Managers and employees often get into a tussle with the former’s efforts to improve the overall productivity of the latter by micro-managing their actions. This approach of managing every aspect of the business in detail—also known as helicopter management—can make employees overcautious and counterproductive. However, it need not always be so as technology helps managers get the best out of their employees without watching over their every step. If the team’s productivity is of greater importance, micro-managing is not the right approach as it leaves no room for employees to develop themselves as they are in the constant pursuit of trying to appease their managers.
Employee management software helps managers with their decisions to make changes with their real-time data insights. However, using software to monitor employees can cause a rift between employees. Therefore, managers should not fall into the trap of micromanagement. A company’s productivity cannot be increased by increasing the time employees work. All companies have only 24 hours to complete their tasks. Squeezing out the last bit of work from employees in the name of “improving productivity” will become counterproductive for companies.
Wise use of Data
Data from an employee monitoring software can be a boon or bane, depending on how the company uses it. It can be a boon if companies use the data to aggregate employee behavior patterns and make changes and a bane if managers seek to use it to micro-optimize employees.
The expectations from the employee will already be enlisted in the company’s whitepapers. An employee monitoring software provides metrics like time spent on working and time spent on other activities. These metrics can be used to set benchmarks for various tasks. If they are consistently missed, then the employee can be provided with additional training and work offloading.
Panoramic View for Macro-management
Employee monitoring software indeed provides insights into the individual performance of employees. These insights are used to create a larger picture of the employee productivity of the company. However, managers should not fall for the temptation of seeing metrics from the employee monitoring software to assess individual performance.
Instead of using individual metrics, managers should switch to team metrics to focus more on improving the team’s productivity than specific employees. Therefore, it is unwise for a manager to have a micro-macro approach for managing employee productivity.
Transparency
It is essential for companies’ smooth functioning and overall productivity that they take their employees into confidence by sharing the data generated by the employee monitoring software with them. Sharing productivity insights with employees assures employees that managers are not micro-managing them, familiarizes them with the workings of the monitoring software, and that the managers do not compromise employees’ privacy.