In a digital day and age, an employer can’t simply leave their employees to their own devices. If you allow your employees to do their jobs unsupervised, there is a big chance that productivity is going to suffer as a result, and that the security of all sensitive business information will be compromised as well. After all, the online world is rife with scammers and those looking to access your data stores in order to sell valuable business information to your competitors, or simply leak it online to ruin your brand’s reputation and trust. Needless to say, you mustn’t allow this to happen.
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To prevent such a scenario, you need to monitor your employees and their activity in the online realm, so that you can pinpoint all potential security leaks, patch them up, and create comprehensive cybersecurity workshops for your team members. The key objective here is to create a more productive work environment and to minimize security risks across the board, so let’s take a look at some of the best practices you can employ.
Monitor email communication
First things first, it’s important to note that many scams and social engineering cons are done over email nowadays, as scammers prey on the inept to open their suspicious emails, download files without verifying them first, or give up sensitive business information thinking that they are sending it to the right person. Now, while you should organize email security workshops in your company and educate your employees on proper email communication, as well as how to recognize social engineering attacks, you still shouldn’t let them do their jobs unsupervised.
Your goal should be to have a comprehensive overview of all email communication in your company, for which you can employ contemporary software and tools. You can use email security tools that will immediately notify you when suspicious keywords appear in any inbound or outbound emails so that you can react quickly and prevent any information from getting leaked to the public.
Ensure stellar network security in the workplace
One of the most important changes you need to make is the way you monitor network activity in the workplace. You can’t hope to do this manually, as it would take time and financial resources that are better utilized elsewhere, That’s why it’s important to integrate a comprehensive web filtering solution that will automate the monitoring process, and give you a bird’s eye view of all network activity in your offices.
Introducing web filtering allows you to reduce bandwidth consumption over time, monitor your employees in the online realm, restrict access to non-work-related websites, inspect all incoming traffic thoroughly, reduce the risk of information leaks, and much more. This, in turn, will help keep your employees productive and focused on the job at hand, while at the same time elevating data security across the company.
Put trackers on social media platforms
Social media is one of the biggest time wasters in modern companies, which is why you need to control the use of social media in the workplace if you want to keep productivity high and elevate your cybersecurity. You can use web filtering to restrict access to social media, but you can also put social media trackers in place to find out how much time your employees are spending on non-work-related activities. Having some free time to browse through their feeds is a good thing, but you should always stay in the know about the flow of information, so be sure to monitor whom they are communicating with.
Be transparent and honest with your employees
If done right, employee monitoring will help you increase both security and productivity. However, most employees value their freedom, and if they feel too constrained, it can seriously affect employee morale. As employee morale drops, you risk getting the opposite results - instead of increased productivity, you’ll end up with unmotivated and unproductive employees.
That’s why it’s important to be transparent and honest about your monitoring practices. Ask your employees for feedback and try to alleviate any concerns they might have. Assure them you won’t overstep your boundaries and won’t exploit their personal information. You can achieve this by creating a formal employee monitoring policy and get everyone on board with it. This is important not only to ensure that your employees are comfortable with your policy but also to avoid any legal troubles that may occur.
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Wrapping up
Monitoring your employees should be one of your top priorities in this digital day and age, as you want to identify all potential security leaks and fix them before disaster strikes. Use these solutions to elevate data security, educate your employees, and raise productivity in the process.