Some not only monitor their emails, social network and internet use, but their location and physical activity as well.

A recent article in USA Today revealed the lengths to which some companies go to electronically monitor their employees’ behavior at work.  Some not only monitor their emails, social network and internet use, but their location and physical activity as well.  The article stated that the primary reason for the monitoring was to increase productivity by making sure employees stayed on task throughout the day.  Other reasons given were to make sure that trade secrets weren’t shared with the wrong people or that boss-slamming emails weren’t sent to bloggers who covered their particular industry.  Whatever the reason, the problem with this activity is it sends a very clear message to employees that they are not trusted.  Once employees receive this message, there’s no way they’ll give anywhere near their best efforts to performing their jobs.  In addition, people strongly resent having their activities closely monitored and when it occurs, the situation quickly degenerates to a game of “cat and mouse” where they focus their efforts on beating the system rather than performing their jobs in an excellent manner.  As you can see, rather than increasing productivity, electronic surveillance of employee activity actually decreases it. – Ross Reck

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