The European Commission’s Science Center has published a study that says employers have begun to monitor their telecommuting employees more closely since the start of the 2020 pandemic.
Thus, the global demand for employee monitoring software increased by 108% in April and by 70% in May compared to the same periods in 2019. The number of Internet searches with the question “how to monitor employees working from home” increased by 1705% in April and 652% in May on an annualized basis, the study notes.
Companies developing software for employee monitoring have noticed an influx of questions regarding software sales, the authors point out. For example, in April, requests for the DeskTime tracking app grew 333%.
Remote employee monitoring methods differ, but typically include tools that track employee keystrokes, conversations, social media accounts, and the desktop. Sneek, which takes webcam footage of employees every 5 minutes, saw signups boom tenfold and reached more than 10,000 users during the pandemic, the study said.
According to a survey of the workers themselves, to whom this monitoring system is applied, the least intrusive control system is a report on the quality and volume of work performed at the end of the day. But monitoring the process itself deprives employees of autonomy and can cause “negative psychosocial consequences” such as stress or burnout, the study notes.
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