Have you ever wondered why the original iPhone was a huge success? You may not know but it was because Steve Jobs maintained great privacy monitored the team working on the product and they were not allowed to share anything with anyone. This was a top secret project and it paid Apple well at the end. This was just one of the examples of how employee monitoring can be useful for companies.
It happened before 2005 and 15 years ago. Nowadays, things have changed a lot. New technology has emerged and human life has become simple as well as complex. Tech is offering the world with better tech tools, software,and apps but at the same time, it is creating serious security flaws as well. This is a sort of tech crisis in security that needs to be handled well.
In order to secure the workplace and protect their data, many companies monitor their employees and track the staff with different tools. We will talk about these options. Workplace monitoring has become the norm now. Most of the big tech companies have their own solutions when it comes to improving workplace safety and data safety. But others acquire tools from the third party companies for this purpose.
Why Employee Monitoring is On the Rise?
Have you ever thought why a number of companies is using a spy app to track their employees? There are many reasons behind this and technology is the major factor. Hackers have become more powerful than ever because they have access to the best tools, software and hacking options these days. It has become facile for them to hack into any system or computers and steal the data.
Yahoo suffered this sort of attack when it lost data of over 140 million users. Facebook was one of the recent examples when it was exposed that it leaked the user data. Someone had attacked and it took Facebook some time to recover the system. Both of these companies faced serious problems from the governments as well as users. Governments all around the world are introducing laws to govern social media and tech companies.
Many of the attacks like these occurred due to internal reasons. Employees within the companies were involved. Such people have access to important files, sensitive data and company computers. They can copy or delete the data, share secrets with competitors for monetary purposes and even erase the whole system in revenge. Whatever it is- it is extremely unpleasant and can ruin the companies.
Moreover, hacking attacks have become common. In order to protect the company data and information, it is inevitable to have top-notch security. This will prevent such attacks and reduce them. The companies will be able to detect such things before they can do any damage to the organizations. This is what the world needs. Being exposed to the world is not an option and is neither affordable by any company.
Employee Monitoring for Better Productivity…?
There is debate these days whether employee monitoring increases the productivity is it is just a privacy breach. In this section, we will talk about the two sides of the story and see how good or bad it is.
Most of the employees use monitoring apps and tools to keep eyes on the staff and employees. Most of the offices use security camera for surveillance purposes. There are companies that install spy apps on the computers of the staff. Apart from this, many other options for tracking employees are also used. The purpose of all these ways is to improve data protection and tracking the staff.
The data obtained thus is only available to the employers and bosses who are keeping eyes on the staff. The bosses know what the employees are doing, how they do things when they come and leave for home, what work they do and what all the employees are up to. The cameras provide all the details of the workplace and what the staffs have been doing. This is a very good option and prevents stealing and theft issues as having been reported in many offices and the employees lost valuable things.
The employees know that the managers or bosses are keeping eyes on them and know about their activities. They become more productive. They waste less time. They don’t waste time in chit chats with the fellows and colleagues. They value their time by working the most hours. They also know their computer is being monitored so they take great care in accessing anything malicious or harmful. Most of employers use remote employee management software and tools to keep eyes on the staff and employees.
Employee Monitoring- A Security Breach…?
We have talked about how employee monitoring is useful when it comes to improving the productivity of the staff. The other side, as for argue people, is that it is merely a security breach. We will talk about this and clarify to the people what the fact is.
The employers or companies are given permissions by the federal and state governments with the laws that they can monitor their staff, use surveillance cameras and know about the activities. But there is a limit to this. So the employers are authorized in this regard. However, they are responsible to ensure transparency like the protection of the data and video recordings.
Moreover, the employers have to get the permission of consent of the employees whenever they have to do such kind of monitoring. The employees authorize the employers to track their computers, phones and other things. Most of the banks monitor the travel, journey, accommodations, vehicles and other things of their employees. They do so legally.
The employers can be held responsible only when they don’t follow the state or federal laws. They are wrong when they blackmail the staff, share their videos with other people, record their phone without their permission or do anything that is not within the laws. In such cases, it becomes a serious privacy breach and the employees have all the rights to file cases against the companies.
