How to Monitor Your Outsourcing Employees: Define Your Expectations Clearly

There are varieties of way to monitor your an outsourcing company or employees, so that you can discipline low performance and reward high performance without delay. Every effective manager and business owner should target effective monitoring of employees, to help promote the success of the business.

Start by Defining Expectations

You can only monitor what you have defined earlier. So, the first step towards monitoring remote or regular employees is to define expectations in a clear manner by adopting the following steps;

Step #1: Explain Your Policies in a Written Form

Explain the policies of your business or company in clear terms by providing them in print form for the outsourcing contractors or in-house employees. You can call it an Employee Handbook or Employee Guide. The guide should clearly spell out your policies and should be easily accessible by your employees. The guide should also outline the possible disciplinary actions for defaulting on the policies.

Step #2: Be as Clear as Possible

Being as clear and as specific as possible with your policies cannot be overemphasized. In essence, your policies on issues such as timekeeping, personal phone calls, billable hours and using internet (personal use) while at work should be clear and specific.

Step #3: Don’t be Bias when applying Disciplinary Guidelines

Don’t fail to apply the disciplinary measures outlined for any infraction. Also, it is important that you apply such measures equally, not lowering your gourd for some employees and being stricter on other employees. If you do not go into action immediately with the set policies, the employees themselves won’t take the policies serious.

Tip #4: Let the Employees Know How You’re Monitoring Them

Particularly, if there’s a new development on how you’re monitoring your employees, let them know how and why. You can call for a meeting or send mass email to this effect, to let them know the state of things. In fact, some states such as Delaware and Connecticut legally mandate employers to let employees know about any internet monitoring.

Tip #5: Your Policies should Stay within Reason

While it is good to set policies on employees monitoring, you should endeavor to keep things within reason. Being nosy can demoralize employees and create nervousness in the workplace. Instead, you should focus more on results and not excessively on process. In essence, don’t use an overbearing policy to demoralize a high-performing employee.

Finally, you should allow some freedom, especially for managers and supervisors to make some decisions. You should learn to trust their judgment, but you have every right to question bad or inappropriate decisions.

Indeed, monitoring your outsourcing partners or in-house employees reasonably will help produce the desired results.

Daven Michaels is a New York Times Best Selling Author and CEO of premiere global outsourcing company, 123Employee. The company employs hundreds of young bright individuals on three continents. His International event, Beyond Marketing Live! Inspires entrepreneurs build & grow their business with revolutionary new theories and systems allowing them to design the business and personal lifestyle of their dreams.