear of things like recording keystrokes, as well as saving personal emails or instant messaging conversations – all of which could infringe on the privacy of your employees.

5. Communicate and Listen to Your Employees

Before the monitoring goes live, take the time to communicate with your employees. Try to explain how it’ll work, why it is necessary, and how it will benefit the company and its employees.

Aside from that, you should also allow for a trial period. This way, employees can adapt to the new system, ask questions, and give feedback. Be sure to listen to what they have to say, and address any potential issues.

Following these best practices should make implementing employee monitoring software less of a challenge. In addition, it will help to reassure your employees and make them less resistant to the idea that they’ll be monitored in the future.

If used properly, employee monitoring can be a very powerful tool to boost productivity and security. But for that to happen, its implementation needs to be thorough. Also, you need to solve all ethical and privacy issues.

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