How to Monitor Your Employees — While Respecting Their Privacy

As work from home has become the new normal, many employers have started to worry about just how much work their employees are doing. Some companies have asked themselves: Is it worth monitoring our workers? For most, the answer is probably not — monitoring can erode trust, harm job satisfaction, and increase stress in an already fraught moment. For companies that decide that it’s worth the trade-offs, the author recommends the following steps: 1) Choose your metrics carefully by involving all relevant stakeholders; 2) Be transparent with your employees about what you’re monitoring and why; 3) Offer carrots as well as sticks; 4) Accept that very good workers will not always be able to do very good work all the time — especially under present circumstances; 5) Monitor your own systems to ensure that people of color and other vulnerable groups are not disproportionately affected; and 6) Decrease monitoring when and where you can.