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Employee monitoring is a loaded and confused term.
For some, it can simply mean keeping track of the most important KPIs and data relevant to an employee's work and wellbeing. For others, it means the threat of Big Brother-esque surveillance and unethical oversteps that signal a lack of trust about how, when, and where work is completed.
Both interpretations are justified. We know that people analytics has grown in prominence over recent years following studies such as Insight222’s People Analytics Trends research. Their study revealed that 65% of companies expanded their people analytics teams in 2022, up from 61% in 2021 and 55% in 2020.
Whether it’s to identify a drop-off in engagement or performance that could be explained by a worker struggling with burnout or to determine whether certain demographic groups are subject to bias in promotion cycles, many HR teams are monitoring employee analytics for the better.
So, why are some employees so skeptical of monitoring? What makes some analytics or surveillance unsettling, or worse, unethical? And what can HR do about it?
Why some employees find analytics monitoring unsettling
Understandably, many employees are unhappy or unsettled by their employer monitoring their behavior or using people analytics because they are not clear on what is being monitored or why.
“Employee monitoring could instil a lack of trust in employees leading to negative outcomes such as disengagement or counterproductive work behavior,” explains Matthew Castillo PhD, Head of Employee Listening at Wholefoods, adding that employers also include deeper context and insights than solely people analytics data to avoid creating false narratives.
Indeed, a survey from Profusion finds that 61% of employees are comfortable with their employers monitoring them, but with a critical caveat that they are only if they can see the data. Employees fear monitoring because when they don’t know what is being tracked, or why, they fear the worst.
This is thanks to the horror stories they hear about unethical surveillance. Take, for example, a Texas company that took photos and screenshots of employees every ten minutes to determine productivity and, by extension, pay. Or Amazon, which was fined $35million for “excessive” surveillance by France's National Commission on Informatics and Liberty.
There are countless other examples of companies reportedly engaging in sketchy and often, unlike Amazon’s case, legal forms of employee surveillance. But even if they are legal, errors could still be made when decisions are made solely on analytics – a justifiable concern for workers.
“Electronic monitoring systems could record false positives or negatives resulting in inaccurate data that leaders could make decisions on,” explains Castillo. “This could lead to employees being terminated, passed over for promotions, or wrongly promoted. Data integrity, accuracy, and protection are critical for organizations to avoid unethical behavior.”
How to address employees’ analytics and monitoring concerns
HR and employee listening leaders must be calculated to address major flaws or concerns with their people analytics programs.
Firstly, avoid people analytics monitoring that would be perceived by employees as excessive, unsettling, or unethical. Castillo proposes sharing high-level feedback after organization-wide surveys to help employees feel included in the process. “People leaders should share results with their team on an ongoing basis and regularly communicate how they are acting on their team's feedback to show the value in participating in surveys and using their voice,” he explains.
This step also means partnering with senior leaders and other key stakeholders across the organization to review what data is being collected and how it is being used. “This will allow for better ties between data and business questions to ensure that analytics are being used for the right purposes.”
Castillo advises “setting SMART goals and regularly reviewing and modifying those goals based on organizational priorities will help inform what data should be collected.”
HR teams and employee listening leaders can then communicate these goals to all employees to help them see the value in the data collection and the feedback they are asked to provide.
This cycle greatly increases the transparency employees have into how and why employee monitoring using people analytics is conducted.0
“A lack of transparency fosters job insecurity which can lead employees to climb the inference ladder and tell themselves stories about why leaders are not more open with communication or "the why" behind their decision-making,” suggests Castillo, offering the example of employees who feel that they are not paid fairly for the work they do. “This feeling could be a result of actually being underpaid, but more often it is the result of a lack of transparency in how pay decisions are made.”
Accordingly, Castillo advises HR, people analytics, and employee listening leaders to avoid disengagement and undesirable turnover by “consulting with senior leaders in their organization about the importance of transparency” and “the consequences of a lack of transparency to ensure that the right information is being shared with employees, in the right way, and at the right time.”
Though most HR leaders will establish people analytics practices with the best intentions in mind, the profession often suffers from assuming that other stakeholders view their work in the same way they do. A survey published in March 2024 found that over a third of 1,005 small-business workers in the U.S. didn’t trust their HR departments, and past surveys of larger companies have indicated similar findings.
By getting clear with their workers about what analytics are being measured, people analytics teams can avoid employees feeling unsettled or creeped out. Of course, if you think that your employees would react poorly to transparency over what you’re tracking, it’s probably a sign that your monitoring has gone too far!
