Sarah, a copywriter at a marketing agency, just returned from a performance review, the third in the past five weeks. Six weeks ago, her manager obliged the entire team to install the employee monitoring program so that he could track their performance. Sarah was not worried at first: she did her work well and had never received complaints about her texts.

However, everything changed with the installation of the software. Sarah's workload suddenly increased, and a week later, she was invited to the manager's office for a performance review. The manager was displeased by the extensive \"inactivity\" periods of Sarah's computer. He said that if she had time for idling at work, she would be assigned extra tasks. Sarah explained that she preferred to draft her ideas on paper before writing on her computer - that was where the inactivity periods came from. The manager was unconvinced and only recommended drafting ideas on the computer.

Sarah's performance reviews became more frequent. She struggled with the new workload and felt micromanaged and stressed. The monitoring system unfairly targeted her, stifling her creativity and autonomy.

Unfortunately, cases like Sarah's are not uncommon. Critics of employee monitoring software fear its use results in privacy concerns, increased stress, trust issues, biases, and transparency problems. Let's discuss if their fears are justified and if there are ways to implement employee monitoring responsibly and ethically.

The Risks of Excessive Surveillance

Many employers adopt monitoring software because they do not know how to manage their workers, especially remote ones. They believe installing a program on an employee's computer and checking the report in a few days is enough. In reality, implementing employee monitoring requires some background work, without which you risk raising unwanted concerns and issues.

Privacy concerns

In many jurisdictions, privacy is protected with special regulations, but they rarely cover employee monitoring specifically. As a result, employers may not know what data they may collect and how long they may store it.

Meanwhile, monitoring systems collect a wide range of personal data, including keystrokes, mouse clicks, visited websites, and even emails and message contents. Employees see this as a constant invasion of privacy, especially when the collected data is used beyond the initial purpose.

Besides, there is always a risk that unauthorized individuals may access the gathered sensitive information, either from within the company or through external breaches. The consequences may be horrible, from reputational damage to identity theft.

Stress and trust issues

conducted by the American Psychological Association shows that employee monitoring significantly increases employees

The survey