It's Not Just About The Employee

When employee monitoring is brought up in conversation in the workplace, employees automatically put themselves in the "Big Brother" situation. They feel that their privacy is being invaded, and that the level of trust the company has for them is non-existent, therefore creating trust issues for the employee. A company though has numerous reasons for monitoring employee activity that do not necessarily have to do with the employee. Here are a few examples:

1. Maintenance and Management of Computer and Network Systems
2. Application and Network Troubleshooting
3. Storage and Bandwidth Capacity Planning

When discussing Employee Monitoring with your staff, be sure to show them how monitoring helps create an efficient work environment by allowing the company to provide proper bandwidth, and system tools that allow each employee to do their job. As a company, using your own internal reasons to monitor employee Internet usage may help your case in monitoring employees in general. Bandwidth issues, and PC performance are examples of why you might need to monitor for business purposes. Be sure to include these and others when discussing the need to monitor employee Internet activity with your staff.