Author name: Jenny Nicole

Employee Salaries a Secret?
Business, Tips

Should Your Company Keep Employee Salaries a Secret?

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When the infamous Sony leak occurred sometime last year, it uncovered quite a few tidbits from the company, including an entire list of the top executives’ salaries. Look closer and you’ll realize that the recipients of the 7 figure salaries at Sony at 94% male and 88% white. This leak was bound to make other employees think: do I even have a shot at making my way up the corporate ladder? What is my position within this company? Companies must then decide carefully whether their employee’s salaries should be kept a secret within the organization or not. Either decision has pros and cons. The Case in Favor of Transparency People who favor transparency of communication, especially when it comes to salaries have this to say: Employees should be seen as business partners in an organization, therefore every bit of information should be shared with them. Coworkers discuss salaries amongst themselves anyway, so what’s the use of hiding information that is already out there. Workers know the criteria upon with they are judged—they’ll know what the company values and pays more for and they strive to align themselves along the company’s criteria. It creates a sense of competition amongst employees as each works harder than the next to make their way up the pay scale. The Case Against Transparency However, there are many companies that are still reluctant to make salaries public within the organization. Here’s why: Disclosing salaries may wreak havoc as people compare their pay. Employees that were otherwise satisfied with their work and salary may get disheartened when they learn than a coworker is earning more. That is, not knowing was better than knowing. It created unhealthy competition—teamwork is effective as heads butt instead of combine. Employees that earn more may feel embarrassed in front of their friends at work who earn less and bad feelings may occur. Employees may feel their worth or place in the office may be affective when people learn they are not earning enough. The management/HR will have to deal with employees constantly on their tail, arguing why they earn less than Tom, Dick or Harry. Protecting Your Choice When and if you find yourself in a situation where your organization is having the “salary talk”, you’ve got to make a choice. Ideally, this choice should have been implemented during the birth of the company. But if it wasn’t, now is your chance to pick a stance. A lot of managers try to find a happy medium which includes Stating salaries but hiding names of those who earn them. Stating industry salaries so employees are aware of benchmarks against which their own salaries can be compared. Whatever your stance may be, the real work is making sure that choice is protected. That’s where XNSPY employee monitoring software can help you out. Employees may have the salary talk over their office devices, and when they do, you’ll know which employee is going against office policy. (https://chainwitcher.com)

Employee Monitoring App
Employee Monitoring

Evaluating Most Popular Employee Retention Practices

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Employers that are really looking to retain talent go through all sorts of practices to make sure their star worker reconsiders that job switch. Today, we’ll be looking at some of those practices and viewing which of those actually work and which don’t have a positive effect at all. Monetary Compensation The most obvious tactic to make employees stay is to offer them a higher compensation. Trouble is, this only works when the primary reason for the employee’s exit happens to be money. Which is why organizations use a sneakier method for retention. They offer bonuses or increments in stages varying to anything from 6 months to 3 years. Some may call these “golden handcuffs” because they bind the employee to the company for the stated and signed period of time. This form of retention can work short-term, but if you want employees that are in it for the long haul, you’ve got to do way more than that. Redesigning JD Other employers make their talent stay by redesigning their job descriptions altogether. A lot of times, workers decide to leave not because they are unhappy with the company, but because they have become disenfranchised with the work that they do. Sounds simple enough to remedy, doesn’t it? But a lot of times employers fail to read the signs of a disengaged employee. And even if they do, there may be other confinements. What if their jobs cannot be redesigned? What if they cannot be shifted to another department? What if there isn’t an opening for them anywhere else. Which is why employers have to be careful with this tactic of retention. Tailor Made Jobs Another increasingly popular retention method is job customization. This can occur in one of two ways: In the first case, an employer may hire someone to perform a very specific set of tasks tailored to the candidate’s skills. In this way, the worker will be able to use their best skills to do a job that they love and will not be confined by run of the mill job descriptions that do not interest them. In the second scenario, the employer will customize perks and compensations to every employee. For example, Starbucks pays their employees the average wage but pays the college tuition for employees that need it. This method can work especially with employees that are deemed more valuable to the company than others. Letting a star performer leave could be hurtful to the organization, and therefore customizable compensation can retain them for a longer period of time. It may also give the employee the self confidence they need to stay. In real life, some of these practices may not retain talent—they might just prolong their stay for a while longer. What employers have got to do then is make sure that they’re balancing out hygiene factors with motivators. Give employees all the scalable factors to stay—higher salary, fancier office, etc.—but also give them a bigger sense of purpose within the organization.

XNSPY Watchlist Pronto
Tech, Tips

You Need to Start Using the XNSPY Watchlist Pronto

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Okay, here’s the thing. I’ve been reviewing some of your queries this past week and I started noticing a trend. There is a certain XNSPY feature that is going rather unused, and it bewilders me because it is literally one of our most basic functions. We’re talking about the Watchlist. If you’ve got XNSPY installed on your child or employee’s phones/tablets, then you should have the Watchlist set up as well. We’ve done a post about how you can use it to reduce clutter on your dashboard. Today, we’re going to talk about all the benefits you can get by using this really simple tool. How Watchlist Words Are Helpful Once you put a word in the XNSPY Watchlist, you receive alerts when that word is sent by the target user or sent on the target device. So what words should you put on the Watchlist? Mostly, any words that you feel are “triggers” or something you need to be aware of when it appears in a conversation. For example, when watching over teens that are growing up, you could put in words like “weed” or “blunt” or “beer” on the Watchlist. So anytime these words are used in email, text or instant messages, you are instantly notified. Similarly, employers can put in words such as “business plan”, “launch day”, “financial statements” or other trigger words on the Watchlist. These could be words that alert you when sensitive data is being shared. Or you could use the Watchlist to be notified of whether or not a task is being worked on. Have You Set Up Watchlist Locations Yet? Watchlist locations are especially handy for both parents and employers. For employers, Watchlist locations can help streamline offsite business operations in a systematic manner. If you’ve got drivers and delivery people, Watchlist locations will tell you exactly where they have been throughout the day. This can reduce convenient times, minimize pilferage and ensure employee safety. Similarly, parents can use Watchlist locations so that they can be alerted right away if a child enters a dangerous area. These areas can be clubs, bars, or places that present a safety risk. It pushes you to action so that the child doesn’t get into the bad kind of trouble. Beware of Watchlist Contacts Another use for the XNSPY Watchlist? You can mark certain contacts and be notified when there is correspondence with them from either side. Employers can mark important customers or suppliers or business partners—even rivals—as the Watchlist contacts to be notified when an employee is communicating with them. Parents can put on the Watchlist Contact anyone who they think is bad news or anyone they feel like they need to keep a closer eye on. This could be someone who is bullying your kid, someone who is turning out to be a bad influence, or someone who you’re not completely sure of. You’ll Get Instant Alerts! The best part about the Watchlist is that you get instant alerts anytime a “trigger” activity takes place—when a trigger contact is communicated with, when a trigger word is used, or when the child/employee enters a Watchlist area. It really cannot get more convenient than this. Your XNSPY monitoring app is way more versatile than you realized, isn’t it?

Employee Monitoring App
Employee Monitoring

Can Managers Be Change Agents in an Organization?

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As a rule of thumb, there will also be resistance to any sort of change in any company. Let me give you a little example from my own workplace. We’ve got a little snack room that has a counter with a coffee machine and a refrigerator with an assortment of sodas and fizzy drinks. Last month, our top management decided their employee’s health and well being was their top priority. And the way this whiz of divine inspiration manifested itself was the refrigerator with the sodas disappeared from our snack room. Sodas have got too much high fructose corn syrup, you see, and the top management does not want us to get diabetes. Now this little change—the elimination of the soda fridge so to speak—caused quite the reaction at our office, trivial as it were. Most people argued that they were being forced into a lifestyle they did not necessarily agree to. Others spoke of how it was their choice to drink soda, just like it was their choice to eat greasy foods or smoke or drink alcohol. And besides, there was a neat little vending machine just across the street. Removing sodas from the office wasn’t going to stop them from drinking them altogether. The point is, this wasn’t even a big change—a culture change, a resource change, a management change. Yet it brought out strong emotions within people upon which this was implemented. This made me wonder. Is there a way change can be implemented without retaliation? And if so, how big a part do managers play as agents of change? Theoretically speaking, spearheading change should actually be the true litmus test for any manager. It will separate good managers from brilliant managers. In practice however, being an agent of change is incredible difficult, although equally important. Take the example of an XNSPY user. Let’s call him Harry. So Harry told us about how he runs a little farmers market and deals in beans, lentils, legumes, seeds and the like. And for him, pilferage was an ongoing issue. That is what turned him onto our employee monitoring software. He needed to know exactly when his delivery drivers pick up sacks of grain from his suppliers and exactly when they dropped it off to the farmer’s market. Moreover, he also wanted to keep an eye on the routes the employees were taking so he knew exactly where the drivers went. But the announcement that he was going to monitor his employees wasn’t going to be that well received. That much he knew from the start. So how did he implement this change in strategy? Harry decided that the number one reason pilferage levels were so high was because the drivers did not feel like they were part of the organization. So Harry made sure he went on and spoke to each and every one of the drivers at a personal level. Over weeks, months and a year, he got to know everyone and earned their loyalty. At that point, he introduced the XNSPY employee monitoring system as a high tech way to ensure their travels. And they were all too happy to comply. The true test of a manager is how well introduce change to their employees and in the process, become the change they need to see.

Spying App
Child Monitoring

Kleptomania in Kids—More to Shoplifting than Meets the Eye

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Did you know shoplifting can be addictive? Sometimes people don’t just shoplift because they can’t afford to buy certain things. Some people shoplift simply for the thrill of it, or because they started once and now they just can’t seem to stop. Those people are called kleptomaniacs. They don’t steal because of the monetary value. The act of stealing itself is simply a compulsive behavior. And it more common amongst teenagers than you’d realize. Take a look at this quick video that explains why kleptomaniacs steal in the first place: So it is because of… The euphoric thoughts leading to and following the act of stealing The rush that comes with stealing itself The irritable urge that pushes them to steal The adrenalin rush The risk associated with stealing—risk of being caught, a ruined reputation and other consequences The feeling of guilt and remorse before the compulsive thoughts come in again. Here are a few stats about shoplifting around the world from Good. There are not enough statistics on kleptomania, because this is not a mental disorder that many people seek counseling for. However, roughly there are about 1.2 million Americans that are suffering from this disorder. It is easy to understand why it is so difficult to sympathize with kleptomaniacs. There is no way someone is going to put a few items in their bag unintentionally and walk out without paying for them. It is easier to classify them as criminals, because they act in itself is crime. Understanding the motivation that leads to the act is a bit more difficult. How can anyone justify a compulsive act, an irritable urge as it were that leads to stealing? And that’s why we likened it to an addiction in the first place. It makes no rational sense to the regular man. This is why psychologists that work with compulsive stealing behaviors make sure they listen to the full story of their patient. Including everything that happened which lead to the moment of stealing, and what happened in the aftermath. If you suspect your kid has kleptomania, here are some signs you should be looking for: Tension, especially in the moments before the theft Failure to resist the urge to steal Intense satisfaction after the act of stealing As the parent, the best thing you can do is to monitor your child closely and find out what is bothering them. And while you’d be tempted to punish them for their actions, a kleptomaniac needs help more than anything else. Understand that their compulsive behavior could be rooted in something else and with the right person to help them, those behaviors can be controlled. So be fair to them, and give them the help they deserve.

Prevent nanny abuse
Tips

How to Use XNSPY as Your Ultimate Nanny Cam to Prevent Nanny Abuse

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If you’ve decided you’re going to get someone to help you with the kids, don’t feel bad. Lots of parents do it, and it is by no means a dent on your parenting skills. Work-life balance is really hard, especially in this economy where people are working more than one jobs just to get by. Parents have to rely on patchwork arrangements, including driving to and fro from daycares to after schools programs and back home. So, it makes sense—for those who can afford it, at least—to hire a nanny for the time you’re away. However, finding someone to take care of your child is not an easy job. Especially when there are so many cases of nanny abuse making headlines all the time. Let’s take a look at a few of them. Macedonia Nanny Beats 9-Month Old Baby In a shocking video filmed in Macedonia, you will find a nanny slapping, pinching and shaking a nine month old baby. The baby screams loudly, but this only spurs on the nanny to repeatedly slap him. The woman shouts and physically abuses the child even when he apparently stops crying. The nanny continues to abuse and torment the child after he has gone to sleep. All of this, of course happens when the parents are away, and they wouldn’t have known of it if it weren’t for the camera. The woman has been taken to court and could face up to 10 years in prison. Ugandan Nanny Severely Abuses 2-Year-Old Another awful nanny abuse incident caught on tape. Jolly Tumuhiirwe severely abuses a 2 year old after the toddler spits out her food. Filmed in Uganda, the tape shows the woman losing her temper and being extremely violent with the child. She throws the toddler to the ground, steps on her, then kicks her hard enough to make her fly across the room. The nanny then continues to step on her four times before dragging her to another room. The parents come home and find the child covered in bruises. Dog Reports Nanny Abuse to Parents In this case, a couple hires a nanny for their 7-month old, even conducting background checks to make sure the person they hire is reliable. 5 months in though, things take a turn for the worst and the parents notice only when the family dog becomes very defensive with the child and aggressive with the nanny whenever she comes home. The dog’s behavior triggers the parents into action and they decide to use their iPhone to record their house while they are away. Sure enough they find the nanny being verbally and physically abused with their child. Nanny Alexis Khan has now been put on abuser registry. Use XNSPY as Your ‘Nanny Cam’ With all these horrific stories making the rounds on the news, it is time for you to take serious preventative measures if you’re going to hire a nanny. Choose a reliable program to hire a nanny from, and get a surveillance camera. Then you can also use XNSPY as your ultimate nanny cam. Installed onto the child’s phone, it can record surroundings if you send the command. This will tell you what’s going on back at home when you’re at work. You can also track their GPS location to make sure your kids are safe with the nanny. A little bit of remote monitoring goes a long way!

Smart Tech Ways
Tech, Tips

4 Smart Tech Ways to Keep the Family Connected

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Do you travel a lot? Do you work odd hours and have to miss a lot of quality time with the family? Is your job keeping you away from home? Or do you have kids that go to boarding school? Or a teen that is away to camp? Or perhaps taking a semester in an exchange program? Whatever your situation is, being away from family is hard. But we’re living in 2015 people, and it is all about smart technology. Even when you’re away from home, you don’t have to be. With a few apps and gadgets, you can stay connected no matter how busy your schedule gets or how far away from your family you are. Here are a few super cool gadgets and apps that may help you along the way. 1.     The Logi Circle The Logi Circle is basically a camera hooked onto a mobile app that gives you a 24 hour bird’s eye view of the house. If you’re away from home, you can still see what your kids had been up to the entire day. A really cool thing you can do with the app? Condense the entire day into 30 seconds; kind of like a recap of what went around in your house. This works wonders as a security camera. Working parents that have to rely on babysitters and nannies to take care of their children can benefit vastly from it, considering we’re got so many instances of nanny abuse popping up on the news always. 2.     Skylight Frame This is actually a pretty cool idea. We all know digital frames are all the rage these days. But this little gadget takes it a step further. Consider a situation in which you’ve gone away to an exotic new location on a business trip. Wouldn’t you want to share every moment with your family back at home? Show them all the cool places you’re seeing. With the Skylight Frame, you can send those pictures right onto the photo frame in your living room, and the family will automatically see it. Now this is some Harry Potter magic right here. 3.     Far Far Away Just because you’re away from your kids, doesn’t mean you have to miss out on bedtime stories. Far Far Away is an app designed for… well, faraway parents, so that they can still have story time with their kids. Both the child and the parent can connect with each other on the app, choose a story together and read it before going to sleep. Travelling parents often feel like they miss out on a lot of their child’s first experiences. This app makes sure you’re there for the little moments as well as the big ones. 4.     And Of Course… XNSPY How could we miss out on XNSPY when we’re listing apps for family connectivity? Quite simply, this app was created so that parents would be able to be better connected to their kids, digitally as well as physically. It’s the app that lets you keep them out of harm’s way—whether the harm be cyberbullies, malicious strangers, or other oddities of the internet. More importantly, you can do all of this no matter where you are in the world. Because no matter what, family always comes first. Recommended For You: Parental Control App – Cell Phone Parental Control Software

Teens with mobile phones
Child Monitoring

Teens and Mobile Use: The Big Data

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It looks like the digital parenting community is growing. We’re glad to play even the smallest role in making more parents aware of what it takes to truly be integrated with their children across all platforms. It is a philosophy; a mindset rather than a technique and we’re glad we’ve got other link minded people on board in this thinking, especially through this blog. Recently, the folks at Cell Phone City contacted us. They told of a campaign they’ve launched which advocates the responsible use of technology, especially amongst students. So when they asked if they could share some information on that matter with our audiences, we were more than happy to oblige. If you want more information on their campaign, ho ahead and click on the link given above. Take a look at this infographic that provides a detailed insight into the big data regarding teens and cell phones: The first thing I noticed right away from this infographic were the staggering numbers. 14.3 million teens in the US use smartphones The average age at which a child receives a cell phone is now 12 years More girls own cell phone than boys, although the difference is small From this bit of information, it can be seen the average age for owning smartphones is dropping. And let’s not forget that kids in their preteens are often the victims of solicitation and financial fraud. Ideally, the high number of teen mobile users should mean a higher number of parents using parental control apps. However, this is not the case, which make these numbers more disconcerting. Now, let’s turn our attention to the rules and etiquettes Cell Phone City suggests parents should use for their teens. One suggestion is that parents be aware of the mobile apps the kids are using. There’s an easy solution to that. XNSPY provides parents with a list of installed apps the kids have on their phones. Another suggestion is that parents keep an eye on the kid’s real time location. Once more, XNSPY GPS tracker steps in. Parents can easily get detailed location stats on their kids, all 24 hours of the day. Similarly, the inforgraphic also touches upon other themes that are popularly features on this blog—cyberbullying, sexting, and texting while driving. You can find more information on those themes throughout our blog. At the end of the day, I feel like Cell Phone City’s campaign and XNSPY comes together in one more aspect: digital monitoring can’t be done through tools alone. It is a mindset. It is a constant way of life for parents of teenagers, not a onetime thing. Why wait to use XNSPY as a crisis management tool when you could be using it to prevent crisis altogether?  

iPhone Apps Have a Bad Effect on Kids?
Social Media, Tech

Can Violent Video Game iPhone Apps Have a Bad Effect on Kids?

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Whether video games are good or bad for kids is an age old debate. Some people think that video games actually encourage logical thinking in teenagers. I am one of those people. Video games include solving puzzles, working out imitations of real life scenarios, hand eye coordination and reflexes. I mean I’ve spoken to you guys about gamification as a solution countless times. Kids learn more when it is provided to them in levels where they can use their problem solving skills. But even someone like me gets queasy when I watch 8 year olds turn 20 zombies into a pile of gore in one go. I can only imagine what goes through your mind as the parent when you see your kids do the same. Some smartphone game apps are useful and educational. Others… not so much. So if you want to make sure your kids are playing the right games, let me give you a list of what would qualify as the “wrong games”. A List of Violence iPhone Games 1. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars One of the most played games, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars shows a gang as they commit murders, carry out robberies and the like. Gun Violence is the Norm in GTA 2. Call of Duty: Zombies Another popular game that has found its way into an iPhone app is Call of Duty: Zombies.Basically, lots of blood and gore. Blood and Violence is a Common Theme 3. Amateur Surgeon Another slightly disturbing iPhone app is Amateur Surgeon.  A “potential doctor” practices surgery on people using whatever tools possible. Amateur Surgeon Cuts Open Patients How You Can Monitor the Wrong Apps Lucky for you, your iPhone monitoring app lets you spy on your kid’s installed apps. With this feature, you’ll have a list of all the games your kids play on their iPhones. If you spot something you don’t like, such as some of the games I told you about above, you might want to have a conversation with them. Before you get too worked up, there have been plenty of studies that prove that video games don’t make you aggressive. So don’t go banning every game your kids play, just have a conversation with them every now and then to see where their head is at. What do you think? Do video games actually promote violence or is this all a myth?  

Avoid Road Trip Terrors
Child Monitoring, Tips

Parents Can Avoid Road Trip Terrors With these Simple Tricks

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Parents, by nature, tend to be worriers, especially when teens are heading out on a road trip with their friends. I know this because parents write to me about this problem. And they also tell me that planning the impending road trip given them anxiety before it even happens. It is especially chaotic whenyou’re your kids want to go out with their own little group of friends. If could split myself into several pieces and follow them all around, they probably would. Fact is they can’t, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use the right tools and proper planning. I’m going to turn parents from a worrier to a warrior, and I think all you parents should follow my lead. What you need is your XNSPY parental control, then sit back and enjoy the rest of your day, no problem. What Good is a Tracker for Road Trips? How sure are you that your kid isn’t going to sneak out way past their curfew? My friend tells me that when his boys have put on their road trip gear, they get rather reckless, and get a sense of bravado. I suppose it comes with the freedom of being on their own. But I’m pretty sure when they tell their parents that they’re staying out of trouble, they are straight up lying to the parents face. It is in situations like these that I advice that you turn to your mobile tracker. There’s a lot of trouble boys their age can get themselves into in this day and age. I know kids that have been wrongly convicted for drug dealing, or got too adventurous and tried shop lifting simply for fun. You don’t want your kids getting in that sort of trouble or mixing in with the wrong crowd. So use your tracker to keep a well eye on their behavior. How Does XNSPY Mobile Tracker Work? What you’ve got to do is install the app on your child’s phone. Now I know for a fact kids these days don’t leave anywhere without their phones. I know what you’re thinking. There is no way kids will ever agree to having a tracker in their phones so their parents can snoop in on them. But the best part about XNSPY is that it is totally discreet. It works on the child’s phone invisibly. They can be at any stop in their roadtrip, or wherever and you’ll know Their real time location Their complete location history If they’ve got to a dangerous area right from home. They would never ever know the tracker is there! And you can step in if your suspect something is wrong. Parents for Road Trip Safety So I definitely suggest to every parent to get their hands on a tracker, especially when your kids are planning a road trip without adult supervision. Make it a point to keep an eye on your children whenever they go out with friends, but even if you don’t do that, try and be more conscious of their activities during the time they are away from home. You don’t want a night of fun to turn into a night of horrors.

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