How Florida Businesses Benefit from Employee Monitoring Software

Employee monitoring is a tool that can significantly benefit almost any industry, including HoReCa, retail, and tourism. Here are the top 5 advantages you can get by using tracking tools.

Florida's vibrant economy attracts its fair share of challenges, including the risk of internal theft and security breaches. Employee monitoring can be an extra layer of security for your company, revealing and preventing such incidents.

For example, monitoring POS systems and employee access to accounting and other crucial systems can deter theft, reveal discrepancies, and provide evidence in case of incidents.

Retail businesses are particularly vulnerable to shrinkage. Monitoring employee interactions at checkout, tracking inventory movements, and reviewing surveillance footage alongside transaction data reduce losses from theft and errors significantly.

HoReCa, retail, and tourism are highly experience-driven industries. So, exceptional customer service is a must for any business that wants to win the competition for clients. With employee monitoring, organizations can track employee-customer interactions and reveal weak points and areas for improvement.

For example, managers can monitor phone calls for reservations, online chats with clients, and even in-person communications (where legally permissible and with proper notification) to understand how employees follow communication policies and handle difficult situations. These recordings can reveal areas where staff excel and where training might be needed to improve communication skills, product knowledge, and overall customer satisfaction.

Undoubtedly, employee productivity and efficiency are key to any organization's success.

Tracking staff schedules and attendance helps to optimize labor costs, avoid overwork, and comply with labor laws and regulations during the peak seasons.

In retail, tracking how employees work on the sales floor, in stock rooms, or fulfill online orders can reveal inefficiencies and opportunities to optimize processes.

The tourism industry involves complex logistics, from bookings to managing facilities and assisting guests. Monitoring task completion, response times to guest requests, and adherence to schedules will ensure a smooth experience for visitors and improve operational efficiency.

Any business operates within a legal framework. Ensuring compliance with labor, privacy, and other regulations unique to your industry is a task that employee monitoring can help you solve. For example, specialized HRIS systems can help track employee certifications, conduct background checks, and store sensitive employee data safely.

Harassment and discrimination in the workplace are not only a violation of company policies and legal regulations but also a potential killer of the company's reputation both in the employees' and clients' eyes. Monitoring staff work communications (where legally permittable) will help prevent such cases.

Employee monitoring data is a source of valuable information about the team's current performance and skills gaps.

Tracking how employees manage customer requests, how accurately they handle orders and work-related documents, and evaluating how they perform their daily work is much easier with specifically designed apps. Employee monitoring software can automatically calculate individual performance scores and make it easy to detect ineffective work patterns for those employees who work mainly on computers.

Employees working with clients can be quickly evaluated based on recordings of their interactions with customers, feedback, and customer satisfaction.

Based on skill gaps and weak spots revealed during the evaluation, companies can plan targeted training programs.

Before implementing any tracking in the workplace, organizations should check applicable state and local laws regulating employee personal information and monitoring.

In Florida, employee monitoring is regulated by the following laws and regulations:

• Federal:

  • Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)

  • Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

  • National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

• State:

  • Florida Security of Communications Act (FSCA)

  • Florida Information Protection Act (FIPA)

  • Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

  • Social Media Privacy Law

These regulations create the legal boundaries for workplace surveillance. Companies wishing to implement monitoring, can:

These are perhaps the most popular methods for ensuring productivity and tracking client-employee interactions. Under Florida law, monitoring of email and internet activity is permissible if the employer properly notifies the staff and receives their consent for monitoring.

Employers can track business phone calls with proper notification of employees. Personal communications cannot be monitored.

Video surveillance for security purposes is generally not prohibited except for areas where employees reasonably expect privacy, such as restrooms.

FSCA prohibits recording conversations without the consent of all parties. So, if the employer wants to use audio surveillance, they must inform the affected employees and obtain their permission.

Company-owned vehicles or devices can be monitored. However, employers cannot monitor an employee's personal vehicle or mobile device without explicit permission.

Tracking screens and keystrokes is a part of computer activity monitoring. Although legally permissible, they must be implemented with caution. Their excessive use can be viewed as intrusive and raise privacy concerns.

This is only a general overview of Florida's legal framework. We recommend consulting your legal advisor before implementing monitoring.

Implementing employee monitoring is a delicate and complex process consisting of several steps.

What are you aiming to achieve with monitoring? Is it improving customer service? Or reducing shrinkage in the stores? Your goals will dictate your choice of the monitoring solution and the features you will use. Avoid the temptation to monitor everything because you can. Instead, it is better to focus on specific areas where you would like to see improvement.

There is no universal monitoring tool for everything. Depending on the goals you pursue and the employee's position, you can choose various options. For example, for monitoring field staff like tour guides, you can consider GPS tracking to ensure attendance and adherence to schedules and routes.

Features like website and application usage tracking can help understand if retail employees use time and resources effectively for tasks like inventory management or online sales.

Software that can monitor chats and phone calls will be perfect for employees whose jobs include daily interactions with clients.

This policy should include the following information:

• what data is collected and for what purposes;

• how long it is stored;

• who has access to it;

• employee rights regarding their data.

This policy should be available to all employees. Emphasize that the goal of monitoring is to improve overall efficiency and provide them with the support they need to succeed.

Once you know your goals, identify the specific KPIs indicating progress. What metrics will tell you if your productivity is improving?

For example, these metrics can be sales per employee, average transaction value, number of customer complaints, etc. Configure your monitoring software to track these KPIs specifically and generate reports.

Most employee monitoring tools have alerting functionality. The software sends a notification if a specific action or deviation from expected behavior occurs. Use this feature wisely. Focus on setting up alerts for critical events that require immediate attention, such as policy violations, security breaches, or significant drops in productivity during peak hours. This allows you to address issues promptly without getting bogged down in unnecessary data.

Monitoring should be used as a tool for improvement, not to catch employees doing something wrong. Share insights with your team members, highlighting areas where they excel and identifying opportunities for improvement. Frame these conversations as opportunities for growth and skill development.

As we can see, employee monitoring offers significant benefits for businesses in Florida. However, unlocking these advantages requires a thoughtful and strategic approach. Adherence to Florida's legal framework, careful configuration, focus on key performance metrics, and transparent communication will drive productivity and a positive work environment.