“Employee monitoring” or “employee surveillance”?

What: High Plains Journal, an agricultural trade paper company HQ’d in Kansas decided to replicate their entire office culture online as lockdowns were enforced. Employees had to create digital avatars and were expected to keep their webcams and microphones on throughout the workday to allow for colleagues to be able to reach them quickly.   

So What: Monitoring software is being enforced by a lot of companies to track web browsing and active work hours to make sure employees keep productivity up as managers can’t “see them at the office”. A lot of workers are finding this technology intrusive and stressful as it blurs the lines between work-life-balance. 

Deep Dive:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/30/work-from-home-surveillance/

This article is part of Emerging Futures of Remote Work – An Institute for the Future Signals Report for The Remote Lab