Remote working, or not even remotely working?

There is new data coming to the fore about how companies ensure their remote workers are meeting their objectives. ResumeBuilder surveyed 1,000 business leaders and found the vast majority (96%) are monitoring their employees in some way. This could be low-level monitoring, such as identifying if their laptop is inactive when it shouldn’t be. But there are some more invasive approaches being used, too, including the 5% who say their employees are not aware of the monitoring.

Keeping a watchful eye on employees

More than a third of those leaders use live video-feed monitoring, and three-quarters have fired people due to what they found during their monitoring. Shockingly, 70% said they have had employees quit rather than agree to being monitored, which feels like a very high number.

So is it really a risk worth taking? Well, almost every one of those thousand leaders said they believed that the use of this software has increased productivity. And 10% also see it as a means to encourage people to return to the office, where - presumably - they don’t have to be monitored in the same way. But has it really increased productivity in terms of output? Or are these leaders using ‘visible presence’ as a measure of productivity?

Hiding things from employers

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of employees who are also employing shady techniques that they might not get away with in the office. Lookout found that around one-third of workers who are based off-site some or all of the time use apps and software that their IT team have not approved. More than 90% also perform work on their personal devices. 

Some other statistics that will have employers glancing over their IT policies with concern include:

• 90% of employees accessing corporate networks from an average of five different locations that are not their home.
• 45% of employees using the same passwords for work and personal accounts.
• 46% of workers saving work files onto their personal devices instead of their work’s network

While invasive monitoring techniques are worrying, it seems a large subsection of employees are also not holding up their end of the ‘work from home’ bargain.

The path forward

The issues seem to both relate to remote working. But at their core, these are issues with trust and communication - and fortunately, there are solutions.

For employers, the trust issue is understandable. You pay someone thousands each year, and you want to know you’re getting that same amount of value back. If you’re in a situation where you can’t bear the thought of letting your team go about their working day unscrutinised, ask yourself some of the following questions:

• If you were not monitored, would you spend the day skiving off? 
• Do you have a system for identifying people you can trust during the hiring process?
• If someone is meeting their objectives, does it matter if they start work a little late or finish a little early?
• Are you confident that your performance management and goal setting practices are adequate?
• How do you motivate your employees? Are there enough positive initiatives, such as recognition awards, bonuses and pay rises, to ensure they feel inspired to give you their all?

The answers might uncover some things you need to explore, such as a better way to assess if you could trust someone before hiring or during onboarding. By tightening up your processes relating to setting and achieving targets, you create a space where you can say “This is what I need you to achieve” - and if everyone manages it, your job is done… without the need for watching people work.

And when it comes to employees creating security risks, it’s far more likely that this is down to naivety or ignorance, and possibly laziness, rather than reckless abandon. The solution here is to identify each risk-taking behaviour you want to eliminate and then work out if it’s possible to physically prevent it using your own systems. For example, by preventing people from downloading unauthorised apps onto company devices. 

Then, create a list of all the scenarios that you just can’t stop from happening. These are the topic of your next information campaign. Find a creative way to explain the risk that employees create by doing each of them. For many people, the risk of sharing passwords for lots of platforms really isn’t that clear until you spell it out: if they use the same password for ten platforms, just one of those needs to suffer from a data breach and all ten of your accounts could be accessed. Take it one step further and explain what will happen if each of your systems is breached.

In doing so, you are showing that you are trusting your team to be part of the effort to protect your business from external threats, as well as helping them to understand the potential impact of their actions.

Trust is a two-way street, and once it’s broken it can take time to repair. By embracing alternatives to control, monitoring and assuming the worst, you start to rebuild that damaged relationship. And, with time, your trusted employees will repay you by becoming even more trustworthy. And besides, constant surveillance is a full-time job. Why not focus that energy on what your business does best, instead?