Privacy concerns | 78% of employers use monitoring tools to track staff work rates

A new report has found that a staggering 78% of employers are using employee monitoring tools to track work performance and activity.

A study by Instant Offices looked into the different employee monitoring trends that are currently going on in the workplace, and found that, in addition to the use of employee monitoring tools, 94% of employers track emails – and 73% of those companies surveyed say that stored recordings of emails, calls and messages have affected individuals’ performance reviews.

The COVID pandemic accelerated a trend towards hybrid working that has seen a mixture of remote and office working move from something that’s “nice to have” to a must have” for many employees. A poll of senior managers by Willis Towers Watson, published last August, revealed that two in five firms (41%) will embrace hybrid working by 2023, with only three in 10 companies (30%) expecting a full return of their workforce to the office at the end of the pandemic.

However, this has thrown up challenges for managers in terms of monitoring performance, which is illustrated by the increased demand for employee surveillance software. Demand grew by a whopping 60% in 2020, and Google searches for “employee monitoring software” increased by 30% from 2019 to 2020, according to the tech behemoth.