Electronic monitoring of employees and the approach that employers take is typically a reflection of management styles. Employee and electronic monitoring are not new. New, are obligations under legislated changes to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) for organizations with 25 or more employees. The changes received royal assent on April 11, 2022, and require compliance by October 11, 2022.
Interest and implementation of electronic monitoring proliferated during the pandemic. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of workers had to be trusted to complete work unseen, unmonitored, and beyond managers’ watchful eyes— at least in the traditional sense. This often-uneasy bargain was the only way businesses could carry on. Post-pandemic, an overwhelming majority of employees want to continue working remotely for some, if not all, of the workweek.
Many managers were and continue to be very uncomfortable with this.
This discomfort is not new. Since time immemorial, employers have wanted mechanisms that guarantee:
“the punctual Discharge of the Services due by them to their respective Employers, and for ensuring the due performance …, and for the Prevention and Punishment of Indolence, or the Neglect or improper Performance of work …, and for the Prevention and Punishment of Insolence and Insubordination … towards their Employers, and for the Prevention or Punishment of … any Conduct … injuring or tending to the Injury of the Property of any such Employer …”
Sounds familiar?
Remarkably, and despite the resonance, the heavily abridged and edited excerpt above is from the 1833 Abolition Act (the “Act”). The Act created a transitional apprenticeship period in British colonies to regulate partially liberated slaves, which the Act described as apprentices. The Act instituted rules and regulations, including a monitoring system overseen by stipendiary magistrates, to ensure that apprentices provided the requisite services, whether exacted through apprenticeship or under contracts for work outside the enforced apprenticeship hours.
Like employers today, there were concerns about punctuality, time theft, proper work performance, discipline, and property protection.
All of those old reasons for monitoring employees remain. Now there are additional concerns, including worker safety and wellness. For example, CCTV not only helps secure premises, but it may also help keep workers safe. Similarly, GPS monitoring helps to safeguard employees working alone or in the community. Wearables with radio frequency identification (RFID) may help employees locate inventory in a large warehouse by beeping when the employee moves too far away from the product. Wearables also monitor health metrics as part of workplace initiatives to improve employee wellness.
And, monitoring computer networks and activities helps to safeguard employee, personal and other information from insider threats (insiders are employees or other persons within the organization who are trusted with some access to systems and resources but who, through malice or inadvertence, often endanger those systems and assets).
Swipe cards and biometric systems facilitate electronic timecards and attendance tracking. In language that harkens back to the Act, these technologies help employers to prevent indolence, secure exactness in the computation of time, and ensure the punctual discharge of services.
Similarly, recording and monitoring calls in a call centre help deter agents from verbally abusing customers and other improper work performance.
Employees react unfavourably to electronic monitoring, especially if there is no transparency, such that they do not know they are being monitored, the purposes of monitoring, or the safeguards in place for the mountains of personal information that electronic monitoring lays vulnerable.
An employer’s approach to electronic monitoring likely reflects their managers’ philosophy about how and why people work. Many managers fall into the Theory X camp. Others tend more towards the Theory Y camp. Theory X and Theory Y are two views of human nature and employee behaviour that Douglas McGregor developed in the 1950s. He developed the theories in response and to critique the then-current theories and assumptions about employee behaviour. While the theories represent extremes on the continuum of management styles and are arguably oversimplified, they provide touchpoints for evaluating approaches to electronic monitoring.
Theory X managers believe that without active intervention by management, employees would be unresponsive or opposed to organizational goals and objectives. Therefore, the theory goes, management needs to prod, reward, punish, and control employees. The underlying assumption of this approach is that people intrinsically do not like work and will avoid it if they can—employees do not want autonomy and prefer to be “told”.
Alternatively, Theory Y managers believe that work is as natural as leisure or rest, and people have an innate desire to assume responsibility and work to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, management’s responsibility is to create the circumstances in which employees can realize all this inherent potential for self-control and personal and organizational goal attainment. Over-supervision and punishment are not ideal or even necessary in most instances.
Managers that take a Theory X view may make one of the biggest mistakes when implementing electronic monitoring—they may be less inclined to consider alternatives to electronic monitoring and even favour highly intrusive forms of electronic monitoring.
Intrusive forms of electronic monitoring may be attractive to Theory X managers who think they need as much information as possible to exert as much control as possible over how employees work. Surveys and other evidence show that employees are particularly repulsed by webcam monitoring, keystroke logging, and other very intrusive monitoring. Webcam monitoring involves continuous or periodic remote access to an employee’s webcam as they work or when using their devices. Keystroke logging uses software to automatically record every keystroke typed.
On the other hand, a Theory Y manager is more likely to take a nuanced approach to employee monitoring. They will examine why electronic monitoring may be beneficial by asking what problems or issues they are trying to address. They will take the enquiry further by asking whether electronic monitoring will likely achieve those results. They will likely perform a privacy impact assessment to determine and mitigate the risks to personal information collected. They will likely perform a cost-benefit analysis of whatever electronic monitoring programs they consider to determine whether the program is worth it. And importantly, they will ask, “Is there an alternative?” or “Is there a less intrusive alternative?”.
Alternatives to monitoring include improved training. Instead of monitoring all calls, a Theory Y manager may ensure that employees have training in customer service. Instead of continuous monitoring, a Theory Y manager may prefer to monitor selectively in response to a specific threat or incident. Or, managers may provide periodic reminders of policies and procedures through emails or pop-up messages. Instead of installing CCTV throughout the premises, a Theory Y manager may perhaps install them only in the storerooms with high-value inventories.
These assessments that Theory Y managers are likely to undertake are best practices. When an organization can explain the hows, whys, and rationale of electronic monitoring to employees, those employees are likely to be more receptive to electronic monitoring.
The electronic monitoring requirements in the ESA are rudimentary, not very prescriptive, and do not demand much of employers in terms of disclosing or mandating technologies, privacy controls, and other elements. But it does force employers to have some dialogue with employees about electronic monitoring—at least for those with more than 25 employees on the effective dates set out in the ESA.
Meeting your duty of care: If you monitor employees electronically, implement an electronic monitoring policy even if under the ESA there is no need to implement one. A reasonable and balanced policy based on transparency and respect for employees’ privacy is an excellent place to start. And, before implementing electronic monitoring, take a page from the Theory Y managers’ book. Ask: “Is there an alternative?” or, “Is there a less intrusive alternative?” And if there are no other feasible alternatives and no way to make electronic monitoring less intrusive, then say so.
Upcoming releases for First Reference’s Human Resources PolicyPro Ontario Edition and Information Technology PolicyPro will include sample electronic monitoring policies.
Policies and procedures are essential, but the work required to create and maintain them can seem daunting. Finance and Accounting PolicyPro, Not-for-Profit PolicyPro, and Information Technology PolicyPro, co-marketed by First Reference and Chartered Professional Accountants Canada (CPA Canada), contain sample policies, procedures, checklists and other tools, plus authoritative commentary to save you time and effort in establishing and updating your internal controls and policies. Not a subscriber? Request free 30–day trials of Finance and Accounting PolicyPro, Not-for-Profit PolicyPro, and Information Technology PolicyPro here.
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