Carrots and sticks: how modern technology helps management to control the quality of work, and what it does

In May of this year, Natalia Kaspersky's InfoWatch Company proposed an innovative system of control over the storage of corporate secrets. IT company specialists have developed a “wiretapping” that allows you to intercept and analyze conversations of employees on working mobile phones. The initiative was followed by many questions, the main ones being why managers introduce workflow monitoring technologies and do new methods of performance assessment bring benefits to employees?

There are hundreds of companies in the “corporate control” market today. Doubts about the quality of work of subordinates employers have access to a variety of high-tech tools. In a crisis, the number of “internal threats” for companies has increased , and management’s desire to control corporate communications and the workflow has only increased.
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Consider the technology control workflow and find out whether they can benefit not only the employer, but also employees.

Labor discipline and performance of official duties: electronic systems of workflow organization

During a crisis, employers are especially attentive to the labor discipline of staff: reduced budgets are forcing to refuse the services of specialists who demonstrate low labor productivity.

“Certainly, the efficiency of employees began to play an even more important role: with the deterioration of the economy, the overwhelming majority of employers optimized their numbers, retaining the most qualified, efficient and loyal staff of the company who can work for two, combining several functions,” Staff Job.ru Inna Derzhavina. "Overboard" risk being those who break deadlines, regularly late for work or devotes working time to solving personal problems.

To improve the efficiency of teamwork and track the personal progress of employees in carrying out tasks will help the system of organization and control of the workflow. Among the most famous resources are Pyrus , CrocoTime , Wooboard , Stakhanovets , Megaplan . All of them help to optimize workloads and reflect the real “picture of the day” of office staff. Thus, an employer can check at any time whether a team member is at his workplace and whether he fulfills his direct duties.

“Now, if one of the employees does not go to work, the time tracking system records this,” says Alina Iskenderova, head of the B2B-Center human resources department, at CrocoTime. “CrocoTime statistics are updated every five minutes, and we can quickly contact the head of the department and find out the reason for the lack of a subordinate.” Along with the "attendance", resources help determine which employees are sitting in social networks or playing online games during working hours.

The introduction of electronic systems for organizing and controlling workflow will bring the greatest benefit to managers of large companies. According to analysts of the Stakhanovets service, in organizations with more than 50 employees, employees spend only 38% of their work time on solving business problems, since the personal contribution of each individual team member is difficult to determine.

Employees remain in the “plus” - careful control over the work process allows us to single out and reward the most efficient team members, which significantly increases the motivation to work. In addition, attention to the personal progress of each individual employee helps to review the pay system: employees who cope with a large volume of tasks will be able to receive more than their unorganized colleagues.

Quality control of work of field staff: FSM systems (field service management)

A number of difficulties are faced by company executives whose employees travel to customers to provide services (for example, for assembling furniture, repair and installation work, cleaning the premises). In an office setting, you can control the work of subordinates personally, but remotely monitoring several field teams is much more difficult. An effective solution to this problem can be the service management of visiting employees of Planado , who, as stated, is capable of increasing the productivity of mobile teams by more than 30%.

Planado not only facilitates communication between the manager and the field staff, but also helps the teams to adhere to common work standards, which greatly improves the quality of the services provided. In addition, the resource allows you to keep track of “invisible employees”: thanks to Planado, employees will not be able to do their work during the day under the pretext of “drawn out work”. The resource will also be helped by those managers who suspect their employees of working side-by-side during working hours - thanks to competent optimization of tasks, dishonest employees simply will not have time to fulfill personal orders.

"[...] The problem is relevant in different areas: companies that install windows, serve security and fire alarms, do cleaning, collect furniture, repair equipment at home, etc. For all organizations that use visiting employees, the same problems that can be solved by the introduction of new technologies - says the head of Planado Vadim Zakharikov. - The effectiveness of management tools proved by various studies . Judging by our first experience, this also works in Russia - on average, the introduction of an application allows you to increase the productivity of field staff by 31%. ”

Outside workers themselves benefit from using Planado. So, the dispatcher always sends the brigade to the client, which is the closest geographically, which allows you to significantly save time on the road. Monitoring the implementation of the tasks allows to avoid temporary overlays and stressful situations - until the current task is completed, the team will not receive new urgent calls.

The introduction of a system of control over the work of Planado field staff facilitates the process of newcomers' work adaptation: they can rely on a step-by-step work plan when completing orders. A photo of the result can be sent to the office to get an estimate of more experienced colleagues.

Secure storage of corporate information: DLP systems

According to a large-scale study by Zecurion, the maximum amount of damage incurred by a domestic company as a result of “draining” corporate secrets was $ 30 million. The average financial damage of large commercial organizations from a single leak is $ 820 thousand. Most often, insiders steal and sell personal data employees and shareholders (74.3%), customer and supplier lists (70.2%), and personal customer data (69.2%).

DLP (Data Leak Prevention) - systems will help protect corporate secrets. Most often, they perform several tasks at once - monitor and analyze business and personal correspondence from work computers, “intercept” messages on social networks and instant messengers, record data copying to the cloud or to external media, and check browser history. Special attention is paid to the transfer of internal information to paper. Incredibly, in 10% of cases of theft of production data, insiders simply print what is needed on an office printer.

“We cannot control all employees, we monitor first of all the risk groups - 85% of violations and leaks are due to leaving employees,” says Galina Ryabova, head of the Solar Security analytical department. According to the expert, the “list of suspicions” should also include employees whose expenses obviously do not coincide with the salary. For example, those who unexpectedly for colleagues acquires a car or real estate.

Control over behavior in social networks and ban on instant messengers

Particular attention is paid by the security services of large companies to the maintenance of employee pages in social networks. “An employee’s post can ruin a company's reputation if he writes about a wage delay, a broken deal, or upcoming cuts,” said Sidorin Lab’s founder Dmitry Sidorin, “now every employee on the social network who has indicated his company’s name is a trademark carrier.”

However, executives interested in preserving business reputation are interested not only in posts about the company and self from the workplace (they are often imprinted with working documentation), but also with lists of “friends” and subscriptions of subordinates. If there are friends of employees of competing firms and journalists from specialized publications, the employee may fall into the "risk group".

A lot of suspicion causes business correspondence in instant messengers. So, the head of the Megaplan company, Sergey Kozlov, preferred to close the access of employees to Telegram so that “the history of communication and discussion remained in the company”.

“Yes, at the end of last year, I was forced to close access to the Telegram from the office, which caused a wave of indignation. Like any CEO, I wanted to know what my people are doing and if there are any problems in their work. What could I offer? Only a worthy replacement. Therefore, I set a task for developers to make a chat in which it would be equally convenient to communicate. Now we discuss the tasks without leaving “Megaplan”, and the history of communication remains in the company ”- says Sergey Kozlov.

Gingerbread: how to avoid negative reaction of employees

Not all employees are willing to work under the constant supervision of management. The most negatively perceived desire to track calls from corporate SIM cards and correspondence from work computers. Domestic human rights activists consider such a violation of the constitutional rights of workers and call any “office wiretapping” illegal . However, even the introduction of field management - systems can cause dissatisfaction of subordinates.

Experts believe that the main mechanism to combat negative reaction is an open and honest dialogue with the team. “It is desirable, of course, to conduct a survey among employees and allow them to speak in order to understand exactly what they are not satisfied with,” says Sergey Ozhegov, commercial director of SearchInform.

Workers should know which control mechanisms will be implemented and how this will affect the assessment of their activities. Most executives believe that company employees should be aware of what their work is being monitored. So they will not be able to compromise themselves by chance and will have time to restructure their work in accordance with the new requirements.

“As a rule, employees do not like innovations, so it makes sense to financially interest them.” - sure creators of the service Planado. One of the possible ways of motivation is certification of teams or offices that meet high standards of work and maintain them for a long time. Employees- "champions" who show the highest results in working with the new assessment system, can be awarded a salary increase or a bonus. It is important to explain to subordinates that the introduction of new workflow control systems is beneficial for them, no less than for management. If an employee copes with his tasks in time, according to the results of checks he will receive a promotion.

In order for the introduction of new mechanisms to control the workflow to be “painless” for the team, it is necessary:

1. Inform employees in advance about the introduction of new methodologies for evaluating their activities. Tell what exactly the electronic system will analyze (attendance, number of working hours, use of a working computer and office equipment for personal needs, timeliness of work tasks, etc.). Ideally - to hold a general meeting devoted only to this issue.
2. Explain that innovation will benefit not only the management, but also the team (employees who are accustomed to hiding behind the backs of their colleagues will no longer “slow down” the work of the team, the most hardworking and responsible awaits reward).
3. Be prepared to repeatedly answer questions about innovation subordinates.
4. To develop incentive programs for employees who demonstrate the highest labor productivity in the new conditions (bonuses and wage increases).
5. Increase employee motivation by arranging corporate competitions between departments and employees in the same positions. Reward those who demonstrate the best results.