As an HR professional, I believe that one of the most important ways that we can support our team members and allow them to feel encouraged by the organization is to limit monitoring to work-related activities, when necessary. While there are so many options for employers to now utilize as it relates to employee monitoring such as video surveillance, internet monitoring, observation of emails, calls, or text messages, biotracking, badges that monitor conversations, or even microchips (which I cannot believe), I do not personally feel that it is ethical to track every single moment or action of an employee. Not only is it not ethical, but to me it sets this idea in motion that you do not trust them to do their job well. In my opinion, you hire someone because you feel that they are capable of doing the job, without constant monitoring, and doing so ends up potentially being an invasion of personal privacy if privacy expectations are not clearly communicated or used in a proper way.
With such a strong focus of HR these days being on employee morale, experience, as well as diversity and inclusion, I feel that over-monitoring team members can often backfire and instead of producing higher levels of productivity as it is intended to do, it can lead to an opposite effect. In fact, an article by Harvard Business Review states that “employees who are now subject to new levels of surveillance report being both ‘incredibly stressed out’ by the constant monitoring and are also afraid to speak up, a recipe for not only dissatisfaction but also burnout, both of which – ironically – decrease productivity.” (Blackman, 2020) Additionally, with how incredibly competitive recruitment has become, if your organization over-monitors its employees, this will ultimately be spread through word of mouth, and most job seekers are not looking for that kind of helicopter management style with an employer. This can worsen your position competitively when looking for key talent to join your organization.
As someone who can guide workplace policy, I would limit the monitoring to only what is necessary, and
when
necessary. Organizations “must balance the business interests of the company with the reasonable expectations of privacy of its employees” (SHRM, n.d.) and must be aware of the need to be transparent to their employees as to what they are monitoring, so that employees have a solid expectation as it relates to any monitoring activity. As such, our organization policy states that the use of our company property should be
primarily
for business purposes and personal use of the systems should be limited to non-working time and should not result in neglect of work assignments. This also means that working time does not
include breaks, mealtime, or other periods when they are not engaged in performing their work duties, such as before or after their shift. With that being said, all employees are notified that they are responsible for the activities that come from their computers or company-issued electronic devices. They are also made aware upon hire that while their electronics may be password protected, if there is due cause, IT may override a password if necessary and that having a password does not necessarily confer privacy rights. We also state within our policy that the CEO, CFO, IT, and HR will not routinely monitor email or electronic communications but may access the files of a team member if there is a legitimate reason to do so.
Blackman states in his article for HBR that there are 6 main ways that you can monitor your employees while still respecting their privacy such as:
Choosing metrics carefully by involving all relevant stakeholders
Be transparent with employees about what you are monitoring and
why
