By ESET Southern Africa’s CEO, Carey van Vlaanderen

Employee monitoring, also called bossware or tattleware, is more popular than ever. Bossware is used to describe various tracking tools to monitor employee activity. It’s mostly used to track productivity and mitigate risk by monitoring email content, browser history, location, app usage and phone use through software, webcams, CCTV, GPS, fitness devices, and access control hardware.

Increased remote working driven by the pandemic has seen around 60% of companies with remote workers implement some form of bossware. Over half (53%) of those companies have found that workers are spending three or more hours per day on non-work activities.

Additional studies conducted support these findings. One study reported that up to 40% of employee internet usage was not work-related, while global analytics firm Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost the world a jaw-dropping $8.8 trillion in lost productivity annually.

Bossware can help employers spot productivity issues and is often also used to monitor security. Between 88-95% of data breaches are caused by employee errors such as recycling passwords, clicking on links in phishing emails, or failing to update security patches. Humans are indeed the biggest threat in the cybersecurity space and bossware can shine a light on areas where security training and awareness may be lacking.

While bossware could be one way to boost productivity and examine security issues, it requires some forethought, says Carey van Vlaanderen, CEO of ESET Southern Africa. “If implemented properly, bossware can help to protect your company against security and legal risks. But it should never be considered a replacement for robust security software and practices. Employers should nonetheless still respect the privacy of employees and be wary of potential privacy concerns that could demotivate employees and damage your relationship with them.”

What you need to consider when it comes to bossware

There are several benefits to bossware, including:

• Discovering workplace practices that hinder productivity,
• Identifying tasks that could be automated,
• Building a fairer workplace by ensuring equal duties,
• Mitigating security risks, and
• Monitoring employee stress levels.

But there are also some potential cons, such as:

• Limited insight into time spent problem solving and on non-digital tasks,
• Increased performance pressure on employees,
• Privacy and legal concerns,
• Low employee morale due to feeling untrusted or undervalued.

Legal and ethical implications

In South Africa, employee monitoring is mostly legal as long as the employer complies with certain aspects of the law. The two applicable laws are the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), which requires that an employee must be informed if they are being monitored, and the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (RICA), whereby a business may only intercept communications as it relates to the business and during the carrying on of business.

So, employers may not access or seek access to employees’ private email or social media accounts, for example, or monitor them after hours. Typically, employers also stipulate any monitoring terms in the employment contract so that it is agreed upon by both parties in writing before any work commences.

Just because something is legal, however, doesn’t mean it’s always ethical. Van Vlaanderen says employers should take care to ensure monitoring is proportionate and doesn’t unnecessarily intrude in the lives of employees. “Take time to outline a framework that stipulates the extent of the monitoring and the reasons for tracking those activities. Make sure employees are aware of any monitoring and how it may be used, and encourage them not to conduct personal affairs on work devices.”

Good policies, she says, will strike a balance between business demands and privacy concerns. “Most importantly, transparency and dialogue will be key in maintaining trust between employers and employees, as is ensuring that any collected data is safe and only available to authorised users. Remember that monitoring on its own is also not enough – whether your concerns are security or productivity. Regular training, clear guidelines, and a robust software framework should always be the priority.”