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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Considerations for an employee non-monitoring program

Tech Republic offers up an article on issues to consider when launching an employee monitoring program. The article starts out with a list of reasons to monitor, including ensuring employees aren’t abusing communication systems, limiting employer liability for employee misconduct, and assessing productivity. Most of the article is a guide to sidestepping issues that might arise in the development of such a program.

Wouldn’t it be nice, if one of these articles—and there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them—also included reasons for not implementing employee monitoring programs in the first place?

According to several studies, employee engagement is one of the big issues on executives’ minds. Companies with a large percentage of highly engaged employees tend to have double-digit growth. Those with large populations of disengaged employees plod along with single-digit or negative growth. It’s not hard to make the cause-and-effect connection.

Trust is one of the biggest drivers of employee engagement. What kind of message does it send to employees when their companies say, “We need you. We’re counting on you to help this company succeed and grow. You’re important to us. But we don’t trust you as far as we can throw you, so we’re going to monitor every keystroke, every e-mail, every communication you make”?

Monitoring programs are engagement killers.

This doesn’t mean that small percentage of employees who will abuse priveleges will be able to get away with the most egregious violations. The problem with monitoring is that it starts with the presumption that no employee can be trusted. In fact, the vast majority of employees want to do a good job. They crave recognition, advancement, and reward. They take pride in what they do. Starting from a position of distrust with them is the easy way out. It takes more work to train supervisors to identify abuse, but this approach—managing by exception—is the one that will help build trust and boost engagement.

A supervisor who suspects an employee of abusing communication systems can approach IT to review server log files. “Ah, yes,” they can report; “this employee has been going out to triple-X Web sites.” And the appropriate disciplinary action can be taken. Meanwhile, all those employees who would never view porn at work continue to experience the high job satisfaction that goes along with knowing that the organization presumes them innocent and trusts them to behave in a manner consistent with company policies, values, and expectations.

Executives can talk about how much they trust and respect employees. They can spout the “employees-are-our-greatest-asset” line until hell freezes over. Until they walk they talk, the bond of trust won’t grow and employee engagement will stagnate. Isn’t double-digit growth enough of a motivation to dump these draconian programs and find a better way to deal with those few employees the programs are designed to catch?

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