The boss of an Australian recruitment company is allowing his staff to work from home provided they can keep their productivity up at all times.

Greg Weiss, founder and director of Soulidify, is taking a different approach to managing his staff. Even before the pandemic, Weiss had been letting his employees do hybrid work. He believes that the setup benefits both the business and workers.

“None of my team wants to work in the office at all,” Weiss said, as reported by AFR.

“I go into the office two or three days a week, for my own sanity, but I’m a firm believer in remote work, as long as there’s accountability. Productivity can be ensured with good systems and confidence in your staff.”

To ensure his WFH employees stay productive, Weiss requires them to submit daily reports to prove they are working. He also schedules regular meetings that every member needs to attend. If he sees any drop in his workers’ performance, he has them install screen monitoring tools so that he can closely monitor their work.

Weiss admits that micromanaging his staff can lead to high employee turnover. However, he believes that the rewards outweigh the risks. Workers who can perform from home tend to be happier, while business leaders like him benefit from lower overheads at work.

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Keeping an eye on work-from-home employees

Weiss is far from being the only one who keeps tabs on staff working from home. Other companies have adopted various tools to monitor the performance of their team.

Insurance professional Suzie Cheikho was fired from her job at Insurance Australia Group because of poor performance, including absenteeism, failure to meet deadlines, and failure to attend meetings. She also supposedly failed to log documentation with the regulator, which resulted in the company being fined.

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When IAG reviewed Cheikho’s cyber activity, including her keystroke activity, the company found there were “significant periods where no or minimal keyboard activity was evident”.

It is not uncommon for companies like IAG to monitor their workers’ performance to keep their productivity up. However, there is still so much more to be understood about staff surveillance, according to UNSW Business School Professor Peter Leonard.

“It’s fair to say we only have an idea of the tip of the iceberg of how much employee surveillance is happening out there,” Leonard said.

Companies often use various software and hardware to keep an eye on where their workers are and what they are looking at on their computers. These tools will let them know whether their employees use social media even when they are supposed to be working. Managers can even take screenshots or videos of their workers’ computers as proof.

Some businesses use more invasive monitoring techniques, according to Leonard. These include accessing the webcam of their workers’ computers or even listening to audio picked up by the device.

“It just seems remarkable [that] something that affects virtually every employee in Australia is not more clearly and consistently regulated across Australia,” Leonard said.

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Legality of staff surveillance

In Australia, the Workplace Surveillance Act NSW requires employers to give a 14-day notice period to their employees if they plan to conduct staff surveillance. However, employers do not need to secure workers’ consent for the practice. They just have to give a notice that they will be monitoring the team.

Overall, the Australian Capital Territory is the only part of the country where companies need to give notice of surveillance to their employees. Each state has a different take on the legality of monitoring remote workers.

COVID forced many businesses to switch to a remote work setup to stay productive even when their staff could not come in for work. Now that the pandemic is over, companies have started requiring workers to return to the office lest they get fired.