Eyes On You: Tracking of Remote Workers Grows

Of all the changes to work in recent years, there’s one that firms are happy to keep in place—electronic monitoring.

Originally conceived to deal with the pandemic and lockdowns, digital monitoring of employees by firms is continuing—and in many cases increasing. According to one recent study, 71% of employees are subject to some form of corporate surveillance, up from less than one-third before the remote-work era took off. Trends like quiet quitting, bare-minimum Mondays, and afternoon spikes in TV-viewership data have “touched a nerve with employers,” says Mark Royal, a senior client partner for Korn Ferry Advisory who specializes in employee engagement. In the absence of in-person oversight, he says, managers are resorting to time- and activity-tracking tools, screen monitoring, and AI-based approaches.

To be sure, experts say that the companies that are demanding employees return to the office are often the same companies that are stepping up remotely monitoring them. Think of it as the corporate version of the party game Would You Rather, with firms subtly pressuring employees to choose between coming back to the office or enduring more pervasive surveillance at home. “The more people return to the office, the lower the volume on monitoring,” says Jonathan Wildman, a senior client partner with Korn Ferry Advisory.

Tamara Rodman, a senior client partner in the Culture, Change, and Communications practice at Korn Ferry, says surveillance of employees, which formerly was focused on protecting corporate devices from data breaches and cybersecurity threats, has morphed into something much more cynical. “Monitoring now is more about watching what people are doing and making sure they are working,” she says. That’s led to a historic and worrisome level of mistrust between employers and employees, Rodman says. Surveys show that one-fourth of US professionals don’t believe their employer trusts them, and only 67% trust their employers, a decline of 3% since 2022.

More monitoring may lead to more problems, says Royal. For one, he notes that studies show that monitoring increases stress and anxiety and only minimally contributes to productivity. “If monitoring is not really helping, why are companies increasingly doing it?” he asks.

The key, says Rodman, is for firms to better communicate to staffs what they are doing. Most employees continue to be unaware of monitoring, or how the data that’s tracking them is being used. But she also feels that monitoring could lead to higher levels of attrition among talent that values flexibility and autonomy. Pointing to Korn Ferry data showing that employees cite flexibility in work hours among their top considerations for choosing and staying in a job, Rodman says leaders and managers “need to shift their mindset to focus on outcomes instead of activity.”

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