A look into what employers need to consider before monitoring employees and some “soft surveillance” alternatives to hard data collection.

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November 3, 2021
How to Implement Workplace Monitoring & Preserve
Employee Autonomy
process.st/workplace-monitoring
Leks Drakos
November 3, 2021
I play video games at work.
It’s the remote manager’s nightmare: A wayward employee who does whatever they want
because they lack the strict supervision of the office to keep them in line. Critics of remote
work would seize on this very scenario as proof that remote workers are merely lazy and
entitled.
Should employees’ web activity be tracked to make sure they’re putting in a solid eight hours
of work time?
For those remote workers who don’t have designated space or equipment that is “work use
only,” why should they agree to be surveilled in their homes and on their personal devices?
How do you guarantee that both your clients and your employees can feel secure that what is
meant to be private will not be made public?

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Most importantly, if the deliverables are delivered when they should be, does it matter how
they got there?
In this Process Street post, I’m going to (attempt) to provide answers to some of those
questions, discuss the issues employers need to consider before monitoring employees, and
look at some “soft surveillance” alternatives to hard data collection.
Read on!
The case for workplace monitoring
A lot of weight gets put on the implication that employees are all huge lying liars who won’t
do any work if you don’t scrutinize their every move. Granted, that is one motivation for
employee monitoring, but it’s not the only motivation.
So as to not contribute any more to the “us versus them” mentality, I want to go over the
beneficial side of employee monitoring in terms of workplace security.
Workplace monitoring to enhance data security
Every organization has some sort of sensitive data stored in a database. Depending on what
the organization does, this can vary from simple names and addresses to personal details to
intellectual property.
Regardless of whether this information belongs to clients, employees, or both, it obviously
needs to be safeguarded.
For example, at Process Street we use a lightweight monitoring system to verify we have
certain security settings in place and that those settings are working properly. This allows us
to keep our customers’ data safe while also being non-invasive when it comes to employees’
personal devices.
Another fairly lightweight solution is the use of a VPN to access specific files or data that
need to be kept secure. Universities often require staff and students to log in via a VPN in
order to access student details, grades, or other protected information when off-campus.
Monitoring productivity trends
No, employee monitoring alone can’t – and won’t – increase employee productivity. In fact, if
you don’t approach it properly, you can hurt not only your employees’ productivity but their
morale, trust, and overall job satisfaction.
Employee monitoring can help you identify where the productivity gaps and bottlenecks are
happening.
We use Process Street workflows for this. I mean, it makes the most sense, right?

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Under the reports tab in the Process Street dashboard, we can make saved views for different
workflows, tasks, users, and statuses.
Let’s say our editor wants to know how we’re each doing on our respective blog posts. He can
go straight to a saved view for our blog post production workflow and see every active
workflow, who it’s assigned to, and how much has been completed.
It turns out that a peer review for an upcoming post hasn’t been completed yet. Our editor
can then go into the workflow, see the person assigned to that task, and talk to them about
what’s going on.
The peer review could be held up for any number of reasons, but by monitoring the progress
of our workflows, our editor can stay on top of which tasks and/or employees need extra
attention and support.
Increased transparency between teams and leadership
The saved views feature comes into play here as well.
So, just like our editor can look at each of our workflows, the members of the content team
are able to view all of the blog post workflows as well.
Let’s say I’m supposed to do the peer review, but the writer hasn’t sent it to me yet. I can go
into that workflow and see how far along they are in terms of writing the post and
approximately when I can expect the post to be ready for review.
Alternatively, say the writer is having a problem with one of the tasks. Maybe the keyword
research isn’t going well or there could even be a glitch in the workflow. The writer can share
that workflow with the rest of the team and ask for feedback or advice.
By using these workflows to document our processes, it maintains accountability and clarity
so everyone knows what work has been done, what needs to be done, and who is expected to
do it.
Workplace monitoring as an alternative to direct supervision
A lot of people probably think of employee monitoring as a form of micromanaging itself, but
it can actually be used to give employees more freedom.
If a manager or supervisor is able to look at a report and determine if a project or task is on
track, they don’t have to check in with their employees every time they want a status update.
This allows supervisors to stay in the loop on any progress without interrupting or distracting
employees from what they’re doing.

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It also means that supervisors can check progress when they need to rather than messaging
the employee and waiting for a response (which, in asynchronous environments, could be a
day or more).
This scenario is really a win-win. The employees don’t feel like they have to explain every
decision or action they take, but the supervisor still knows exactly what’s happening with the
project. And, if there does happen to be a problem, the supervisor already has the
information necessary to act without having to be briefed first.
Collect & analyze performance insights
It’d be tempting to say that performance insights will show you where things are going
wrong, but performance insights can offer so much more than simply identifying problems.
Monitoring performance insights can also tell you when your people are at their best. Maybe
two or three employees perform higher when they’re assigned to the same project as opposed
to when they work with other colleagues. Maybe your Germany-based CSM is most
productive late at night so they coordinate better with US-based customers. Maybe you have
an employee in Canada who needs to collaborate with someone in New Zealand and they
need help coordinating their schedules to be most effective.
All of these things can be figured out using performance insights, and none of them involve
any negative or disciplinary action. Each instance is about enabling your employees to do
their best work in the way that works best for them (and your business).
In defense of employee privacy & autonomy
Now that we’ve gone over all the good parts, let’s look at the things your employees will be
worrying about.

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The thing you need to really consider when it comes to workplace monitoring is: How
informed are your employees about what is monitored and why?
If only 25% of your employees are aware that their computer use is monitored by your
organization, you’re going to have a problem when the other 75% find out. And they will find
out. Employees are human, after all, and there are typically very few secrets among humans
that spend large amounts of time together. You can implement all the policies you want, but I
guarantee your employees are more informed about your organization than you think they
are.
There is really no reason to secretly monitor your employees in the workplace. Obviously,
there will be certain instances when an employee doesn’t know they’re being monitored at a
specific moment – during a call center quality assurance audit, for example – but that
employee should still be aware that monitoring takes place, how it’s conducted, and what it’s
used for.
Just you, me, and the team Slack channel
Privacy is a big one. I’ll go over the legal and ethical aspects further on, but – essentially –
people get really uncomfortable with being watched.
And yeah, I know. We’re surveilled everywhere we go, digitally or physically. There’s a
difference, though, between Google knowing you can never remember the difference between
“i.e.” and “e.g.” and all of upper management learning the details of a private health issue
when you thought you were having a confidential conversation with your line manager.
Maintaining a sense of privacy for employees is important, but especially so for remote
employees.
Employees need to feel secure that they can have confidential discussions with colleagues.
Some of those discussions will be about serious issues and wellbeing, but your employees will
have frustrations and they need to be able to discuss them with their coworkers.
Work is not just about work, after all. Sometimes you just really need to say that your boss
sucks and have a colleague go, “Yeah, what is up with that guy today?”

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Sure, you can say that it’s unprofessional. They should only have those conversations on their
own time. You shouldn’t write down anything you don’t mean. On and on ad nauseam.
So let’s talk logistics. All of my devices are synced to my work apps. Phone, computer, iPad –
everything. If I have to use my phone to jump into a Zoom meeting because my computer
spontaneously overheats (true story), I should be able to do that without worrying that my
personal messages will be rifled through solely because they were tangentially associated
with work product for a brief period of time.
If you’ve got nothing to hide, then what are you worried about?
Concerns about employee privacy aren’t solely about whether or not your employees trust
you. What and how you monitor your employees also shows them whether or not you trust
them.
Way, way back, I worked the graveyard shift at what the owner called an “urban market”
(think Whole Foods, if it were a gas station). It was not great, for a variety of reasons that
generally surfaced when the bars and clubs closed at 2 AM, but there was another reason.
The owner had CCTV set up inside and out. Fine. Plenty of businesses have it for security,
safety, and all those good things. He could watch the live feed from his house, too, which is
not how I’d spend my evenings but to each their own.
He was one of those people who believes busyness is the same as productivity. Even if there
were literally no other tasks to do, you had to find something to do. If you didn’t, he would
call the store and scold you for it.
Plot twist: It did not make us work harder.
If anything, we worked slower because we knew we had to take up that eight hours with tasks
– regardless of whether or not those tasks were useful, necessary, or productive.
It also told us, in no uncertain terms, that he didn’t trust us to do our jobs.
Mishandling your approach to employee monitoring can irrevocably damage the trust
between you and your employees. After all, if you don’t trust your employees, why should
they trust you? Why should they have any loyalty to your company? Why did you even hire
them in the first place? Why should they stay with an organization that thinks they’re
dishonest?
And they would be absolutely right in thinking those things.
Always check the fine print

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Laws and regulations around data privacy, collection, and storage vary from region to region.
Any monitoring of your employees needs to follow the guidelines of wherever your company
is located, but also the area the employee is located in.
With remote workers who can literally be anywhere in the world at any given time, this
complicates things.
Let’s talk about the GDPR – the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation.
Your company is based in the US. All of your customers and employees are in the US. What
does the GDPR have to do with you?
Well, potentially a lot. See, the GDPR isn’t only about customer data, and it isn’t only about
the data of EU residents or citizens. It’s about the data of anyone in the EU when the data
processing occurs. If one of your sales reps decides to become a digital nomad and tour
Europe, the GDPR is suddenly incredibly relevant to your HR department (and it’s not an
easy read).
Nothing comes for free
In an ideal world, nothing would cost anything. Of course, then we wouldn’t have capitalism
(or would we?). You wouldn’t have a career. I wouldn’t have a job. I’d be okay, though.
Stories are great currency. You’d build a story-making company and capitalism would live on,
indefinitely.
In your future story-making company, monitoring your story-makers would cost time,
money, and other resources.
When deciding if you should use employee monitoring, you need to do a cost-reward
analysis. Is the data you’re getting worth the currency you’re spending? Does it actually
benefit your company? Is there a quantifiable improvement in profit, productivity, and
retention? Is there a quantifiable decline in profit, productivity, and retention?
Remember the woolly mammoth
Why are you collecting the data that you’re collecting?
Possibly more than any other question, this is the one you can’t skip over. Employee
monitoring software comes in all shapes and sizes, provides loads of interesting chunks of
information and insights. It is a shiny, magic machine for anyone who loves poring over
reams of data (I do, very much).
But why do you have that data? What are you going to do with it? Is it information that’s
actually useful and actionable, or is it just a bunch of interesting statistics you aren’t sure
what to do with?

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In a previous post on the future of Big Data and people analytics, I talk about the interesting
and perplexing mission of a father and son to resurrect the woolly mammoth as a species by
editing the DNA of Asian elephants.
I like the analogy of data as a baby woolly mammoth. Sure, it’s all cool and interesting now
when it’s (sort of) small and (relatively) manageable. But what are you going to do down the
road when you have 4 tons of rampaging adolescent mammoth?
“Cool” and “interesting” aren’t even going to be fleeting thoughts if you haven’t worked out a
long-term, sustainable plan for why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Creating a sustainable balance between monitoring & autonomy
Both Chelsea Personnel founder James Cox and Pimlico Plumbers CEO Charlie Mullins have
come out against working from home, with Mullins even claiming in an appearance on
Jeremy Vine:
“People working from home who can go to work is the equivalent of drawing benefits when
you should be going to work.”
If I were a carpenter, and my client walked in while I was nailing some boards together,
they’d feel confident that I was working. That client could see an action, see a result, and
come to a conclusion.
The conclusion could still be wrong. Maybe I’m making a shelf for my own use or maybe I
don’t know what I’m doing because I’m not actually a carpenter.
On the other hand, if the same client walked in and I was doing nothing but staring at a blank
wall, they’d probably want to know what I was doing and why they were paying me to do it.
The fact is, even traditionally “physical” professions also involve a certain amount of staring
at walls. Sticking with the carpenter, before they build anything, they have to visualize the
project, draft plans, decide on materials, and so on. There’s a whole process that has to be
thought through before anyone ever picks up a hammer.

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“I can never get used to the fact that most of the time it looks like you’re doing nothing.” –
Roger Sterling, “Ladies Room,” Mad Men (2007)
(No, I did not binge all seven seasons of Mad Men on Netflix just to get one quote and count
it as “work.” It’s on Amazon Prime.)
All joking aside, sometimes work really does look like doing nothing, especially in a
knowledge economy that relies primarily on individual employees’, well, knowledge.
It’s not an impossible situation, however. There are only three basic principles that you need
to keep in mind when it comes to workplace monitoring and surveillance:
Maintain open communication channels & transparency

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Good communication is the foundation of any healthy relationship, and the relationship
between employer and employee is no different.
I mentioned earlier that we use a lightweight monitoring system to check our security
settings.
When this was first implemented, I was not a fan. I understood the why of the situation –
even supported it – but this was my computer and I don’t like being told what to do with my
stuff.
I wasn’t the only one who was a little bit wary of committing to the agreement, but our
engineering team handled it like all-stars. They created a company-wide Slack channel for
questions and troubleshooting, which allowed them to answer questions for everyone instead
of over and over repeatedly.
It also allowed us to share each other’s questions and concerns, be reassured that we weren’t
the only one struggling to implement some of the steps (technology is hard even when you
work at a tech company, okay?), and it created a designated space for sharing resources.
Basically, they made sure we each had the information we needed and the resources we
wanted in order to understand the why, what, and how of the new security features.
Keep your employees informed about any monitoring you do or are considering. Listen to
their concerns, answer their questions, and make sure they understand your motivations.
Focus on the process
This is one of our values here at Process Street, which I’m sure isn’t that surprising.
“Focus on the process” isn’t just a glib one-liner, though. It’s actually deceptively simple.
I mentioned already that productivity, performance, and transparency are part-and-parcel of
how our processes function when it comes to running workflows.
That’s one aspect of focusing on the process: Completing every step, every time, in the right
order. That consistency makes it very easy to spot obstacles when they pop up – and to
handle them, as well.

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The second part is about how the process itself functions. Specifically, “focusing on the
process” means understanding how that process works, why it works, and whether or not it
still works. Every time we use a process, we ask ourselves, “Does this make sense? Does this
process accomplish what it’s supposed to?”
When it comes to workplace security and employee monitoring, you need to take the same
approach. Clearly define the procedures, policies, and processes that you’re going to use in
your data collection, and ensure that those processes are strictly followed every time.
Those policies and procedures need to be adaptable, as well. As your company grows, as your
needs change, as new legislation comes into play, you’ll need to adjust your processes to
accommodate these things.
Only monitor necessary & relevant data
Don’t be greedy, basically.
I get it – analytics are super interesting. I can waste so much time studying different graphs
and charts and accumulating useless information that I don’t actually need.
But don’t be greedy.
Monitor the data you need to collect and ignore the rest. If your software suite includes
periodic screenshots of your employees’ workspace, but it’s not data you need, disable it. If
you don’t need to log every bathroom break your employees take, don’t.
Focus on the metrics that will help you help your employees do their jobs – and trust them to
do their jobs. I mean, isn’t that what you hired them for?
Practice soft surveillance techniques
When it comes to productivity and performance, hard data collection and surveillance isn’t
the only route to take.
The Process Street saved views that we use in content creation are one example of that. Line
managers can keep track of progress and follow up with specific individuals if necessary, or
let people get on with their work if everything is running smoothly.
Catch-ups and one-on-one meetings can also help maintain productivity and improve
performance. The benefit of one-on-ones, as opposed to other approaches, is that, while there
is accountability, these meetings aren’t punitive.
I know that I’m not going to get scolded in my weekly one-on-one with my editor if I haven’t
gotten all of my work exactly done the way I planned to. However, I also know that if I
haven’t made any progress at all since the last time we spoke, I’ll need to have some sort of

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explanation. During the meeting, we discuss my work, any issues I’ve been having or areas
I’ve improved on, or anything else that’s currently impacting my work, good or bad.
Framing these discussions this way makes it easier for employees to ask for help when they
need it. They can feel secure knowing that they won’t be in trouble if they’re struggling with
something, but that steps will be taken to correct it – whether this means they need help
managing their time, retraining on a certain task, clarification on a policy, or maybe it’s the
process that needs to be fixed.
Key takeaways on workplace security & employee privacy
It’s always going to be tricky balancing the needs of security and privacy – in the office or
working remotely. The issue does become murkier when employees are working from their
own homes, using their own equipment, or nomading around the world.
How do you separate work from personal when the line keeps getting blurred?
This is a question that employers and employees are going to continue to come up against as
our lives become increasingly digital, our workdays – and places – increasingly flexible, and
our needs increasingly complex.
Effectively implementing workplace security while maintaining employee privacy requires
the cooperation and collaboration of all parties involved. It’s only through transparency,
defined parameters, and communication that contemporary organizations can hope to
balance these two equally important aspects of the modern workplace.
(For the record, I’m more about podcasts than Netflix, so if you want some solid, work-
related entertainment, I recommend the Masters of Process podcast.)