Staff Monitoring or should I just trust my staff?

Now there’s an age old problem with introducing a workforce management/staff monitoring software and that is…the Staff. Whether you’re a cleaning business, security guarding or FM, your staff will have a certain opinion of your attempts to implement a staff monitoring solution. Going from hand-written paper time sheets, to electronic, fool-proof technology is bound to affect them.

Implementing this sort of software has multiple repercussions as well as multiple benefits and if communicated correctly can help staff and management alike.

Staff Monitoring Repercussions

Firstly the negatives, your staff (or most of them) will not like what you’re about to do. Naturally there will be questions and persistent cries of “It isn’t working”, “I can’t use it” and so on.

Clients will mostly benefit from something like this, but some may question what you’re doing with their data, why you’re implementing this, is it intrusive to their business.

Some staff will push to get back to the old ways, or even push to leave. Your clients will appreciate the benefits with some reassurance that their data,business etc. is in good hands.

Staff Monitoring Benefits

The pluses to implementing such software are plentiful. For Example, real-time data providing more pro-active management of staff and clients. Improved health and safety of staff with alerts, more transparency for clients and staff alike…and this is where your staff need trust you!

The Trust!

Now as mentioned previously implementing monitoring software or policies will cause some furore amongst staff but the response from you should be simple.

“This implementation, and ultimately the change to our processes is to improve our business! As the manager/owner/director, I have to improve safety for you our staff, and transparency for our clients. Ultimately I need you to trust me, to support you and manage our clients, and implementing something like this, will ensure that I can do that!”

Or Something to that affect at least. The understanding needs to be that no matter the thoughts around this sort of solution, ultimately your emphasis needs to be on the provision to the client!