Spying on your workers sucks

In this months Business 2.0 Magazine (on page 68, sorry couldn't find a link on their site) there is an interesting article about trusting your employees. It cites the following statistics from a 2005 American Management Association Survey:

• 76% of employers monitor workers website connections
• 55% retain and review email messages
• 51% track the amount of time spent on the phone as well as the numbers you call

In short, they monitor everything you do. When I worked for a company that did these things, here's what I did:

• Used a proxy to screw with their web monitoring software (although I did get in trouble one time for going to dicks.com...I was looking for the sporting goods store...I was wrong)
• Used my cell phone for calls (also could be used for internet browsing)
• Brought in Sports Illustrated to read when I was bored instead of browsing the web
• Spoke face-to-face with people about everything, to avoid a paper trail (many times this meant me taking really long walks for things that could have been done by phone or email)
  
• Socialized with people at the water cooler for hours because I was blocked from my fantasy football team - it would have taken me five minutes to set my lineup and get back to work...but since you deprived me of that like I'm a five year old I'm going to waste more of your time just to prove a point...like a five year old
  

Did any of that make me a better worker? Um, no. It made me want to circumvent the system because, while well intentioned, was absolutely stupid and counterproductive. If you don't trust me to manage my time, why should I bend over backwards for you? In fact, why should I trust you if you don't trust me?

Here's an idea - actually trust your employees. Make them responsible for important things. Trust me, people want to be valued and want to take pride in their work. Let them manage their time and be responsible for the repercussions. If they suck and screw up, they will let the team down and possibly lose their job.