Company owners and managers have lots of things to worry about. Among them is the control over employees. There are some dangers that require certain level of protection. The banal danger is employees not working hard enough. If they are not controlled, they may relax and have long lunches and coffee breaks being much less productive than they can be. More dangerous threats include fraud, information leaks, conspiracy, etc. Many employers cannot allow themselves taking such risks and organize strict monitoring of their employees.

Different ways of employee monitoring are fine as long as these ways are clear and discussed beforehand. If employees discover that they are monitored on their own, there can be serious legal consequences.

So, employers all over the world today choose to introduce different methods of employee monitoring and thus increase the productivity level in their companies. Here are the most popular methods.

Video cameras

This measure allows employers see when employees come to work, how long their breaks are, how often they go for a coffee, etc. The important thing for an employer here is to warn employees about these cameras; otherwise it is violation of rights and can be punished by law. It is not necessary to put cameras in every corner; setting a couple of cameras in corridors, for example, can be enough.   

Internet activity monitoring

Video cameras are nice for controlling employees. However, if employees sit at their desks, it doesn't mean that they work. There are so many ways to get distracted and to waste precious working time online. So, employers face the problem of workers being at work but not working much. Thus, they use different programs to see what websites employee visit, what they do there and how long they stay on those sites.

Personal checks

Harsh managers even monitor e-mails and different messengers of employees. They want to make sure none of the corporate information goes out of the company. They may check every e-mail, random e-mails or check e-mails for particular words. If there are corporate phones, employees can even use text message monitoring to see whether workers spend too much time texting instead of working.   

So, these were the most popular ways bosses all over the world watch their employees. Maybe, some of them don't seem very honest and ethical, but they actually prove to increase the productivity of the majority of employees and prevent serious troubles.