If you’re about to roll out mi.team, or any monitoring software, to your team, you’re probably wrestling with how to actually tell people about it. Say too little and it feels like it was snuck in. Say the wrong thing and you’ve made your team anxious about software that was never meant to worry anyone.
Here’s the short version. The answer isn’t to say less. It’s to say the specific, honest thing. The specifics are what reassure people, and vagueness is what makes them fill in the worst case themselves.
Why “Don’t Worry About It” Backfires
A common approach, understandably, since it’s the path of least resistance, is to roll monitoring software out as routine IT housekeeping. A pop-up appears, staff are told it’s expected, and questions get answered one at a time as they come up.
It works, in the sense that it gets the software installed without a confrontation. But it trades a quick, slightly awkward conversation now for a harder problem later. The moment someone works out what the software actually does, whether from a colleague, a search, or just curiosity, the story becomes “they didn’t tell us,” not “they told us and it’s fine.” That’s a worse position than the one you were trying to avoid.
The Alternative: Say the Specific Thing
The reassuring version of this isn’t softer language. It’s more specific language. Compare these two:
Vague: “You’ll see a pop-up about some new software. Don’t worry about it, it’s expected.”
Specific: “We’re installing mi.team on work computers. It doesn’t take screenshots, log your keystrokes, or read your messages. It looks at which applications and websites you use and for how long, to help us understand workload across the team. Anything that looks personal gets automatically hidden before anyone sees it.”
The second version says more, not less, and it lands better because of it. It gives people the actual facts to reassure themselves with, rather than asking them to take reassurance on trust.
What to Cover
A good rollout communication doesn’t need to be long, but it should cover:
- What it is. Name it plainly as productivity and device monitoring software. Don’t disguise it as something else.
- What it does and doesn’t collect. The specifics reassure. Vagueness doesn’t.
- Why it’s being introduced. A real reason, workload visibility, supporting flexible working, spotting where processes are slow, lands better than no reason at all.
- What happens to personal or private activity. That it’s automatically hidden, not manually reviewed and then discarded.
- That they can correct it themselves. If they have login access, they can mark something extra as private, or unmark something the AI got wrong.
- Who can see what. Whether individual dashboards or peer visibility are switched on, and what that means in practice.
- Who to ask. A real person, not just “IT” as an abstraction.
Does This Have to Come From a Director?
No, and insisting it does is often what causes rollouts to stall. What actually matters, both for trust and for meeting UK GDPR’s transparency requirement, is that staff are told clearly and in good time, not specifically who presses send. IT sending it is genuinely fine.
The one thing worth getting right is that it should read as an organisational communication, not a technical notice IT decided to send on its own. The easiest fix is one line making clear it’s sent with leadership’s backing. The template below builds that in, so IT can send it directly without needing a director’s time, while it still reads as coming from the business rather than just from the department installing the software.
A Template You Can Use
Here’s a starting point you can adapt. It’s deliberately plain, so resist the urge to soften it further.
Subject: New software on your work computer, what it is and what it isn’t
Hi team,
[Company name] is installing mi.team on work computers. This note explains what it is before you see it land on your machine.
Over the next few days you’ll see mi.team installed on your work computer, along with a pop-up notice the first time you log in.
mi.team helps us understand how work is actually flowing across the team, where things are going well and where our tools or processes are getting in the way. It doesn’t take screenshots, log your keystrokes, or read the content of your emails or messages. It looks at which applications and websites are used and for how long, and builds that into a general picture of productive time.
Anything the system identifies as personal or private, a banking site, a medical search, a personal message, is automatically hidden. It only runs on your work computer, never on personal devices. If something’s flagged wrong, hidden when it shouldn’t be or missed when it should have been, you’ll be able to fix that yourself.
[Pick the line that matches your rollout stage, don’t leave both in]
If individual logins are switched on: You’ll also have your own login, so you can see and manage your own data.
If they’re not yet: We’re not switching on individual logins immediately, but it’s part of the plan. We’ll let you know when that changes and when you can log in to review your data.
[Pick one or two that are true for your rollout, don’t copy all five just because they’re there, and don’t include one that isn’t accurate]
We’re bringing this in because:
- we want a clearer picture of where our processes and tools are slowing people down, so we can prioritise the right fixes rather than guess
- we want solid data to support flexible and hybrid working arrangements, rather than relying on assumptions
- we want to make sure workload is distributed fairly across the team, based on real information rather than who happens to seem busiest
- we want the extra effort some of you regularly put in outside normal hours to actually be visible and recognised, not invisible
- it’s part of how we keep company devices secure and up to date, alongside everything above
If you’ve got questions, please ask, [name], [role].
Thanks,
[Sender name]
IT, on behalf of [Company name / leadership]
That last line is doing real work. It lets IT send it directly, no waiting on a director’s diary, while making clear this isn’t IT going rogue with a new tool. It’s the organisation telling people, through IT.
One More Thing: Ideally; Say It Before the Pop-Up, Not After
Whatever you send, send it before the software lands on people’s machines, not as a follow-up once someone’s already asked a question. Being told in advance and then seeing the pop-up as confirmation feels completely different to seeing the pop-up first and only getting an explanation because you asked for one.
