I had a consulting firm that was doing ok from 2021-2022, but ended it do to personal circumstances. At the peak of it I had 10 small business clients. About half of them were absolutely paranoid about their employees slacking off. They would just constantly be worried their employees weren’t working and would try to figure out ways to monitor them.
When I stopped my business, I only kept an ongoing relationship with my biggest client. He is the worse for this. He puts cameras all over his warehouse, production facility and office. There are three office employees, and everyone of them has a camera pointed at their computer screen in the front corner of their office. He also makes it very clear to them that he has “bossware” which monitors every activity on their screen and constantly takes screenshots.
I don’t get this at all. I worked as a financial professional for 10 years prior to starting my consulting company. I only had one company that had this type of software and it was really offputting. I didn’t like it all. I do my thing, it makes me really uncomfortable knowing everything I’m doing on the company computer is strictly monitored in detail.
While I had my consulting firm, I had two employees. I had a private office in a co-working space, and whenever they worked a shift, I would let them in to the office and just let them do their thing. I would often not even be present. I knew I could evaluate them based on the results they provide. If I pay them for a 4 hour shift and they get done what I want to get done, I don’t give a shit if they spent half the shift browsing their phone or even social media on my laptop.
Since I’m getting back in to it, I’ve had a meeting with a client that owns some properties and he is the exact same way. He insists on installing this bossware on his employee’s computers. He pays $700 a year for it. He is a very small property manager that only does about $1mm a year in revenue. I told him it was a waste of money, but he said he needs it to make sure his employees aren’t slacking.
I guess I just don’t get this attitude and find it counterproductive. You either have people you can trust, thus you don’t need to monitor them, or you have people you don’t and they should be fired. I’m interested in hearing other entrepreneur’s perspectives.
An owner of a private company is always gonna care more than a corporation doesn’t mean it has to be crazy like you described but where as a manager may buy everyone 200 dollar office chairs because its not their money an owner mayne will shop for a decent but economical chair and this extends to all areas of the business.
I’ve also worked at several companies where employees were ordering expensive ink cartridges and such and reselling them on eBay.
While surveillance doesn’t need to be intrusive and crazy there is a reason for it
Personally i agree with you, you hire talented people to do a job, when they accomplish it, no worries. you evaluate based on quality and speed of output, not adherence to process (obviously process is important e.g. safety), the results that matter are the outputs, not the time.
this being said, i think it also depends, like some work needs to be monitored, for quality, and related - especially if its low skill menial work, where precision is still important. and example of this would be like AI image tagging which first has to be cleaned manually before its fed into the AI model for processing.
Have you ever heard of the concept “the world is your mirror”. It’s where everything in life reflects back your inner beliefs, doubts, anxieties etc.
The business owners you describe have trust issues. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in business or other areas of their life, their ‘poo coloured glasses’ will show them the worst in people.
Their attitude will attract the worst behaviour in people, which will then confirm their view of life. And “Ha-ha! They are right!” And people who can be trusted will leave those companies because they won’t put up with that shite.
Frankly people want to right, more than challenging their own distorted views of people and the world
Can’t you consult them in doing it differently?
I’d guess these types of managers/bosses just don’t get the bigger picture. They think this is what bosses are supposed to do and if workers aren’t actively working, they take it personally. And/or they get greedy. They want to maximize labor to get more profit.
I don’t think this works because some use downtime (on their phone, breakroom, etc.) as a reward for getting their work done. If given more work, they’re no longer motivated work quickly or efficiently.
The reason you feel this way is because you’ve never had to reach into your own pocket to cover a payroll.
Ewww does he watch his employees take a shit too?