Employee productivity and satisfaction are closely linked in both positive and negative ways. Data have repeatedly shown that employees with high levels of job satisfaction tend to be more productive. Employees who enjoy their jobs tend to work harder, longer, and smarter. At the same time, many efforts to boost employee productivity can have a negative impact on job satisfaction.
For example, asking employees to work overtime or on weekends may result in extra work being completed in the short term but can have longer-term detrimental effects on satisfaction and, therefore, productivity.
Big Brother Is Watching
There are numerous measures companies have taken for years in their efforts to boost employee productivity. One major category of these measures can be considered those aimed at ensuring employees are actually working when they are supposed to. This could include restricting unscheduled breaks and excessive “water cooler talk,” for example.
With advances in technology, the opportunities for employees to waste work time on nonwork activities, as well as the ability of employers to monitor such behavior, have increased.
Most employees in an office setting need the Internet to be effective at their jobs, but there are plenty of potential distractions at their fingertips as a result, which has led many employers to start monitoring their employees’ online activity.
A recent survey by Blind asked 6,707 anonymous app users a series of true-or-false questions to gauge employer monitoring activities and employee feelings toward those activities.
According to the survey results and other research cited by Blind, 67% of employers use some kind of electronic monitoring, and 25.8% of employee survey respondents said their company “goes to unreasonable lengths to monitor employees.”
Excessive Monitoring Diminishes Satisfaction
While monitoring can yield insights about who is and isn’t working—and how hard—there are some potential downfalls that employers considering this form of monitoring should be aware of.
Employees who feel their employers are constantly looking over their shoulders tend to have decreased job satisfaction as a result and may suffer from a drop in productivity or even leave the organization.
These results are interesting in that they illustrate the challenge facing employers in the digital age when it comes to employee productivity. In order to enforce productivity expectations, employers often feel they need to have some way to monitor their staff; however, too much monitoring can lead to a drop in satisfaction and, ultimately, productivity.
That’s a risk that may not be worth taking.