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Documenting Performance [WLO: 1] [CLOs: 1 and 2] With the robust work from home trend, human resource managers and organizational leaders often question the most effective way to monitor employee productivity. A key component of performance evaluation is documentation. A technology-driven method of performance documentation is electronic monitoring of performance. Prior to beginning this discussion, review the articles, Employee monitoring: Privacy in the workplace? Links to an external site., Monitoring remote employees: Implications for HRLinks to an external site., and What Managers Get Wrong about Employee Monitoring Links to an external site.. In your post, describe three advantages and three disadvantages of electronic performance monitoring, as compared to other methods. Evaluate electronic monitoring use for three job roles: assembly-line worker, remote telephone customer service representative, and sales manager. Is the use of electronic monitoring more appropriate for some jobs than others? Please explain why or why not. What data would be useful for each of the positions? Evaluate any ethical issues to consider when monitoring performance electronically. Your initial post must be a minimum of 300 words. Support your statements with at least one scholarly and/or credible source. The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources Employee monitoring: Privacy in the workplace? EM-SHRJ210002 42..46 Monitoring remote employees: implications for HR Debora Jeske Abstract Purpose –More andmore organizations have resorted to the employment of monitoring software to keep track of employees’ everyday performance and task completion. The current paper aims to outline the capabilities, pros and cons of monitoring for employees. Several recommendations for Human Resources (HR) professionals are outlined to inform best practice. Design/methodology/approach – This paper summarizes recent literature and trends on electronic monitoring aimed at remote workers, focusing specifically on trends observed in the UK and the USA. Findings – The number of pros and cons, as well as the resulting recommendations for HR professionals, outline how technologymay aid – but also undermine – performance. Originality/value – The summary of capabilities, pros and cons represents a snapshot of current monitoring practices. The recommendations will give readers an overview of all the aspects and factors that ought to be considered whenmonitoring software and related tools are selected. Keywords Monitoring, Risk management, Human resources, Data management, Productivity, Surveillance Paper type Viewpoint Introduction Productivity monitoring has been around for well over 40 years. The advent of remote working across many industries and countries in recent times has gone hand in hand with a significant increase of monitoring software being used by organizations keen to keep track of their employees’ time and work. The current article outlines the capabilities of such systems, describes some of the pros and cons for the adoption of such software and several HR implications for practice and policies. Remote work monitoring: capabilities and approaches Professionals working in HR departments are often tasked with advising managers in all departments on aspects such as performance management (processes and best practices), appraisal and reward management. The adoption of monitoring software may support these processes in numerous ways by delivering indicators of how employees spend their work time and how they compare to others on specific tasks. A quick review of remote working practices here will provide clarity as to what such monitoring software can deliver in terms of information. Today’s monitoring software can monitor employees’ keyboard strokes, mouse movements, visited websites, take screen shots/webcam shots every 10 minutes, monitor e-mail use, e-mail content and even transcribe the content of phone calls. Other options include the monitoring of attention an employee pays to screen content, a minute-by-minute time line that can be reviewed by managers and mirror displays (where the content of an employee’s home screen is displayed on another device). Furthermore, different software keeps track of file transfers Debora Jeske is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork –, Cork, Ireland. PAGE 42 j STRATEGIC HR REVIEW j VOL. 20 NO. 2 2021, pp. 42-46, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 DOI 10.1108/SHR-10-2020-0089 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SHR-10-2020-0089 and the kind of applications that an employee is or has used. Location monitoring is a common feature as well, as is the monitoring of surroundings where employees work. Many of these software programs will log out inactive users and send reminders to start working again within a specific time frame. Productivity scores and employee categorization (into productive or unproductive employees) automate the process of performance tracking for many managers. In addition to software specifically designed to monitor employees, many video conferencing and communication tools are being deployed to watch over employees on a continuous basis (e.g. via Zoom, Skype and Google Meetup) and to monitor if employees are continuously online (e.g. Slack and Microsoft Teams). The capabilities of single or combined programs are therefore so extensive that they allow for continuous and extensive monitoring of every second of every workday, both in the office but now increasingly within their own home environments. This monitoring has, however, far-reaching consequences for employees’ experience at work. Monitoring employees: pros Monitoring software can add value in several ways. For managers and team members alike, it can provide a means to support communication (especially when the teams are large and dispersed), team coordination and provide assistance when it is needed. Some features will particularly be helpful to managers, others more to teams and the individuals themselves. Managers can track how employees are progressing and help employees when necessary with developmental feedback (Jeske and Santuzzi, 2015). They notice when some tasks are delayed or need to be reprioritized. In addition, monitoring information on task progress can help them to allocate new tasks on time – and in line with capabilities of the employee. Such records may therefore, with the right understanding of the job and performance context of the employee, serve as inputs for performance appraisals. Similarly, managers may find some features useful that allow them to check on a larger, distributed team (e.g. attendance, tardiness and team-based projects). Many software packages can be applied to different devices, especially when employees use different devices. There are some benefits that apply to individual team members. Given the right permissions, they themselves can check their progress and see how they compare to others. In some systems, they can further moderate what is reported back to the managers (e.g. by checking which screen shots were captured). Especially for highly repetitive, routine jobs where tasks are easily timed and quantifiable, such progress tracking can provide employees with the means to work toward and become visible as top performers. Being able to keep track of one’s tasks can promote accountability among employees for their areas of responsibility. That said, there is a fine line between monitoring for productivity and the indiscriminate surveillance of all employee activities that are not justified based on their job role, job complexity or criticality of their output. In those cases, trust in management and teams may quickly be undermined. In order for employee monitoring to lead to the appropriate outcomes (specifically productivity and effectiveness), employers need to balance their own needs (e.g. the want to control and record work activities and productivity) with employees’ desire to be valued and trusted by their employers (Bernstrøm and Svare, 2017). This brings us to the other side of the coin when it comes to employee monitoring and surveillance. Monitoring employees: cons Close and unpredictable employee monitoring has been shown to negatively impact employees’ self-efficacy and reduce organizational citizenship behaviors (voluntary helping behaviors; Jeske and Santuzzi, 2015). When employees are aware that they are monitored, VOL. 20 NO. 2 2021 j STRATEGIC HR REVIEW j PAGE 43 they feel less trusted and more powerless. This lack of trust and mistrust is further spurred by reports that some monitoring software can be installed without the employees’ knowledge. This results in lower morale and increased turnover intention. Contextual performance is also known to drop as team-trust declines. Employees similarly tend to perform more poorly when they are required to solve complex problems, or solve problems creatively, as performance is often impaired on such tasks when monitoring is intense. Another issue concerns the ability with which some systems set conformity and non- differentiated performance goals. This may be particularly problematic for new hires or hires who are not able to work at the same pace as other workers. The possibility of discrimination increases, possibly undermining diversity initiatives aimed at recruiting workers with different backgrounds, skill levels and circumstances (e.g. working parents who are temporarily working from home). Depending on the nature and degree of monitoring, as well as nature of the business and professional profile of employees, some staff may be open to accept extensive monitoring of all their activities and interactions. The use of continuous video monitoring is disconcerting given that many employees who work remotely do so involuntarily. Many recent remote workers do not have a designated office space in their home environment, which means the video conferencing is capturing aspects of their private lives that employers have no legal right to intrude. The prevalence of video monitoring means that naturally occurring interactions in the home (such as children interacting with their parents, breast feeding and similar) are all now captured on screen for employers. It is difficult to see how such technologically supported and continuous “home invasions” can be morally or ethically acceptable to employees, especially when data access and transparency are not been clarified (Hagen et al., 2018). Such experiences are unlikely to promote commitment, work engagement or trust in management. Other unintended effects have likewise been reported. Some employees feel that the quantification of all output is dehumanizing, likening their input to those of their machine. Others report work intensification. This can result in overwork and even burnout as employees skip taking their breaks to keep pace with rising performance standards. The lack of contextual cues and further performance-relevant information can easily lead to misattributions and misunderstandings. Some employees similarly report that the monitoring used at work can conflict with the values promoted within the organization (e.g. a strong team focus vs individualized performance tracking). When monitoring violates trust and mutual agreements, the likelihood increases that the organization becomes less attractive to new talent, inadvertently thwarts employee voice and undermines employer branding efforts. Future data breaches may now reveal sensitive information about the organization and employees’ home environments, home networks and home security. What is more, the monitoring tools’ data capturing features may also capture information about clients and customers. This then may generate new problem when it comes to safeguarding or removing their information frommonitoring data records. Stepping in and stepping up: recommendations for HR When advising managers and employees, HR professionals are often in a situation where they need to balance pros and cons – for their employers and the employees. The following recommendations provide some starting points for professionals in HR. The adoption of monitoring software and tools may be prompted bymanagers or professionals in the HR departments. When managers are interested in adopting monitoring, one of the first steps to consider is the broader use case for the use of various monitoring tools. HR professionals can play an important role by encouraging an honest and open discussion about what motivates managers to adopt such tools. Such a discussion will help all stakeholders to explore if the use of monitoring will serve the company and employees well and clarify how the captured data will be used (Al-Hitmi and Sherif, 2018). In some cases, HR departments may themselves initiate the debate about monitoring, especially when the data that could be PAGE 44 j STRATEGIC HR REVIEW j VOL. 20 NO. 2 2021 generated are viewed as supporting HR processes (related to development, appraisal and promotions rounds). At this stage, the input of employees – and other employee representatives – need to be consulted to test the situational boundaries and appropriateness of different monitoring features given the activities that would be monitored (Abraham et al., 2019). In addition, industry, professional and cultural differences should also need to be considered in terms of how employees respond to monitoring (Abraham et al., 2019; Bernstrøm and Svare, 2017). By law, varying by jurisdiction, many more stakeholders might expect to have a say on how and when employees are monitored. Second, once the goals and use cases have been identified and agreed upon, the next step will require HR professionals or other competent colleagues to identify suitable software and required features that will be needed to achieve said goals. Where opt-in and opt-out will be provided, these options need to be openly discussed. Some software may need to be customized to be appropriate in consultation with employees who will be monitored. Aspects such as break times and downtimes similarly need to be considered in line with health and safety guides and working time directives. The co-creation of monitoring can ensure that the monitoring is suitable to the performance setting (e.g. when individuals work on their own vs in teams, in different settings and similar). This collaborative effort can be extended to identify the right metrics to assess the use and effects of the software on critical individual, team or organizational outcomes (e.g. turnover, efficiency and morale). This ensures that monitoring does not dispirit teams or undermine trust in management (Bernstrøm and Svare, 2017). Third, as soon as a consensus can be reached about which kind of monitoring will be applied, a few guardrails need to be used to ensure that the monitoring is implemented in the way intended. All current and future employees need to be informed that monitoring will be used and in what form. All managers and employees need to receive training and