There’s an old, old saying: it’s not paranoia if someone really is after you.
And hybrid or fully remote work is definitely causing some companies to “come after” their employees with monitoring tools that track what those employees are doing.
As one website proclaims, “Employee monitoring software is an essential tool for business owners who want to verify that employees are using their time at work to accomplish the responsibilities and tasks assigned to them, not spending hours watching cat videos and trolling social media or, worse, engaging in reckless or malicious behavior that jeopardizes the company.”
I don’t know about you, but that sent a chill down my spine.
So let me see if I have this right: at the same time as there’s so much talk about trust and autonomy being important in today’s workplace and for today’s workforce, at the same time, we’re also implementing tools that track what employees are doing on their computers.
Wait, what?
Did you know there are actually mouse-jiggling tools? One of them markets itself as a way to avoid having your screen-saver come on whilst you’re watching a video… interesting, because the settings on my computer prevent screen saver activation if a video is playing… hmm.
And then there are the mechanical mouse-jigglers that claim to be “undetectable.” Hmm. Who’s doing the detecting, I wonder?
Yes, I admit, I’m being just a tad snarky here. So let me cut to the chase.
Productivity paranoia is now a thing
It’s a thing for the manager who doesn’t trust their employees.
And it’s a thing for the employee who feels micro-managed and untrusted.
There’s one simple cure for productivity paranoia
Trust.
One more thing
Let’s stop measuring time on the job and start measuring actual accomplishment.
Did the employee meet the deadline? With a quality work product?
That’s worth measuring.
Mouse jiggles are not.
So, trust that your people are doing the right thing, and prove it with their job performance.
Because otherwise, why are they even on your payroll?
Do you have a case of productivity paranoia among your managers, leaders, and/or employees? Let’s fix that. Contact me to set a time to talk about how.