---
title: "How to tell your team you are starting employee monitoring"
description: "Announce employee monitoring badly and the software stops mattering: what your team hears is that you stopped trusting them."
canonical: "https://www.getworkfolio.com/blog/how-to-tell-your-team-you-are-starting-employee-monitoring"
---

# How to tell your team you are starting employee monitoring

![](/images/workfolio-icon.svg)

Workfolio team

September 11, 2026

![A team sitting together around a long table, talking](/_astro/how-to-tell-your-team-you-are-starting-employee-monitoring.Bx2NfxHy_14xtjl.webp)

## The conversation decides what the data means

Announce employee monitoring badly and the software stops mattering: what your team hears is that you stopped trusting them. The managers who ask how to do this right are usually reacting to a real problem — work that is hard to see, hours that are hard to verify — and they worry about exactly the reaction any honest person predicts: the word “surveillance,” quiet resentment, people polishing their activity numbers instead of doing the work. That worry is legitimate. The fix is not a clever speech. It is deciding, before install day, what you are doing and why, and saying it plainly to the people it affects.

Start with what the tool is for. Monitoring software tracks productive hours through computer activity: which apps and websites were in use, how much of the day was active, and, if you turn them on, screenshots taken on a recurring schedule. That is a record of work you can check without pulling anyone into a meeting to ask what they did all week. It is not a measure of a person’s worth, and it is not a way to keep anyone busy every minute. If you expect it to be either, stop here: no announcement will fix that.

## What to tell them, and in what order

Tell the whole team at once, in person or on a call — nobody should learn this from a new icon on their desktop. Then put it in writing and give everyone a copy before the software goes on. Three states require written notice, and everywhere else it is simply how this should be done.

The notice, and the conversation, should cover four things:

- What is collected: computer activity, app and website use, active time, and screenshots if you are turning them on, with how often they are taken.

- Why: the honest reason. Hours you can verify, a record you can check, less need to chase anyone for updates.

- Who sees it: name the roles with access, and say how often you will actually look at it. A weekly summary is a different sentence from live screen-watching; use the first one only if it is true.

- What happens to questions: who an employee asks when something recorded looks wrong, and how a mistake gets corrected.

Then take questions until there are none. The first one is usually some version of “is this because you don’t trust us?” Answer it honestly, including if the answer is partly yes. Monitoring that starts because something went wrong should be able to say so, and to say what would wind it down again. Managers who dodge this question buy a second, worse conversation later.

## Decide what stays off before install day

The settings you choose before the meeting are part of the message. Start with the least you need. If screenshots are not necessary to run the team, leave them off; if they are, say how often they are taken, and note that they can be blurred for privacy — an option that exists precisely for teams that want the record without the details. Every feature that is on and unexplained reads as the secret one. Nothing that is off can.

## The states that require written notice

In New York, an employer who monitors or intercepts employees’ telephone conversations, email, or internet access or usage must give written notice when employees are hired, get it acknowledged in writing or electronically, and post it where staff can see it. The notice must say that any and all phone, email, and internet use may be monitored at any and all times, by any lawful means. The state attorney general enforces this — [Civil Rights Law § 52-c](https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CVR/52-C*2) — with civil penalties of $500 for a first violation, $1,000 for a second, and $3,000 for each one after that.

Connecticut’s version applies to any employer engaged in electronic monitoring: prior written notice to every employee who may be affected, describing the types of monitoring that may occur, with a posting in a conspicuous place counting as the notice. The statute carves out one case — an employer with reasonable grounds to believe employees are breaking the law, violating legal rights, or creating a hostile workplace may monitor without advance notice — but that is an investigative exception, not a way to spare yourself the conversation. The labor commissioner can levy the same penalties as New York: $500, $1,000, $3,000. The statute is [§ 31-48d of the Connecticut General Statutes](https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_557.htm#sec_31-48d).

Delaware takes a different route. An employer may not monitor or intercept a Delaware employee’s telephone conversations, email, or internet access or usage unless it either sends an electronic notice each day the employee uses company email or internet, or gives a one-time notice in writing or electronic form that the employee acknowledges in writing or electronically. Each violation carries a $100 civil penalty. The statute is [§ 705 of Title 19 of the Delaware Code](https://delcode.delaware.gov/title19/c007/sc01/index.html).

Where none of these statutes reaches your team, the written notice still earns its keep. It is the document the conversation stands on.

## Let the work settle it

The record tells you what happened on the computer. It cannot tell you whether the work got done, and the two are not the same: phone calls, reading, and thinking leave no trail of activity, so an afternoon of your best person’s best work can look like an afternoon off. Use the data as a prompt for questions, never as the verdict.

This is also the standard to hold yourself to after the first month. If the daily timeline shows someone quiet, the next step is a conversation about workload, not a citation. If the verified hours and the output both look fine, say so and leave it alone — the fastest way to make a record feel like surveillance is to keep searching it for a problem that is not there. Output is the final test, and being seen to use it that way is what separates proof of work from watching.

Where a tool helps is in making the record automatic. Workfolio’s [employee monitoring software](/employee-monitoring-software) tracks productive hours via computer activity, takes regular screenshots as often as every minute with an option to blur them, and lays each day out on a timeline — free for unlimited users. Nothing about it changes the rule above: the numbers start the conversation, and the work settles it.

## Where to start

Write the notice this week, covering what is collected, why, who sees it, and how questions get handled. Book the meeting for before the install date, answer everything, and turn on only what the team has heard about. After a month, look at the record together and ask whether it has changed anything about how you manage. If the answer is no, you have still banked what you started this for: hours you can verify and a team that was never left guessing.

Previous Blog :-

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Next Blog :-

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Raha West

Operations Manager at TechCorp