We have all adapted to changes in leadership styles over the past few months. Zoom meetings are just the tip of the iceberg. A big change for many has been the implementation of virtual clocking software and staff monitoring tools, leading some to feel micro-managed or, worse still, untrusted.
In the book: "My way or the highway” by Harry Chambers, it is mentioned that 79% of staff have felt micro-managed over the course of a career. It is pertinent to mention that this research was taken pre-COVID-19. Based on the many blogs and social media posts that have been quoting micro-management in some way or another in recent months, the current statistic is probably much higher.
Below is an outline for reasons why an organisation may have opted for staff monitoring, alongside the benefits for an employee.
1. Attendance registers and mobile clocking
Employer benefits: Any administration job poses challenges, and attendance is no exception. By law, staff attendance should be recorded and the information will need to remain accessible for an audit by the government or for legal evidence. The register can be both an electronic or hard copy format. Clocking in from a mobile device or PC makes life a lot easier to keep the records.
Employee benefits: From an employee's point of view, it is great to know that holiday leave or days worked can be tracked. An employer cannot accuse you of not working specific days when you have evidence to the contrary.
2. Productivity monitors
Employer benefits: Productivity monitors have been in place for a number of years as a time management tool. The obvious reason would be to check that an employee is working and not playing, yet, more frequently, the purpose has been far simpler. Since employees have been working from home, it has become a challenge to identify when a person is completely overloaded. We are no longer face-to-face, with body language that could explain, without words, that one cannot cope with any more tasks. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a team will regularly have at least one person who will avoid sharing the workload and it is near-impossible to identify this person without a monitoring tool.
Employee benefits: From the employee's perspective, it can be a good feeling when the boss notices that additional hours have been worked, particularly if you are being paid hourly. One may have been carrying the burden of many jobs within a business and have never had factual evidence.
If you belong to an organisation that has implemented, or is thinking about implementing, a monitoring tool, I strongly suggest that a good conversation is necessary. Often, once a person understands the benefits (from both angles), the working environment is much happier. Monitoring tools are not always a way of micro-managing staff; often it is to simplify management’s job in ensuring that all staff members are working and to see where additional help is needed.
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