This Survey Reveals What Employees Think About Monitoring Software

More employers are using monitoring software to watch over day-to-day operations. A survey by ExpressVPN found that employees feel uncomfortable about employers monitoring them. Most employers use these techs to monitor workflows.

Management "uneasy" about work from home arrangement

In 2020, many organisations adopted remote work arrangement to contain the spread of Covid-19. Here are some of the result of ExpressVPN's survey:

About 74% of employers said remote working "makes them feel a lack of control over their business".
69% of them were "uneasy" about remote working as "they can't observe employees in person."
More than half of employers (57%) said they don't trust their workers to work "without in-person supervision."
59% of employers don't trust their workers "without digital supervision."
Almost four out of five employers (78%) said they use monitoring software to "track employee performance and/or online activity."
Over half of employers (57%) have used these technologies in the last six months.

What do employers monitor?

According to the survey, here are the most common activities that employers monitor:

Web history and the amount of time spent on the websites (66%),
Apps used and time spent on these apps (53%),
Real-time screen monitoring (53%),
"Active work hours" and log times (46%),
"Periodic screen capture" (33%),
Chats and messaging logs (30%)

The survey also said that 81% of workers use at least one company-issued device, and 53% of the respondent employees know their company is "actively monitoring their communication and online activities." 17% of employees did not know it was possible for employers to "monitor their communication and/or online activities."

Data-based performance reviews

About 90% of employers said they "actively track time spent by employees doing work [versus] other activities unrelated to work."

73% of them said that stored recordings such as calls, messages and emails have "informed an employee's performance reviews."

46% of respondents said they had dismissed an employee based on "information collected related to their remote work."

As for employees, one out of three said they used a company computer for "purposes that they'd find embarrassing should their employer find out." These potentially embarrassing purposes include:

Chats/messages with personal friends and/or significant other (43%)
Google searches around potentially embarrassing bodily functions and/or medical topics (42%)
Chats/messages with co-workers (41%)
Visiting job application websites (40%)
Google searches around love life (37%)
Visiting inappropriate sites (30%)

Employees stressed about monitoring applications

59% of employees said they are "feeling stress and/or anxiety about their employer surveilling their online activity." Other top stressors include:

Employees "constantly wondering whether they're being watched" (41%),
Employees feeling pressured to work extended work hours (36%), and
Workers are taking less frequent breaks (32%).

About 43% of workers think that monitoring software is a "violation of trust", and 28% of them say these techs make them feel "unappreciated." 26% of employees said these monitoring software make them "feel resentment."

The survey found that most of the employees are uneasy about being monitored while working.

Working around surveillance tools

According to the survey, employees are figuring out methods to work around monitoring techs. Here are some of their methods:

Deploying anti-surveillance programs (31%),
Researching "hacks to fake online activity (25%).

In the future, 59% of employers said they are somewhat or very likely to utilise surveillance software. 21% of employers said they're "unlikely to inform" their employees if they did use these tools.

Meanwhile, over half of employees said they are likely to resign if their employer uses "surveillance measures", and 25% of them would take a pay cut to avoid being surveilled.

ExpressVPN held this survey from 15 to 21 April 2021 and involved 2,000 employers and 2,000 fully remote or hybrid employees.

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