How to Effectively Monitor Employees While Respecting Their Privacy?

1. ☰ Employee Monitoring & Productivity How to Effectively Monitor Employees While Respecting Their Privacy? / January 27, 2022 0 75 Posted By Nikita Ajmani Do you want to safeguard employee privacy rights when employers use monitoring software? Workplace monitoring is no longer optional. It’s become a must-have for both security and productivity reasons. However, to safeguard the privacy of employees, workplace monitoring must transparently take place. This post will explain what employee privacy rights are and how to observe workers without infringing on their rights. We’ll provide you with six helpful suggestions to help you minimize the negative effects of monitoring on employee privacy. Let’s dive in-

2. What do you know about Employee Privacy Rights?  Source Employee privacy rights are the regulations that restrict how you can observe an employee at work or from a distance. The US Federal government has several anti-discrimination, hazardous working conditions, and other laws to safeguard workers against these things, but company policy usually determines employees’ privacy rights. You’ll need to research the state and federal labor and privacy laws for more speci?c requirements, but there are many grey areas regarding an employee’s privacy rights. Treating all personal data about an employee and their family as private and con?dential is essential to avoid any privacy concerns in practice. But why does it matter in the ?rst place? Managers these days may be interested in workplace monitoring to improve productivity and enhance workplace safety. Performance management software, for example, may be a good ?t for improving worker productivity.

3. However, the expected privacy of an employee must be considered in conjunction with their employer’s legitimate business reason for monitoring. For example, you may be used to reviewing a job applicant’s social media pro?les. However, potential employees may see social networking as personal and believe that you should not be allowed to look at their social media pages. 7 Ways To Monitor Your Employees Without Breaching Their Privacy It is possible to effectively observe the workplace without infringing on your workers’ privacy rights. Here are seven helpful suggestions for properly monitoring staff: 1. Consider the legalities ?rst Source Before you monitor your employees, you must consider all of your legal obligations as an employer. For example, if you’re a large company in Europe, consider GDPR. In Canada, you must

4. abide by PIPEDA (which only applies to certain businesses). In Australia, where laws are different from state to state and territory-to-territory, there are a few things to keep in mind before making recordings: Make sure you have the necessary consent (obviously) but also make sure it’s reasonable and necessary. Finally, always be very careful with audio or video recording conversations that may involve sensitive information—such as bank details or health information—as those recordings could become legally protected. If you choose not to ask for explicit permission for each recording beforehand, at least tell your employee(s) about any recordings in advance—and ask them for their okay after-the-fact too! 2. Inform your staff about monitoring software Source As an employer, you know that it’s your responsibility to keep tabs on your employees. The question is, how? If you use monitoring software without warning them, they might object to what they see as an invasion of privacy. If you tell them about it beforehand and ask for their approval, though, most people will be ?ne with being monitored. It is also good to set up a protocol for when employees have questions or concerns about what they ?nd in their monitoring reports—to avoid any hard feelings down the road.

5. In particular, make sure they know that there’s nothing shady going on here—that it’s all part of your effort to get them back to work quickly. Are you struggling to manage your remote workforce? Are you looking for employee monitoring software for remote teams? Sign up to try the best remote employee monitoring software here.  3. Generate Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) Source Monitoring software can tell you exactly what’s happening with your company’s computers, including time spent online and what sites are visited. But there are limits. For example, if you’re interested in monitoring employees for signs of misconduct or theft, then you may have to dig deeper into employee privacy rights—in other words, tread carefully. It all depends on whether or not there was a written agreement from employees letting their employer monitor their computer usage and online activities when they were hired. That agreement is called an acceptable use policy (AUP), and it must be disclosed before someone can start working at your company.

6. If employees sign off on an AUP (usually while applying for a job), that means they agree to let you track certain aspects of their work habits. However, if they don’t consent, you probably won’t want to risk violating privacy laws. Remote monitoring is particularly popular among small businesses since most companies don’t need high-tech tools like keystroke logging or screen capture tools—remote control can do most everything else. Plus, you’ll save money by deploying only one remote access tool across your entire business instead of having different employees log into different web portals each morning or week. 4. Don’t share the personal data of your employees Source Keeping checks on your employees is not only an excellent way to ensure they’re doing their jobs, but it can also help you determine which work?ows need optimizing. However, there are many grey areas regarding data privacy and what’s fair game for sharing. To prevent future confusion, make sure you don’t share any personal data from an employee ?le —like social security numbers or bank account information—that isn’t explicitly required for payroll purposes.

7. You may not even want your HR department accessing everything in employee ?les. Be mindful of company-wide changes in privacy policies, too; new laws are constantly being passed that affect how and why companies collect employee information. 5. Stay hands-off when you can As tempting as it may be, monitoring your employees electronically shouldn’t become a full-time job for you. Instead, use automated services that let you peek at data without having to do all of the work yourself. For example, if you want your employees not to spend too much time on social media during work hours, then make sure they know that an application is keeping tabs on their internet activity and that there are repercussions if they don’t follow the rules (like limiting browsing time). Likewise, the software can automatically log every keystroke they type or capture screenshots of what’s being displayed on their computer screens in real-time. If something ?shy looks like it might be going down, check into those activities manually. And again: If you aren’t 100% positive about what’s going on when you review a screengrab or someone’s keystrokes, leave it alone and talk to them about it when you’re sure something was out of line — no use embarrassing someone over nothing! To ensure that privacy laws aren’t breached while still getting some insight into where employees’ online focus lies. 6. Update your policies regularly

8. Source It can be challenging to remain updated with which laws are changing and when. If you don’t update your policies regularly, you risk getting hit with massive ?nes or even lawsuits. You may also be breaking your company’s ethical standards if you have an outdated policy in place. Whenever any new law is introduced, sit down and think about how it affects your business— and if it needs updating in any way. Keep an eye on upcoming changes so that you can take care of these updates quickly instead of waiting for them to come around again later (aside from being legally required). 7. Use Employee-friendly Employee Monitoring Software Source  Modern employee monitoring software has grown in popularity to keep track of remote and in- of?ce staff.

9. You may assist employees in accepting performance software by framing it as a productivity tool rather than a way of monitoring job performance. When workers realize that the performance software is there to aid them, they will be more receptive to it to improve their productivity. A recent study shows that almost every private employee (92%) is open to their employers monitoring them as long as it serves their interests. Here’s how to get your workforce using productivity management software: Emphasize how it removes the need to hunt down workers to check production deadlines and standards. Tell them that they may be more self-reliant and list the hours when they are at their best. Highlight the simplicity of deploying productivity management software on workstations for employees and businesses. Being the best employee monitoring software, Workstatus can help you manage your time and increase productivity. It is a tool that allows you to organize your tasks automatically. It has a lot of great employee-friendly options. With Workstatus, you can- Receive regular and weekly reports on web and app usage, active summary, hours tracked, and more. Examine the amount of time your workers are idle to assess production. With a few clicks, you may create and assign tasks with ease. If necessary, manually edit the recorded time. With Android and iOS apps, you can keep track of time used on the move. Monitor user activities when you are either online or of?ine.  Note: Workstatus respects employee privacy at work. Final Thoughts There is a ?ne line to be found between monitoring employees and safeguarding their privacy as an employer.

10. On the other hand, monitoring employee productivity is a valuable business task that improves productivity and provides employers with essential insights into their staff. Employers, on the other hand, must avoid violating employee privacy rights. Maintaining a solid balance between the two is a dif?cult task. Try to follow the ways we’ve provided, and you’ll be able to create an effective monitoring plan that your staff will appreciate. Request a free demo of user activity monitoring software to monitor your employees without breaching their privacy. Tags: best employee monitoring softwareemployee monitoring software employee monitoring software for remote teamsemployee tracking software monitor employee productivitymonitor user activitiesProductivity Management Software remote employee monitoringremote employee monitoring software user activity monitoring software Leave a Reply Comment

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