Don't Just Spy On Employees, Bill Them As Well

Overhype

from the how-not-to-build-a-loyal-workforce dept

While many studies have shown that spying on employees tends to make them less motivated and less productive, that still hasn’t stopped any number of companies from coming out with tools to help show just how much you distrust your employees. The latest, however, goes a bit further than the usual reports of just what various employees have been doing while surfing the internet. This one tracks exactly how much time and bandwidth an employee uses on various websites so that an employer can bill the employee for that time. Do you think the companies that install this will also bill the employees for the amount of water they drink out of the water fountain? Maybe the wear and tear in the parking lot from driving their car into it each day as well would make sense. It’s not clear why this needs to be repeated so often — but such micromanaging of employees doesn’t tend to do much good. If an employee isn’t getting their job done, that’s an issue that should be taken care of. However, monitoring what they’re doing every minute of the day — and then even stooping so low as to charge them for the time, is a plan that’s only going to backfire. Hopefully, the first employee presented with such a bill will turn around and present a bill to the employer for any phone calls or emails handled at home as well as the time, gas and depreciation expenses of driving to work each day.