Christine B.

Thought spies were only present in top-secret government operations, action movies and books? Think again; they are everywhere. That new person at work, the dishevelled looking customer… they may all be spies hired to keep tabs on employee performance.

A mystery shopping company can provide these spies-for-hire at attractive rates. It may seem odd inviting a spy into your organization, but consider how much valuable information you could obtain. Especially if you are suspicious about a particular employee’s customer service skills in your absence, his or her conduct or whether the employee may be the cause of poor team dynamics. Finding out the source of your business-sores can save a lot of money in the long run and it is in fact not illegal.

It is right up there with keyboard logging and scanning emails for profanity or illegal web surfing on company computers. I too wish this was not necessary, but sometimes having the information up front means the situation can be corrected and nobody needs to suffer (i.e. be fired).