{"id":5003,"date":"2020-07-28T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T12:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/netsurit.com\/en-za\/?p=5003"},"modified":"2020-07-28T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T12:26:00","slug":"you-can-measure-productivity-and-create-trust-with-remote-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/netsurit.com\/en-za\/you-can-measure-productivity-and-create-trust-with-remote-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"You can measure productivity and create trust with remote workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While not quite a Tale of Two Cities<\/em>, the issue of measuring productivity while working at home does have a bit of the best of times and the worst of times.
The best of times for many employees is being able to control their working schedule. And for many employers, the worst of times is the fear of not being able to control employees\u2019 schedules.
Companies worry that employees are slacking off and employees worry that companies aren\u2019t seeing how much extra time they are putting in.
Next comes technology. Some employers want to place cameras on computers to ensure employees are working while many employees feel deeply offended by this invasive surveillance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to make both sides happy?
Well, Louwki Coetsee, managing director at Netsurit (USA), has some thoughts on this topic. Netsurit, which has been around for twenty years and serves many manufacturing companies, received a lot of requests in March for software that could help manage a remote workforce.
\u201cDue to COVID-19, many companies were in the position of having to manage a remote workforce with only a few days\u2019 notice,\u201d explains Coetsee. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t time to put a strategic plan in place on how to achieve company goals and accommodate employees’ work habits at the same time.\u201d
But the larger issue to Coetsee was that he didn\u2019t want his software doing what most of the software on the market was doing which was tracking employees\u2019 specific actions. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to create spyware that puts cameras on employees and takes screenshots of their computers. So we hired an ethicist to help create software that can take into account issues of privacy and culture while creating an atmosphere of trust between managers and employees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach of viewing software applications through the lens of workforce culture led Netsurit to hire Reed Blackman, PhD. CEO of Virtue. Blackman, a former philosophy professor at Colgate University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, works with companies to bring ethics into the company culture. Blackman helped Netsurit ensure that their system was helping both employers and employees.
While many people first assume that companies are trying to monitor them to make sure they are working, Coetsee said that actually many employers have expressed to him that they are worried about employee burnout. \u201cThe lines are blurring between working hours causing many people to put in more hours,\u201d says Coetsee. \u201cManagers need to know this information and provide more resources if necessary. And employees need to feel comfortable creating a proper work-life balance.\u201d
So, the company created what it considers an ethical and trustworthy monitoring tool. The software works in the background, and reports on business applications and website usage. Customers can decide which applications and websites should be monitored. Other applications and websites are ignored \u2013 affording employees the required privacy regarding the usage of non-work-related applications and websites.
\u201cWe tell managers that this is one tool to find out where employees spend time and how much. We advise companies to be very transparent with their workforce and explain that the goal of this is to ensure even workloads. If the employee is working too hard, they should discuss a better work-life balance. And if an employee doesn\u2019t have enough work that needs to be adjusted as well. This is a system that can calibrate the workload. But it\u2019s only one piece of data and needs to be used with other information to provide a full picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The product, called Netsurit Productivity Monitor, has proven beneficial to RSC (Reinforcing Steel Contractors), which is based in South Africa and manufactures steel products for construction and mining companies.
\u201cThe global pandemic forced us to reevaluate how we manage our user IT experience,\u201d explains Andre Vos, IT project manager at RSC. \u201cAspects about the workplace that were interesting trend topics of discussion like \u201cworking from home \u2013 productive or not\u201d suddenly became business-critical elements that shifted our perception regarding the user experience.
“South Africa is a country of paradox and paradigm mixed to create opportunity. We still believe that face-to-face meetings are the only effective way to interact and we manage by \u201che who shouts loudest\u201d. There is even faulting in my favourite saying \u201cMy favourite users are the ones I didn\u2019t even know existed.\u201d
Vos explains that the software provides information on which applications consume employees\u2019 time. \u201cMore importantly it does so without invading their privacy or harvesting potential private information while still telling you everything you need to know.\u201d
He feels the tool \u201callows you to dispel perceptions around what tools really are adding value to your business. This destroys another arch-villain in business \u2013 the strong personality overriding data.\u201d
Finding the system to be valuable he said that \u201cfor the first time in my career I have a product that delivers a cure for a disease I did not know we had.\u201d
And knowing how the workforce is spending their time is an important aspect of managing employees but the factor of trust is probably the more important element.
In an article, Blackman wrote for the Harvard Business Review entitled,\u201d How to Monitor Your Employees While Respecting Their Privacy, he made this exact point. \u201cSurveillance threatens to erode trust between employers and employees\u2026 Employees who are now subject to new levels of surveillance report being both \u201cincredibly stressed out\u201d by the constant monitoring and also afraid to speak up, a recipe for not only dissatisfaction but also burnout, both of which \u2014 ironically \u2014 decrease productivity. \u201c
While a company can gather data necessary to ensure productivity, it must be very careful how it uses that data. \u201cWe encourage companies to have a strong communication system in order to use this data in a way that benefits everyone,” says Coetsee.
And all of these decisions about how to handle workforce issues should be based on trust as all signs, including the recent announcement by Google that its workforce can be remote until July of 2021, point to remote working becoming more common. Trust is a highly valued principle by all workers, especially the next generation of workers. And how companies handle their monitoring of remote employees could very well be a determinant as to how they are able to both attract and retain employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Adrienne Selko<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article Source: Industry Week<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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