What is Workplace Electronic Surveillance?

In India, the technology adoption at business and the corporate arena is increasing at a rapid pace. There are different types of employee monitoring. Workplace Electronic Surveillance is one of them. The business owners now prefer electronic surveillance of the employees. It has tremendously increased since last two years in all companies. Earlier it was a case more in companies for games, mobile and website app development. When asked, most of the employees cited the reason of security. However, employees have a different say. They think that in this digital world – the online frauds are easy to catch and one thinks a thousand times before doing especially when he/she is an employee of the same organization.

Be it either side, against business or against employees, we will keep here the unbiased views on electronic surveillance. Listed below are the pros and cons of employee monitoring.

Benefits of Employee Monitoring

1. It nullifies the chances of fraud because each of your activity online and on-premises is getting monitored and hence, even if someone tries to do something odd, The authorities will catch him. He or she will have no chance to escape.

2. The social media culture has put an adverse effect on the businesses and enterprises as the employees keep on checking one or the other social media account every now and then which affect the quality of the work.

3. It is a common scenario in an enterprise where employees take more than the average time to complete a task because they take certain breaks or sit idle or check the other websites unnecessarily. Electronic surveillance helps in monitoring all such activities.

4. In the IT industry, employees also work as a freelancer post their working hours. They do their freelance work in the office keeping the organization’s work at side. This unethical approach can be easily detected through electronic surveillance.

5. It stops the transfer of information through the mail as the employees who are on verge of leaving the organization transfers the important data.

Drawbacks of Employee Monitoring

1. The HR keep the regulations on each of the activity that employees do and hence, nudge him even for a small thing that he does other than the official work. This pisses off the employees and he loses interest in working.

2. A little bit of social media is allowed in some companies. When employees open their social media account in the office. Their privacy is at stake because surveillance is monitoring their every step. This is often used against the employees and lots of such cases have been registered.

3. The electronic surveillance results in micro-management where employees are warned for every single thing. This eventually makes the employees completely frustrated and they resign from the position. This affects the retention ratio of the company.