Before COVID-19 hit the world, employers were focusing on efforts to help employees to be more productive. The Gartner Report of 2018, states that fifty percent of 239 large corporations admitted they were monitoring their employees. Most of this monitoring was with employees’ social media accounts and emails. All of this monitoring helped them to determine who was meeting with who and how effective those meetings were.
During and Post Pandemic
Express VPN which is a virtual private network service did a survey and found:
- Even though 83% of employers think employee monitoring is unethical — 78% use monitoring software.
- More than one-third of employees believe their employers don’t monitor their online activities, and 15% don’t know it’s possible.
- The majority of employees (56%) feel stressed and anxious about their employer monitoring their communications. Moreover, 41% wonder if they’re being watched, and 32% take fewer breaks because of it.
- The majority of employees (48%) would be willing to lower their salaries to prevent surveillance. In fact, 1 in 4 workers would take a cut of 25%.
- Employees admit that 41% of their recorded work calls contain evidence that could lead to their termination. Additionally, 37% of employers claim to have used stored recordings as evidence for firing.
- Moreover, employers use stored emails, messages, or calls to inform their decisions regarding performance reviews (73%) and to track potential worker unionization (46%).
What Do We Do With All Of This Data?
The first step is to set clear expectations and obtainable deadlines. It is surprising after decades of working with business owners how many don’t set clear expectations. These should be a top priority regardless of the size of your team.
- Focus on clean objectives and goals
- Goals and objectives should be specific, measureable, attainable and timely
- Expain to your employees the “why” behind meaningful work ethic and goals
- Provide examples and the right tools for them to succeed
- Agree on reasonable deadlines as a team
Use Positive Reinforcement
It should come as no surprise that employees do better, are more productive, and are happier with positive reinforcement than negative. Nobody wants to be the dragon in the office barking orders and having employees angry, bitter and non-productive. Here are tips to help you with some positive reinforcement:
- Showing compassion, empathy, and gratitude
- Focusing on meaningful work
- Treating employees with respect
- Not blaming others for failure
- Providing constructive feedback
- Rewarding good work with acknowledgment or promotions.