Balancing Trust and Surveillance in Hybrid Work: Insights from a Pilot Study on Workplace Monitoring

Abstract

Many knowledge workers have shifted to work hybrid by being partly in the office and partly at remote locations. This brings freedom for knowledge workers, but managers are concerned about the performance of their workforce when they are not working from the office. One means to check performance constantly is by collecting and analyzing performance and behavior data to monitor employees, which is a form of algorithmic control. On the one hand, this can lead to conflicts between employees and managers as employees feel that managers mistrust them. On the other hand, employees might trust transparent monitoring that helps them focus on core tasks. To learn more about balancing trust and surveillance, this pilot study surveyed 45 knowledge workers in an engineering company in Denmark, a country with high levels of trust in society. We developed an online survey to investigate managers’ and employees’ opinions about workplace monitoring. We found that all participants had a negative to neutral attitude toward monitoring, although managers were slightly more favorable. Furthermore, data collection for work-related purposes to improve the work situation might be appropriate, although a trustful relationship between managers and employees is the most important. Thus, if a form of monitoring is going to be introduced at the workplace, it is essential that all stakeholders – managers, employees, HR, and union representatives – are involved and that complete transparency is achieved in terms of which data is collected and for which purposes. Only then can a balance between trust and surveillance be achieved, including maintaining a positive working climate.