Maximum productivity is the goal of all business organizations. Therefore, it’s quite alarming to find out that most employees admit to wasting a lot of time on non-work activities during the workday. In a survey conducted by Salary.com, 89 percent of the respondents reported wasting time at work on a daily basis.
As alarming as the findings were, they didn’t exactly come as a surprise.
There are simply too many distractions in the workplace. Even close relationships with co-workers can steal a significant amount of time from work. In recent years, however, the biggest contributor to time theft in the workplace has been found to be the Internet.
Offices that provide a free Wi-Fi connection tend to have decreased productivity due to the online activities of the employees. Most workers cannot avoid the lure of their social media accounts and all the other entertaining content online.
Suffice it to say, many enterprises are losing out on opportunities for greater income and profits due to distractions that curtail productivity. They find themselves facing an all-out war against their employees’ attention spans. So it’s crucial to get back on track, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to track the workforce.
Using Monitoring Technology to Keep Employees on Track
Tracking the workforce to prevent time-theft is easy with the help of workforce tracking software. With this provision, business owners or managers can easily monitor their employees’ activities and whereabouts.
Do they spend a considerable amount of time away from their workstations? Where do they go? What do they do? Why do they take a long time to complete day-to-day tasks? These typical inquiries will get their corresponding answers with the help of the tracking software.
What the Software Can Do
With the program’s powerful tracking technology, managing operations become more effective. The program can perform the following tasks:
- Deliver to-the-minute location data on all employees and assets in order to provide the business with unsurpassed business analytics, which then will allow the organization to function optimally.
- Improve response time to ensure staff safety and limit asset loss.
- Deliver accurate data at all times that easily imports into payroll systems for recording time sheets.
Privacy Concerns Regarding the Use of Workforce Tracking Software
Even with the reliable performance of the program in tracking the activities of human resources, there are many associated concerns about privacy. Some organizations have had to deal with employees that didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of constantly being monitored through the effective GPS technology of tracking software. Also, workers tend to worry about their company overstepping their boundaries in tracking workforce activities.
Privacy concerns can taint the positive contribution of workforce tracking provisions. Therefore, business organizations need to identify and establish the best privacy practices on using the program. In doing so, employees won’t feel violated in any way and, instead, can become motivated to manage their behavior better for increased productivity, as well as to elevate company culture.
Smart Privacy Practices on Using Workforce Tracking Software
- Study the legal guidelines regarding GPS tracking and then share these guidelines with all employees. In doing so, the business organization can build a more secure and trusting relationship with its workers.
- Provide a thorough orientation on all the capabilities and limitations of the workforce tracker software. This will allow employees to prevent employer abuse. They’ll learn how to limit the program’s monitoring outside of work hours.
- List all devices and programs that the software covers.
- Discuss with employees how the program is necessary in relation to the nature of their job. Get their consent regarding the program, especially if the company would like to track employee-owned assets (such as a personal car, phones, tablet PCs, and laptops).
- Restrict monitoring to the allotted work hours. There’s really no justifying monitoring activities beyond the scope and schedule of the work being done by the staff.
Simply put, it’s best to be as transparent as possible regarding the company’s workforce tracking activities. There’s typically no need to justify all the information generated by the software if employees know when they are being tracked and what they are being tracked for.
As important as it clearly is to ensure productivity and profitability by keeping a close eye on employees, it is just as important to give them the privacy they need as individuals. Employers have no right (or need) to investigate the personal lives of their employees.
With the ethical privacy practices on tracking workforce using high performing software in place, all kinds of benefits can be expected. There are also currently different workforce and asset tracking programs available. These are not only affordable, but also a breeze to use. If your company is looking for proven effective ways of boosting productivity and profitability, as well as improving the workers’ performance, then do give such provisions great consideration.
