There was some sobering news in a 2014 survey about wasting time at work: Employees spend a lot of time in non-work-related web browsing, with 24 percent of those surveyed saying Google was their biggest time-waster.
It’s enough to make a manager pull her hair out. How do you make sure your workers are staying on track during the day without standing over them?
“…Trusting your employees is essential,
but you don’t want to be so laissez-faire
they take advantage of your trust…”
Employee monitoring software can help keep a digital eye on workers as they search and browse the web, giving fair warning in those cases that warrant “special notice”.
What sites should be blocked/monitored?
The obvious ones:
- Pornography
- Gambling
- Hate / Gore
- etc..
What websites should trigger a red flag?
All of the above, as well as:
- Sports
- Video sharing
- Proxies
- Auctions
- Shopping
- Travel
These red-flag triggers should be a component of overall productivity tracking. Workers found to spend time on such sites must be cautioned appropriately – obviously the remedy for a situation where an employee is obsessively porn browsing during work should be very different to that used to handle the case of employee who was slightly too generous with work time in planning their next vacation…
Monitoring Vs. Blocking
“Instead of restricting employees’ online activities, employers should focus on personal work outcomes.”
Jayson Demers, CEO, AudienceBloom
Savvy managers prefer the monitoring route over blocking because it offers some very compelling advantages:
Approach
Blocking tends to cause antagonism and is often viewed by employees as challenge to be circumvented, which, thanks to the abundance of proxy sites out there, is a very easy task.
Monitoring on the other hand leaves the responsibility up to the employee – They’re not being barred from doing anything, simply being notified that whatever they do is being recorded. It’s a much less confrontational approach, that tends to lead to much better results..
Productivity
Monitoring software’ tracking components are the best tool for boosting worker productivity levels. The leading providers’ solutions analyze employee’s work time activities and provide data that helps plan time more efficiently.