A growing number of organisations would argue that using time and motion tracking to keep tabs on employees is good for productivity and wellbeing.
Tracking their activity, such as the time it takes to complete tasks can not only ensure employees are getting the job done but prevent them from overworking by identifying tasks which could be eliminated or delegated to others.
This is otherwise known as a time and motion study – a process that analyses tasks and operations to identify potential improvements in order to ultimately improve profitability.
But when does monitoring employees or tracking their movements overstep the line?
It’s understandable why there are questions around its legality and the ethical impact on employee privacy. Here, we look at the benefits and drawbacks of employee monitoring and its implications in the workplace.
What is a time and motion study?
In the past, the concept of a time and motion study was an investigation into how hard or fast people were working. In reality, it’s more about making the work easier, quicker, and finding better and more consistent methods.
A time and motion study will review and analyse all tasks and activities carried out in your business, with the aim of identifying how long each task takes and what physical activity is involved in completing it.
Excessive steps to complete a piece of work or unnecessary tasks are a waste of time – it’s tiring for the employee and adds costs for your business. If you reduce, eliminate or simplify these tasks, the employee will have more capacity and be more productive. It also saves time and money.
Is employee monitoring legal?
In short, yes – it is legal, but there are some caveats.
Many employment contracts and policies will state that the employer has the right to some level of monitoring of its systems, but there are laws and principles that must be adhered to.
Time and motion studies tend to focus on the tasks and operations, rather than making any assessment about the individual carrying them out. This means that the data collected isn’t usually personal data that relates to an identifiable individual, although it can in some cases.
You must be very clear about who has access to personal data, how securely it will be stored, what exactly it will be used for and how long it will be retained.
The collection and processing of data through a time and motion study must be for a defined lawful reason in line with the Data Protection Regulations 2018, and must be done in a fair, reasonable and transparent manner. You must ensure this type of data processing is documented in your data register and covered by data protection policies and notices.
Employees do have a right to privacy, even in the workplace when using work systems, so you must be very careful how you approach such monitoring activities.
What other ways are employees monitored?
Recording time spent on tasks or activities completed is often essential for organisations – you may fill in a timesheet for example. This can help to allocate overhead costs, or to bill clients.
Many employees will clock in and out for each shift, or use door passes as they arrive and leave. CCTV is capable of tracking who is where and what they are doing, and employers can access phone tracking and IT systems to see where their employees are, who they are talking to and what they are saying.
Reasons for employee monitoring
Looking back to the pandemic, some managers were worried about how they could ensure their remote teams were working well if they could not physically see them.
Monitoring software meant there were tools available that could tell when employees were typing, or when they were working on the employer’s systems. You could monitor instant messaging platforms to see when employees were messaging, and what they were saying. Email and internet use could be monitored to check for frequency of use and ensure it was business related.
But monitoring isn’t just about suspicious employers. You might want to monitor employees’ activity to reduce business risk – to ensure they are abiding by critical rules and expectations, especially in regulated industries, for example.
Being liable for your employees’ activities means you will want to know no one is breaching data protection measures or bullying, harassing or discriminating against others.
There are also really positive reasons for looking at an employee’s time and activity; for example if there are concerns about high workloads, or the risk of burnout.
With the blurring of lines between home and work, these can be real issues that lead to increased absence, errors, and high staff turnover.
You may want to analyse what these employees are doing, so you can support them to restructure their workloads, eliminate unnecessary tasks and get them back to spending their time on activity in which they really add value.
What are the drawbacks to monitoring?
If not explained well, employees may see monitoring as a lack of trust and respect in them.
Monitoring can also lead to stress, anxiety, ill health, and high absences. This type of culture could create high employee turnover, and if your business is known for not trusting their staff, you will find it hard to attract and retain talented people.
Those that do stay may become disengaged and will be unlikely to go the extra mile. Your monitoring might find that they choose to do only the minimum required.
How can I implement an effective employee monitoring strategy?
- Be open and honest about what you are doing and why
- Consult with employees – tell them the issue you are trying to solve, and explore with them what other options are there for doing this? Communicate early and regularly
- Follow the principles of GDPR – have legal justification for what you are monitoring and why, and ensure it is done in the least disruptive and intrusive way possible – only go as far as is necessary
- Have a written policy to communicate all of this, and ensure new hires are aware of it
- Carry out impact assessments if large amounts of personal data will be collected, especially if it is sensitive data
- Recognise a right to privacy and private life, and adjust your monitoring practices to protect this
Being aware of how your people are working can bring real beneifts to them and to your business. Eliminating unnecessary administrative tasks, or meetings that are longer than they need to be (or not needed at all) can ensure your people are spending their time using their skills and adding real value instead.
Always have a human element to any review and decisions; don’t just rely on the data. The data might show that someone is working late or over weekends, so talk to them about the reasons for this. Are they overworked and trying to catch up? Do they prefer to work at these times (and is that ok)? Do they have inefficient working practices which you could support with, so they can get everything done in normal hours?
Continually review whether the monitoring processes you’ve introduced are achieving their aims and review the impact it may be having on your people.
Is employee monitoring a good people management practice?
Effective management today leans towards an approach that is less about control, and more about trust.
Employers hire good people for their skills and behaviours – good employers will let those people get on with their job and let them decide how, where and when to do it, to a greater or lesser extent.
Some roles will always need some degree of control, and consistent processes being followed to achieve quality output, but an overbearing need to control and monitor (leading to punitive measures) is likely to turn employees away from your business.
By all means stay close to your teams, with regular one-to-ones and build good relationships, so work and results can be discussed, and performance continually improved through collaborative discussion leading to better work practices. But close monitoring of every little thing they do and every minute they spend from 9 to 5 is likely to have a detrimental effect.
Is there an alternative way to manage performance?
A key management responsibility is performance improvement, and managers will need some performance measures to support this.
Some form of time and motion study can be useful to gather data to eliminate inefficient activity and help to free up employee time, so they can focus their time and talents on value adding activity.
However, simply monitoring a worker to check they are working the right hours is likely to backfire, damaging the trust and leading to disengagement and higher employee turnover.
Managers need to think carefully about what good performance really means. Often it is not about time spent doing something, but the quality of the result at the end.
The best way to measure performance has to be managing by results, not by the time spent in the workplace or sat at a computer. Set clear goals and objectives, specify the quality and timescales required, and if your team members deliver against this consistently, then they are performing well. This is all the monitoring you need.