Ever wonder why employee engagement is so difficult to achieve and to maintain? One of the reasons, I was just vividly reminded, is that managers sure do tend to give mixed messages. Here's an example that just came across my desk that may well be the king of all incongruities.
One of several email newsletters that I subscribe to is called Managing HR Today. It offers a lot of timely, succinct essays, opinion pieces, and news related to HR. Check it out at www.managinghrtoday.com
The current issue contained two articles that were so incongruous with each other that I feel compelled to comment on them.
One of them is a decent article about how to build ethics into a company's culture "one decency at a time." Nothing earth shattering in it, but an effective reminder to treat people with respect, to get to know them as individuals, and to act kindly.
In the same issue, though, is a second article about the mother of all "big brother" management techniques. The article hawks a product known as the Spector 360. That is "spector" as in Inspector, or more likely, as in "spectre." This handy snooping device records employees' emails, chats and instant messages, web sites visited, keystrokes typed, files transferred and printed, and network activity. It includes a screen scrape function "so that there is a visual record of what the employee is doing on the computer, much like a surveillance tape." This article, which I will suppose was taken from a press release, goes on to brag that "The level of detail is so precise that an employer can see what an employee does each and every second."
Wow! Where do you think that falls on the decency scale? How would you like to be monitored every second of your workday? Would you be engaged?
How could any manager possibly embrace such a totalitarian workplace? How could any employee stand to work there? I'll vote for decency over this sort of ultra-control any day, thank you very much.
Cliff
