How Video Surveillance Can Help You Keep an Eye on Your Employees

As a business owner, security threats are common. Regardless if you’re a small startup or an owner of a multinational conglomerate, there will always be security concerns that you should keep in mind.

For most people, when they think of security, they picture external threats. Hacking, physical break-ins, robberies, and other similar threats. What these have in common is that the criminal come from the outside.

But there’s another side to security: internal security. The statistics show that employee theft is one of the most common problems that plague businesses. As a business owner, there are plenty of things you worry about, and employee theft is just one of the many concerns you have.

95% of all businesses have experienced employee theft, with nearly 40% of employees having admitted to stealing from their employer.

That should already be a major cause for concern because when dragged on long enough, even small security breaches add up.

Having a video surveillance system is one of the easiest and most common ways to keep an eye on your employees without being too intrusive, and this article will go into detail on how exactly it can do that for you.

Video surveillance systems help you monitor how your employees are spending their time

Unless all your employees are employed on a project basis, you usually pay them per hour. This means that all the time they spend in the office is paid for by the company’s money, so you want to make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth.

Employees can have a tendency to slack off on the clock, and when this is unmonitored, you’re essentially paying them to do nothing.

By having a video surveillance system, it’s easier for you or your managers to ensure that all the employees are doing the work that is required for them.

You are, after all, paying them to work, not to goof off.

Video surveillance provides real-time monitoring

Hiring a supervisor to monitor what your employees are doing and how they’re doing it is what a lot of companies do. However, as with all information dissemination done manually, it can take a long time before you receive important information.

Technology allows you to have important information at your fingertips, and if there is any major dispute in the workplace that’s going on right under your nose, you’ll want to know about it as soon as possible.

Plus, by not having a human element in the equation, you reduce the chance of fraud because the information goes directly to you.

Video surveillance is a less costly security option

If your business involves plenty of manual labor in more secluded areas of the workplace, you might be considering hiring a dedicated security company to prevent employee misconduct.

But this can be a costly option. You have to pay salaries, provide benefits, and worry about additional things that come with employing a new person.

A video surveillance system does away with all those costs and lets you continue the monitoring even when you’re away from the office.

There’s one more financial perk that comes with installing a CCTV system. Insurance companies are more likely to give you discounts on your premiums because they see camera-protected businesses as having much lower payout risks.

So you save on both salaries and insurance. Neat!

A video surveillance system can help prevent or reduce employee harassment

When they’re in the office, employees don’t just have to worry about their boss keeping an eye on them. They also have to worry about what their co-workers might do.

In 2019, Monster.com conducted a poll for employees, and the results showed that 90% of employees got bullied on the job — 40% by co-workers.

As a business owner, morale is also something that you should be considering. Maintaining a healthy work environment free from toxicity is one of the most important things to remember when running a business, and it’s hard to do that when your employees are bullying each other.

Your business reputation will also take a hit if word gets out that your office is not a healthy place to work.

It’s easier for employees to harass each other when there’s no monitoring system in place. Without a video surveillance system, there’s essentially no evidence, and this allows the harassers and the bullies to get away scot-free.

A video surveillance system still allows your employees to keep their privacy

One of the first concerns you might hear when you’re about to set up a video surveillance system is the lack of privacy that your employees may have.

This is a perfectly valid concern. Employees don’t lose their rights when they step into the office, after all.

However, video surveillance systems are still flexible enough that you can keep an eye on your employees while respecting their privacy.

For instance, you can only choose to set it up in high-risk areas or in areas where access to money or other important items is available. For places where privacy can be expected, especially where no work is done, like break rooms, you can tell employees that there will be no surveillance there.

You can also be flexible when it comes to monitoring your employees’ productivity. You have to accept that workers can’t put in 110% 24/7, and that’s okay. Let your workers know that the video system is for both their protection and the company’s, and stick to your word.

As long as you’re transparent with what you’re monitoring and why you’re doing it, your employees will be more likely to accept the new system you’re putting in place.

On that note, make sure you’re updated on the latest rules and regulations surrounding workplace privacy, so you don’t run into any unexpected issues when you’re just trying to secure the workplace.

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