What Does Business Law State about Monitoring Employees?

29 January 2016

Occasionally, we come across many individuals that are conflicted about the role monitoring applications have to play in the day to day office routines and activities. The most common question asked deals with the boundaries and limits that are “bendable” with the installment of monitoring applications. And the answer is simple; monitoring applications and software programs are legal and frequently advised to be installed in any firm or company. Here is why.

Contents

1 Legal but…
2 Informing Employees Beforehand
3 Only Limited to Company Owned Gadgets
4 Using Reliable Technological Sources
5 Balancing is key
6 Never Resort to Open Slander

Legal but…

Monitoring or spy applications are legal in any court of law across the world. However, there are some regulations that need to be upheld by the employers’ side before installing monitoring software around the company premises. These guidelines include:

Informing Employees Beforehand

When it comes to employee monitoring applications, every court of law strictly states that the employees should be clearly notified about being monitored. The best way to accomplish this is via policies and guidelines that should be always kept on display within office premises. These guidelines should clearly explain every element of the employee monitoring intervention put forth by the company. Moreover, even when the firm decides to take on new employees, they should adjust a clause in the contract which makes it mandatory for every person being hired to sign a nondisclosure stating that they are alright with being monitored on company-related matters.

Only Limited to Company Owned Gadgets

Monitoring software programs tend to give employers an unwarranted power over the employees. And to protect the employee’s interests, legal guidelines regarding monitoring apps clearly state that the spying should be only limited to company-owned gadgets. This means that every information coming in and going out through the company-owned gadgets are company property. The guidelines placed around the office premises should also clearly pinpoint this clause so that it poses as a reminder at all times. Furthermore, it is also recommended that the employers get their employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement that clearly states that all information on the company owned gadgets is company property. This means it can be used by the company in court if need be as well.

Using Reliable Technological Sources

When another’s a source of income and image in the business world is on the line, it is always best to be careful and use reliable technological sources and software programs rather than the usual cheap ones. The expensive yet well-reputed ones can be easily programmed and altered according to the specific needs of the company, hence always used for easy access and usage.

Balancing is key

Putting so many restrictions and highlighting many stingy clauses regarding monitoring applications like TheOneSpy mobile spy software around the office can definitely scare an employee and hence hinder their overall productivity. This is primarily due to the lack of rapport that should be there between the employee and employer to help increase profits as employee motivation grows. Therefore, it is always recommended by experts to use a system that is similar to a token economy where the employees are given some leeway and flexibility in some areas while at the same time restricted in some too. For example, allowing them access to specific social media sites during a few designated hours of the day.

Never Resort to Open Slander

It is never healthy to insult or accuse an employee openly among their peers. And with monitoring applications installed, there will be many times that the system may show you red flags which in reality are nothing but some mishap with the coding of the monitoring application itself. Therefore, rather than losing your cool and openly slandering a perfectly loyal employee, it is always best to take them aside or discreetly conduct a further investigation either with their knowledge of it or without it. This is because an employee can otherwise sue you for slandering their image followed by wrongful termination which would prove bad for your company’s image.

The law about monitoring applications is specifically made to protect both the employees as well as the employers in case of any mishap or misunderstanding between the two parties. While it may look like the employers have all the power with monitoring applications installed, but in reality, analysis has shown that monitoring applications have been found to be more useful to employees. For example, if an employee faces discrimination at the hands of another employee or employer, they can use the backup made by monitoring applications to highlight the wrongful act in court.

Ariana Smith

I enjoy writing and I write quality guest posts on topics of my interest and passion. I have been doing this since my college days. My special interests are in health, fitness, food and following the latest trends in these areas. I am an editor at Content Rally.

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5 Steps To Launching Your Own Small Business

Commencing a business of your own is a dream for many in such a high-paced environment where competition is always on the rise. However, it is not as overwhelming as it sounds. With the right set of knowledge and planning, one can easily learn how to start your own small business. While you get started on the journey, there are certain things that you need to keep in mind. This article will walk you through the 5 important steps that help you build a brand right from scratch. So, make sure you scroll till the end and discover the unknown business tips. 5 Steps To Follow When Starting A Small Business Before actually starting to build a business, you have to get a detailed analysis of the market, your competitors, and the things that have been trending in this particular niche. If you conduct a thorough study on this, there’s absolutely nothing that can stop you from becoming an entrepreneur. 1. Research All of Your Variables This might seem obvious, but it's really not. Most people understand they need to research how to deliver the services or goods they intend to provide and how to advertise to the right customer base. It goes further, though. The kind of industry you would do best in and the business model that best suits your area and target marketplace are also variables to consider. You might know what you can do, generally, from your skill set, but you need to get specific about what your area needs and where it is underserved if you want to count on bringing in customers quickly. Look at the cost of setting up a company, leasing compared to buying operational space, costs for local advertising, and recommendations for staffing while you are at it. The more knowledge you have going in, the better your chances of success once you get things going. Running a company is all about building consistent processes for regular tasks, and you need research to understand which processes will be productive, too. 2. Assess Your Financial Reach Within any industry, there are players that work as individual professionals or owner-operators, and there are large corporations providing service at volume. Frequently, the latter are the biggest customers for the former. The scope of your company at startup is defined by the resources you can bring to bear. Understanding how much financing you can get with your available assets and capital will help you understand how to set up your company for day-one operation by putting realistic limits on things like equipment and the number of employees you can start with. You can make the most of this reach by getting the best small business loan rates you are qualified for, and that takes even more research to discover. 3. Choose a Business Model Once you understand what you can do with your skills, what size company you can afford to start, and where the demand is, the next step is to pick a model of operation. The model is different from the business. For example, you might want to start a restaurant. What kind? Fine dining, carryout, and mobile food service, all have different operations with different processes needed to be successful. Matching your model to your ability to reach customers and meet their needs is just as important as finding raw demand for a product or service. With a variety of options available, it might be a little confusing for you. So sit back, relax, and think about what kind of business will yield you the desired result. 4. Write a Killer Business Plan Writing your business plan is pretty much the last step in the preparation phase before you actually start launching the company. It serves as a roadmap to your goals as well as an important document for lenders to consider when you apply for financing. A well-written plan should spell out enough about your operation to let your key personnel make autonomous decisions in their spheres of influence. That means your managers should not need to consult you when setting up their departments. In solo operations, it means that you should not need to do extra research outside of consulting your plan unless something unforeseen happens. Your plan should describe the major operations, layout marketing tactics to reach the initial audience with demand and to keep growing from there, identify the equipment you'll need, and otherwise cover everything that goes into actually running the company. That makes it a lot easier to put the pieces together. 5. Put It All Into Motion The first step after finishing your plan is usually financing because that gives you the financial reach to start operating. There are just a few cases where that is not the case. Solo operations can sometimes bootstrap basic services to get a little income going by working out of the house or a client's facilities. Otherwise, it's a matter of lining up the money, then buying the equipment and hiring any staff you need. Last comes marketing and launch. It is always a better idea to keep a dedicated portion of your income aside to fund your business, irrespective of its size. Businesses are full of ups and downs, and once you have set foot, there is no backing off. As a result, you have saved a significant amount of your finances to back up your persistent losses. Upon completion of these steps, you might want to allocate a part of your economic resource to bring the necessary equipment for your business. This will streamline your operations and will ensure that your business operates seamlessly. Key Takeaways Starting your own business takes not only a great deal of money but also time and effort. However, it can also be extremely rewarding when done in the right way. Make sure to follow the above steps that will guide you throughout your business-setup process. For detailed insight, you can always consult a licensed professional for business advice. Get started today! Read Also: Essential Investments Small Business Owners Should Make For Long-Term Success Resolutions To Help The Small Business Owners To Avoid Being Bankrupt How You Can Invest In Your Small Business

Tips for Small Businesses To Raise Funds for Their Projects

Are you planning to start your own business? If your answer is yes, then what is stopping you from going ahead with your plan? Well, most of the people who want to run their own business, fail to take even the first step towards it just because they do not have sufficient funds. Money remains the first and most important thing that you need to start your business. Though people say that if you have a strong idea, you can surely take your business to the next level, however that can’t happen without taking the first step. Whether you talk about hiring an office on rent or paying salaries to your employees, you need funds for all that. If you believe that you have a strong idea, but no money to implement it in the right way, then you can take the support of crowdfunding platforms to fulfill your monetary requirement. Crowdfunding platforms are extremely popular among startups and small business because they help them in raising funds for their projects in the form of small donations from unknown people. If you are in a dire need of some money for your project, then you can find a good crowdfunding website to achieve your goal. And here are some important tips on how to raise maximum money with the help of a crowdfunding platform. Your Idea Should Be Your USP If you want unknown people to support your project, then the idea behind it has to be strong which can easily convince people. If you think that you really have a great idea, then try to present it in front of the target audience in the best way possible. Choose An Ideal Platform There are several crowdfunding websites which help people in achieving their fundraising goal, and you have to find a good one for launching your project. When it comes to finding a perfect crowdfunding platform for your project you have to research and try to make a list of at least ten good crowdfunding website and then read effectively about them. Read all the information that is given on the websites so that you can figure out whether they are a good fit for your project or not. Make sure that you research effectively about all the ten websites so that you can get comprehensive information. Once you are done with your research then try to find out the best five among them. This will help in identifying the best of the best websites. As now you are left with only 5 crowdfunding websites, make sure that you read their reviews to clear your doubts further. Reviews are the most important ways of identifying the authenticity and reachability of websites in question. Set A Goal That Can Be Achieved Once you are done with picking a perfect crowdfunding website to raise funds for your project, your next step should be setting a realistic goal. When it comes to launching a fundraising campaign, you try to be practical about setting your goal. If you have launched a fundraising campaign earlier as well, then you must be aware of the fact that the money that is donated initially for your project actually comes from the people in your network. But if you have not done anything like this earlier, then make sure that you set a goal based on the potential of your own network, because that’s what helps in taking your fundraising goals to a next level. Create An Attractive Video For Your Campaign If you want more people to associate with your project then it’s better to create an effective video for it. Videos are very powerful as they easily catch the attention of the people. For example, if you want to send your message to the masses, you can do that easily with the help of a stunning video. You should also use powerful images for drawing the attention of the audience. Promote Your Campaign It’s very important for you to promote your campaign so that more people can donate to your cause. You can promote your campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, etc., as everyone uses them nowadays. Meet As Many People As You Can Before you launch your fundraising campaign, make sure that you meet the people in your group personally so that you can talk to them about your project. In fact, you can ask the people in your group to promote your campaign. In addition to that, once you launch your campaign, make sure that you make a constant effort to thank the people who have donated for your project.

Have You Been Laid Off Because Of Coronavirus? Here Are 5 Income Earning Opportunities For You

Have you been recently fired from your job because of the Coronavirus problem? Are you looking to sustain yourself by earning during the lockdown period? Do you know of certain high-paying and profitable opportunities, which you can take up? With global economic losses crossing the $2 Trillion mark, Coronavirus is jeopardizing millions of livelihoods. According to financial experts, we are going to witness a period of global financial recession. In these testing times, we have two options in front of us- We can either mope or blame our destiny for all the bad that is happening. Or, We can put ourselves together, invoke our entrepreneurial spirit and work our way out of the problem. You might have heard the proverb, ‘when God closes a door, he opens a new window.’ In this article, we are going to open five windows for you. 5 ways to earn income during the Coronavirus lockdown: The List 1. Start a News Blog on Coronavirus or COVID 19- You do not need a flair for creative writing if you are looking to start a news blog. All you need to do is create a simple WordPress website for your news blog and start a social media page. Publish five to ten 500 word articles every day and see the traffic flowing. People are interested in knowing about everything related to the Coronavirus. This is a good time to look up government sources, Reuters and different news publications and collate them all in one place. Once you get decent site metrics and traffic, you can earn income through Ad displays, guest posting, and other ways. 2. Take up Cryptocurrency trading in a major way- Did you know that you could easily earn hundreds of dollars every week by just trading cryptocurrencies? With the rise of cryptocurrency trading platforms, you can easily become a trader. All you need to do is open account and start trading. The technologically advanced software of the platform is going to guide you when it comes to making the best trades. By investing a small sum of money, going for low-risk trades initially, you can become a seasoned and experienced cryptocurrency trader in no time. 3. Get paid by signing up for Surveys and Options Sites- There are many survey sites, businesses and companies, which pay up to $10 USD per survey. This is a great sum of money when you consider that you can easily do a minimum of five surveys per day. This is not only going to help you earn, but also explore new opportunities. Big businesses work with market research firms to find out about the opinions of consumers. By signing up to such platforms, becoming part of interviews and focus group discussions, you can earn close to $3000 USD per month. 4. Food or Grocery delivery agent in your neighborhood- Almost all nations around the world have exempted online companies from the lockdown. This means that these companies are hiring aggressively as more and more people are ordering things while sitting at home. If you have a bike, you can easily sign up with one of the major players in your neighborhood and start delivering to people. This is not only very profitable now, but also very humane. You are going to help someone get their medicines and other essentials on time. 5. Start your own Freelance Gig- If you are good at writing, start bidding for content writing jobs on freelance websites. If you are good at cooking, you can start your own food delivery gig. No matter what your passion, you can always make it into a fully income-generating opportunity. As more and more companies are looking to cut costs by firing people, they are not going to stop their operations altogether. Approach them as a freelancer and offer your services for an attractive fee. You will be surprised to see the results of your outreach. Conclusion In this article, we have listed five great income-earning opportunities for people who have been laid off because of the Coronavirus. All these opportunities do require time and effort. However, if you are able to do them right, you will see cash flowing into your account. Can you think of some similar opportunities to earn cash? Let us know in the comments section below. Read also: The Top Benefits of Using an Insurance Broker Is an online degree in business management worth it?