Cool or Not Cool To Monitor What Your Employees Are Doing Online?

[KRL]

Cool or not Cool to monitor them?

[ytcracker]

i think its a fair practice

[80smetal]

Depends on said employees production througout the day.

[jacked]

cool you should know whether their dicking around surfing all day or actually doing the work their supposed to be doing

[Peaches]

You're paying them for the time, they're on your computers and using your bandwidth.

Yes, I think it's OK as long as you let them know first you're going to be doing it.

[StuartD]

depends on how much of a nazi boot camp you really want your office to resemble.

[Mr. Mike]

VERY cool. your company, your offices, your computers, YOUR rules.

Monitor everything, email, browser, downloads, everything. It's a place of business and someone has to make sure it stays that way. Otherwise it's chaos.

[gornyhuy]

Not cool, annoying as an employee who wants to feel trusted, totally expected and justified as an employer who doesn't want to be liable for his employees surfing and who knows the productivity sink that is the web.

[johnbosh]

not cool

[sickkittens]

Originally posted by jacked
cool you should know whether their dicking around surfing all day or actually doing the work their supposed to be doing

At the end of the day, you should be able to see any progression or work that is done regardless of what they do in between.

[crockett]

If the person dose a good job for you and is productive then who cares if they browse the net some. Sometimes giving them a little bit of freedom can go a long ways. But if the employee is unproductive then yes of course give them hell.

[Manowar]

Not cool.

[StuartD]

I know that if I sit and do work non stop for 8 hours or so... I get brain fried. Especially doing programming work.

Sometimes I just need something I can do for a moment.... something to go, look at, and come back after a chuckle or something.

My productivity will actually increase at that point, rather than suffer from burn out.

And the added stress of always worrying about a heavy handed boss watching my every move will also lead towards my productivity suffering as I now have something new that's contantly on my mind.

[pornguy]

If they produce more that what is required, and the production is 95 to 100%, then let them be.

If they slcak, then you may want to watch.

But my god, do not let them look at mainstream sites in the work place.

Can you imagine the law suites??

[TonyL]

Non-Disclosure, Non-Compete and Computer monitoring all musts.

-Tony

[freeadultcontent]

Does your office PC's have spyware so your refcodes are always in place?

[BradM]

Monitor them
It's YOUR company... you are paying them to be there. You have a right to know what they do.

[Fabuleux]

Lol, not even legal in The Netherlands if the employees don't know about it.

[GTS Mark]

We are strong believers in whistle blowing! LOL!

DH

[Vitasoy]

Keep it secret, hide a hidden keylogger program. Make sure you can't view it via task manager ;)

[Vitasoy]

Another thing is, install some cameras/ hidden cams in your office, if you haven't ... Say it's for security reasons, but... ;)

[Platinumpimp]

Not cool, it is a violation of the privacy law unless obviously stated and agreed on.

[Tom_PMs]

Not a violation of any law. It's not private computers, it's company computers.

It's not only "cool", it's absolutely essential. I would say also that I believe it should be known immediately upon hiring that ALL computer activities are monitored and stored permanently.

Even the courts have ruled that "private" email's are not protected by privacy laws because they spend some time on a public ISP server.

[modF]

Originally posted by Fabuleux
Lol, not even legal in The Netherlands if the employees don't know about it.

Where I work, it says right in the handbook/agreements you sign when you start here. That they can monitor everything you do here, they own everything you do here, and is very clear that you are an employee. That's how it should be, it is their dime for your time.

[Ross]

I think you have to. I know people who have key loggers on all their machines to make sure their employees aren't talking shit about them.

[4Pics]

We watch everyones screen so I know at all times what everyone is doing.

[cool1]

I think it is cool.

Everyone I know that works in a office tells me thier computers are monitered
So when I am working for someone else at thier business, I expect to be monitered.

[mahoney]

what program would one use to do that ?

[JSA Matt]

I personally don't like it but if you lack trust in your employees (investment), why not? Easier solution would be to hire people you can trust...

[JSA Matt]

Originally posted by mahoney
what program would one use to do that ?

http://www.eblaster.com/

[jact]

This is a very interesting thread.

-Iron Fist.

[LadyMischief]

KRL, what's your view on this? You are a fairly successful man and I'm sure you have many employees.. do you ensure that their productivity is high by monitoring them? I don't believe in being stupidly strict, but when you are paying someone to accomplish something, I don't believe that it's unrealistic to expect a certain level of productivity from them. I have no issues with posting on boards, or anything of the like, but when extraneous things interfere with productivity or are disruptive in general, that is definitely not going to get anything accomplished.

I certainly would never ask one of my employees to work any harder than I am willing to work myself. I would hope that that would be a motivating factor instead of being a detracting factor, and would HOPEFULLY promote a higher level of productivity.

Meeting deadlines and goals is especially important, especially when it means meeting those deadlines will ensure a LOT more free time for EVERYONE involved in the future.. working towards a common goal, a huge factor.

[M_M]

Only when they fall below expected level of productivity.

Noone can stay motivated for work and be productive without taking small breaks doing other stuff.. maybe like instant messaging, emailing, reading news, reading boards etc.

[EscortBiz]

cool as long as you tell them

[Varius]

I think it's very useful at times. You can monitor who is wasting time, who might be planning to leave (let's say your employee is always on job sites...), etc...

I think just sitting there all day and watching them isn't cool or efficient, but random checks are not a problem.

[InsaneMidget]

I don't think it's needed. Simply put, if an employee isn't producing results, terminate them.

Who cares what they are doing during work if they complete their daily tasks, unless they are being jackasses on the boards and giving off an incorrect image of your company as well.

[Varius]

Originally posted by InsaneMidget
I don't think it's needed. Simply put, if an employee isn't producing results, terminate them.

Who cares what they are doing during work if they complete their daily tasks, unless they are being jackasses on the boards and giving off an incorrect image of your company as well.

This depends how your task system works. At our company, we have deadine tasks and priority tasks. Deadline tasks are self-explanatory, however priority tasks sit in a task pool in order of importance, so when the employee has completed their deadline tasks they start on those.

Now let's say an employee finishes his deadine tasks on time, but then wastes half his day where he could have finished up a priority task or two....that's a loss of productivity, time and money.

[Gheenz]

They work for you, you pay the wages, so damn right it's fair to monitor what the employees are doing. An employer isn't paying an employee to go into Yahoo chat and hit on some Married But Looking milf's or anything else. It's your dime so the employee owes you the time.

[InsaneMidget]

Originally posted by Varius
This depends how your task system works. At our company, we have deadine tasks and priority tasks. Deadline tasks are self-explanatory, however priority tasks sit in a task pool in order of importance, so when the employee has completed their deadline tasks they start on those.

Now let's say an employee finishes his deadine tasks on time, but then wastes half his day where he could have finished up a priority task or two....that's a loss of productivity, time and money.

"Could you finish this now? "

"Sure"


Then see how long it takes to finish, should be able to estimate before they start. Depending on the project ofcourse, but still, if you need to go as far as to monitor your employees, then why hire them if you don't have that trust established in the first place or develope the trust from the begininng.

[Daddy Big Nuts]

Not only cool....its a responsibility you have as an employer. Just make sure that you are up front with them about it when you hire them.

[Nick_Moneymaker]

EB is right. It's cool as long as they know.

[reynold]

uncool. should discuss it out front and not stealth around

[Scootermuze]

San Diego, California-based Websense Inc. said Wednesday that it estimates that U.S. companies lose US$63 billion a year in lost productivity due to the Net, which the company claims is a "major distraction" for employees.

Websense, which is a software maker, not a research company, said it based its estimate on the U.S. Census Bureau's average U.S. salary and an hour of work lost per week due to employees' personal Internet use.

ref:

[macker]

Agree - needs must

[Naughty]

Originally posted by ytcracker
i think its a fair practice

[Rebel D]

Originally posted by InsaneMidget
I don't think it's needed. Simply put, if an employee isn't producing results, terminate them.

Who cares what they are doing during work if they complete their daily tasks, unless they are being jackasses on the boards and giving off an incorrect image of your company as well.

I Have Worked as a chef for 10 years before i joined this industry. I have always lived by You are here to Work. You aren;t Paid to Fuck around. You have break times where if you choose to fuck around thats your own porogitive. but for that other time in a day you are working. If you don;t have something productive to do then ask. Because there is alwas something.

[rogerbo]

Uncool and against the law if the Worker is not informed about it.
Everything gatered against him in that way is not valide.

[eroswebmaster]

Originally posted by Slapity
I Have Worked as a chef for 10 years before i joined this industry. I have always lived by You are here to Work. You aren;t Paid to Fuck around. You have break times where if you choose to fuck around thats your own porogitive. but for that other time in a day you are working. If you don;t have something productive to do then ask. Because there is alwas something.

That mindset is lost with most of today's youth.

[bufferover]

Depends but like employer is realy not cool to be monitored

[xenophobic]

Originally posted by rogerbo
Uncool and against the law if the Worker is not informed about it.
Everything gatered against him in that way is not valide.

IANAL, however in the United States this is incorrect, if the employer owns the equipment. Even private email (hotmail/yahoo/gmail) is fair game if it is captured on an employers equipment.

Most people think that employers intercepting your private communications is paramount to an illegal wiretap, problem is there is barely any case law to even try and fight with.