Employee Computer Monitoring Crucial for People in Positions of Trust

Broaching the subject of employee computer monitoring can be awkward, and implementing an employee computer monitoring system may come with some challenges. This can be even more true when the employees you want to monitor are employees in a position of great trust within the company. The last thing you want to do is decrease morale in your employees, and the majority of employees in trusted positions are likely to be valuable, honest, and reliable. But there’s always the chance that an employee will cross a line, and employee monitoring can save you from some serious losses. 

Prevent Time Theft

Employee monitoring software helps ensure that your employees are on the job while they’re on the clock.

In the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, an inspector recently resigned after an audit of his computer activities at work. The investigation into the inspector’s online activities revealed that the inspector accessed more than 250 websites unrelated to work business during the ten-month period that the investigation covered. Some of the online activities that the employee engaged in during work hours included online shopping, gambling, and viewing pornographic material. 

Needless to say, accessing so many non-work-related websites during work hours constitutes a serious case of time theft. While you can’t expect employees to be actively engaged in work every moment of their shift – everyone has downtime or needs the occasional break – a business or organization should not be expected to have to pay employees to shop or gamble online instead of working. What’s more, site that are insecure or likely to contain viruses and other malware, as many pornography sites do, could result in a serious security breach. 

Protect Clients

Keep your clients safe and your reputation intact. Employee monitoring software can deter theft. 

While time theft can be a serious issue, at least it doesn’t necessarily damage the reputation of a business or organization. Stealing from clients, on the other hand, can seriously damage a business. In Delaware County, Pennsylvania a former tax office clerk has been charged with multiple felonies for stealing over $216,000 in tax payments. 

An act of theft like this is damaging in multiple ways. In this case, the theft will likely damage public trust in the tax office. In a private sector business, a similar theft could damage the company’s reputation badly enough to cause a loss of clients, and if a business loses enough clients, it could go under. Employee monitoring software allows employers to detect signs of such a theft before it’s too late to undo the damage. 

Guard Trade Secrets

Companies also have to consider their own proprietary information. Theft of trade secrets can be a serious problem in some industries, and no one wants to lose business to a competitor because of a vulnerability in their system, or because of a disgruntled employee. In Silicon Valley, an employee of a gaming company was accused of stealing trade secrets and eventually charged with damaging a company-issued laptop by deleting information. 

The charge is controversial, as some critics claim that it’s overly broad and could result in prosecutions for something as minor as deleting personal information from a work computer. But corporations do need to protect their trade secrets. Pre-emptively installing employee monitoring software can help companies deter such thefts, and provide them with the proof needed to file appropriate charges should thefts occur. 

Employee monitoring software can be an important tool for increasing a company’s or organization’s security. To find out how it can work for your company, Take an online test drive.