Tag Archive for: Technology

Should employers monitor remote employees?

With remote work becoming the new normal for many businesses, employers can’t help but worry about how much work their employees are getting done. One way to determine this is by monitoring employees online. However, this practice can raise privacy concerns. This article will shed light on what employee monitoring is and how it can help your business.

What is employee monitoring?

Employee monitoring is the practice of using digital tools to track employee activity and performance, and the progress of their tasks. The data collected can be used to identify patterns, trends, and correlations across different teams allowing managers to gain insight into various work processes, and how they can be improved.

What are the benefits of employee monitoring?

Here are the key benefits of monitoring your employees online:

1. Improved productivity
Using employee monitoring tools can help you track how much time employees spend visiting non-work-related websites or chatting with friends. If an employee’s productivity goes down significantly because of these activities, you can address the issue by reminding that specific employee about the company’s policy regarding visiting non-work-related websites and/or limiting his/her internet access.

When employees know that their activities are being monitored, they’re more likely to focus on their tasks and avoid inappropriate internet use.

2. Better security
According to Verizon’s 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, 85% of breaches reported in 2020 were due to human error. Monitoring the online habits of employees can help employers track and flag instant messages and emails containing sensitive and private information. In addition, managers can block employees from visiting phishing sites or websites that automatically download malware onto unprotected computers and mobile devices.

3. More efficient project management
Monitoring employee activity provides managers with continuous reports on workers’ progress, allowing them to stay on top of multiple projects. These reports can help managers delegate tasks and adjust schedules to meet deadlines.

What are the disadvantages of monitoring your employees online?

Despite its benefits, employee monitoring also comes with some drawbacks, such as:

1. Trust issues
Employees may feel that their privacy is being violated. This can lead to low employee morale and reduced productivity, as well as distrust between and among colleagues.

2. Legal issues
States and countries may have varying policies on employee monitoring, but one thing is constant ⁠— an employee’s consent is needed before any type of monitoring can be done.Without the consent of an employee, an employer can be charged with privacy violations and discrimination if the information collected is used to harm that employee.

To avoid potential problems that can arise from employee monitoring, employers should explain why monitoring is needed. A written policy should be created explaining how employees will be monitored, what information will be collected, and how that information will be protected.

If you want to learn more about employee monitoring, give us a call today.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Five Ways to Maximize the Benefits of Technology

It’s an age-old legend…well, at least as old as technology in business. After hearing about benefits gained by other companies, you invest.

After hearing about its benefits from many other companies, a small firm decides to invest extensively in new technology. Including AI. Despite this, days, weeks, and even months pass without the corporation receiving a complete return on its investment. The issue, among entrepreneurs, has only intensified due to the pandemic and the hasty adoption of technology that resulted.

So, what’s the real story behind that? There might be many explanations for this. For starters, the technology implementation may not be as excellent as you had hoped.

Maybe your employees weren’t adequately trained. Perhaps the technology wasn’t a suitable match for your specific requirements.

It’s possible that the technology isn’t all that useful in the first place. And in the context of the pandemic, hasty digital transformation efforts often result in poor technological outcomes.

Unfortunately, anybody dealing with today’s challenges will find that solving them without technology is challenging. (In truth, every business should now be a technology business, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Fortunately, you can make efforts to ensure that the technology you choose provides you with all you need. Remember that these aren’t fail-safe formulas for success, but rather a set of suggestions that will help you get closer to the results you want from technology.

1. Choose your technology carefully.

This is one of the most often repeated tips, but it bears repeating.

Why? Because you don’t have to employ every single piece of technology available. Sure, some IT basics may drastically transform your business. Meanwhile, you must be reasonable in how and where you use them, even in such circumstances.

When deciding which technology to use, there are a few considerations to consider.

You must consider specific demands, industry circumstances, competitor movements, and future business prospects before making a choice.

However, there is a mentality that may assist you in making better tech decisions. Choose technology that will help you become a more agile and fast-paced firm. Combining DevOps and CI/CD principles with decoupled data, infrastructure, and digital solutions may go a long way.

2. Include cloud computing in your infrastructure as a must-have.

The advent of the everything as a service (XaaS) paradigm allows you to tap into the power of various technologies.

Moreover, without having to make significant expenditures. As a result, you may (and should) use cloud computing to implement technologies.

Utilizing things like artificial intelligence, analytics, and big data can help your company grow.

Yes, cloud computing is ideal for storing data and even running customer relationship management software on top of it.

However, there’s more. Cloud computing allows you the freedom to scale up or down your tech demands at any moment. Meanwhile, you gain access to technologies that would be significantly more expensive if you developed them yourself.

3. Use data to make decisions and track progress.

You must already be aware that you base your selections on the information available to you.

Adopting big data strategies, as well as analytics and artificial intelligence, may help you maximize your company’s potential. This involves technology adoption and performance considerations.

Looking at the correct data may help you figure out which technologies are good for you. Consequently deciding when the optimum moment is to implement them.

Furthermore, when assessing the output and performance of new technology, data should be at the core of your monitoring activities. Data collected from the technology you adopt will offer you insights that will assist you.

Furthermore, you can determine what to alter, adapt, and scale up or down.

4. Invest in technology that will benefit the whole firm.

Because technology can empower your whole business, you should ensure that the digital solutions you implement benefit employees from all departments.

Doesn’t that sound natural? However, you’d be amazed how many firms acquire a specific technology, such as AI-based analytics solutions, and use it solely in one department, such as sales.

The concept is simple. Make as much use of technology benefits as possible.

Even if your new technology doesn’t seem helpful in a given area, try to conceive of other ways it may help you. At least, utilize the output to inform and connect with the rest of your firm. That way, everyone benefits — even if the production is a source of information.

5. Pay special attention to your workforce’s training.

Finally, you’ll need your team members to be well-versed in your new technology.

If you expect to install a new technology without providing extensive and continuing training to the individuals using it, you will be disappointed.

You’ll need extensive training to ensure that your staff understands making the most of the new digital solutions. Perhaps most significantly, the training should be continual rather than a one-time event.

That’s because you could discover new applications, or you might upgrade the solution with new features and capabilities that you wouldn’t have known about if you hadn’t informed other colleagues about them regularly.

If you don’t want to repeat the errors that others have made, do yourself a favor and think carefully about these tips.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from smallbusinesstechnology.com SOURCE

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Pros and cons of monitoring employees’ online activities

When people think of monitoring employees’ online activities, they typically imagine tyrannical bosses who want to make sure their subordinates are working during their shift. However, there is much more to monitoring their activities than that — doing so can actually help increase productivity and protect the business in the process. Find out the pros and cons of monitoring your employees’ online behavior by reading this blog.

The case for monitoring

Monitoring your employees’ activities on company devices can be beneficial, as it helps:

  • Protect your organization from data theft or harm since careless or disgruntled employees may leak or steal your data.
  • Ensure members of your staff comply with policies such as not downloading illegal programs or visiting websites with illegal or hostile content.
  • Provide evidence in case of a lawsuit should an employee participate in illegal activities using your business’s computers.

Arguments against employee monitoring

Of course, you should also be aware of the potential downsides to monitoring. These include:

  • Reduced productivity, as monitoring can put a damper on employee morale and the perceived distrust may make your employees less driven to perform well.
  • Privacy or discrimination issues that may stem from you being privy to personal details about your employees that you would’ve never known about had you not monitored them. For example, you may discover their political or religious views, sexual orientation, or medical problems. This subjects your business to potential privacy or discrimination issues if you or your management team acts negatively based on any of this information.

Monitoring guidelines to follow

If you decide to monitor your employees, here are a few tips you should follow.

1. Create written policies
When you monitor your employees, ask yourself, “Am I doing this for security purposes? Is it to ensure my employees aren’t wasting time on games or social media?” Monitoring policies that are too strict could create an atmosphere of distrust.

Set guidelines for acceptable use of email and social media, web browsing, instant messaging, and downloading software and apps. Also, make sure to include how monitoring will be carried out and how data will be used, secured, and destroyed.

2. Inform your employees
It’s important to inform your employees about the scope of your monitoring policies. If they find out you’re doing it secretly, you could face legal issues.

Explain to your employees why you’re monitoring them and the risks your business faces from misuse of digital assets. Reassure them you’re not doing it to spy on their personal lives, but to create a compliant and law-abiding workplace. Because their activities will now be less private, encourage your staff to use their smartphones for personal matters. Also, provide your employees with a copy of your written policy for them to read and sign.

If implemented correctly, employee monitoring makes your business more secure and productive. For more information about security and other IT support tools, get in touch with us today.

If you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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Beat The Heat! How The Dog Days Of Summer Can Wreak Havoc On Your Technology

The dog days of summer are here, and it’s hot out! Homeowners and business owners alike are bracing for their upcoming power bills as they run their air conditioners around the clock trying to keep cool. But for many business owners, it’s not just about keeping your team cool – it’s also about keeping your technology cool.

Every piece of technology you use is susceptible to heat damage. Sometimes they overheat due to internal issues. Maybe they’re processing a lot of data. Or maybe the internal cooling system isn’t enough. But they can also overheat due to external issues, such as high summer temperatures and inadequate air conditioning.

If heat overwhelms your systems, it has the potential to knock out your business. If computers go down or servers can’t run efficiently due to heat, it can be a costly disaster. The average computer is built to work in external temperatures of 50 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Laptops and tablets can handle 50 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

Every business should be aware of just how much damage heat can cause.

For example, heat can damage individual components in your devices. There are records of graphic cards bursting into flame as a result of overheating and heat-related electrical issues. These components are designed to withstand high heat, but they can only take so much.

Heat can also disrupt productivity.

It’s one thing if your business is warmer than usual and you have fans running. It can make work harder. But heat slows down devices. They cannot run as efficiently and, as a result, programs and apps will struggle to run. In some cases, they might not be able to run at all because they require a certain amount of data processing that is negatively impacted by too much heat.

If your systems are disrupted or damaged, you can also lose critical data.

Heat can damage hard drives and solid-state disk drives, leaving you without access to your data. Sometimes, with proper cooling, this data can be recovered, but if the heat and damage persist, the data may be unrecoverable if you don’t have a backup.

What’s the next step?

Every business needs to fully understand its cooling needs. It’s one thing to cool people working in an office. It’s something else entirely to cool a server room. Ask yourself questions like:

  • Does your business have adequate and efficient air conditioning?
  • Does your technology (such as a computer or server room) have adequate air conditioning?
  • Do individual devices have adequate cooling (have employees complained about weird app slowdowns)?
  • On top of this, it’s critical to ask questions about your data security needs:
  • Do you keep all of your data on-site?
  • Is your data protected from natural disaster or outside intrusion (have you invested in cyber security)?
  • Do you have a plan if your data is damaged or lost?
  • Do you routinely back up your data to the cloud or another off-site solution?

You never have to compromise your data or your business. There are countless solutions on the market today to help you protect your most valuable assets – and to help with your technology cooling needs. As you navigate the dog days of summer, remember you have options. A managed services provider (MSP) or an experienced IT services firm can help you determine if your tech is as cool as it should be. They can help you ensure the longevity of your technology and keep your data safe.

To learn more about how to safeguard your business, or if you are looking for an expert to help you find the best solutions for your business talk to GCInfotech about a free technology assessment.

Published with consideration from TechAdvisory.org SOURCE

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