All entrepreneurs want to make sure their employees aren’t joy riding on the internet while on the company clock. That’s a given–and it’s a perfectly reasonable and understandable expectation.
But, to paraphrase Joe Clark, “When you treat people like criminals, they’ll act like criminals.”
And while micromanaging what your employees do online is great for productivity in the short term, in the long term you sacrifice trust, and the flexibility and leeway smart people need to do their jobs.
Two things to wit:
- There’s no such thing as an “employee problem.” In any organization, its people are never the problem–the processes are. The question isn’t, “What’s wrong with him?” but rather, “How did we hire him?”
- Time wasters will be time wasters whether you’re clocking their every move or not. If they’re not wasting time online, they’ll be taking 90 smoke breaks or living in the break room.
So, what do you do? You can use software that monitors instead of blocks or filters.
Or you can trust that you’ve hired the right people and that employees who waste time will always be outed by employees who are doing the right thing.
Or some combination thereof. Just don’t sacrifice your relationship with employees in the name of productivity.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 8:37 am and is filed under Business, Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.4 Responses to “Being Big Brother Might Backfire”
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August 19th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Great advice, Lena. You’re right that you shouldn’t micromanage employees, but it does help to set the expectations up front and clearly. Employers can be held legally responsible for the actions of their employees, plus there’s the issue of company morale to maintain (”why should I work so hard when Joe Doakes does nothing but surf Internet porn all day?”). Having a written electronic comunications policy can pave the way for clear expectations clear (and, um, yeah, it helps to have your attorney review it).
August 19th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
@Nina:
Yes, great point.
Everything should be clear and no business dealings should be based solely on trust. That’s just setting up another problem.
It’s all about protecting ourselves as business owners and treating our staff like humans in the process.
Thanks for doing “the legal” check in!
August 20th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
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November 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Great Insight, I really enjoyed reading what you wrote, Keep up the great work!