Under pressure | Remote workers 'feel policed' by managers, but building trust is a two-way street

Working from home is a trust exercise – there are no two ways about it. And, as a manager, it might be that, for you, trusting your employees is an area where it's hard to find balance.

Perhaps you’ve had an experience where you needed to manage someone remotely who wasn’t working in the way you or the company needed and expected them to. Or it might be that someone behaved in a way that meant you were asked to manage them differently.

For the employee, it’s a mash up of pings, dings and phone calls, peppering the day more intrusively than an Amazon delivery driver arriving just as the baby went to sleep. As a manager, you’re doing your best to keep on top of their work, with a view to their wellbeing and letting them know you care about their working day. For the remote worker, though, the feeling is more one of being in a virtual goldfish bowl.

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New research has found that daily monitoring can lead to remote workers feeling their managers lack trust in them. According to the researchers, when working from home, employees can feel that they have less autonomy and are under constant surveillance if monitored too frequently. These feelings can be exacerbated if managers’ behaviour is unpredictable, researchers added.