What is Workplace Surveillance & What it Means for You?

Do you ever feel like your employer is looking over your shoulder?  Chances are your feelings are justified.

Employee monitoring, often called workplace surveillance, is on the rise. Some reports indicate that workplace surveillance has doubled since the beginning of the pandemic. As employees spend more time working from home, employers are actively looking for new ways to keep tabs on the productivity of their workforce.

Why are employers using workplace surveillance?

To date, workplace surveillance has revealed concerning insights into how some employees spend their time at work:

• 25% of corporate internet traffic is unrelated to work;
• 64% of employees use the web for personal reasons;
• 70% of internet porn traffic occurs during work hours; and
• 48% of the worst security breaches at large companies are perpetrated by employees.

Needless to say, many employees are spending lots of time on non-work items.  And so, it should not be surprising that employers want to find out if their own employees are engaging in similar unproductive and compromising activities while on the clock.

What does workplace surveillance mean for you?

As you can imagine, not everyone loves the idea of their employer monitoring their work, reading their emails, checking their browser searches, and tracking their “productive” hours. Some go as far as criticizing the practice as a violation of individual privacy, claiming that such surveillance could backfire and negatively affect the employee-employer relationship.

While it may feel like an invasion of privacy, your employer is (likely) not the government.  And while there are definitely some legal implications of workplace surveillance, ultimately, your employer does not need a warrant to monitor your work activity.

As such, you should act as if your employer is watching or can later review your work, and you should be careful that you are not participating in activities that could cost you your employment.

Furthermore, you should be increasing the amount of time you spend on work activities while at work, as employers can use those metrics during year-end evaluations when making decisions on raises and promotions.

What does workplace surveillance look like in 2023?

There is any number of digital tools an employer can use to monitor its workforce. These tools include everything from internet and software monitoring to keystroke logging.

In 2023, here are the most used surveillance tools in the workplace:

1. Location Tracking: Not surprisingly, as employees work remotely, employers want to know if their employers are actually working from home or working from an island in the Bahamas.  Location tracking can also help locate lost devices.
2. Alerts for web and application activity: Employers are now alerted in real-time when an employee uses certain applications or engages in non-work internet searches.
3. Removable storage usage: This feature offers significant security benefits. It allows employers to see if non-approved devices are connected to work-issued computers, which can cause theft or network security concerns.
4. Remote Access: Remote access is becoming increasingly popular, not just to monitor employees from a distance, but also to provide IT with an additional method of helping remote workers when problems arise.

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