Many workers may have the right to work from the couch, but that doesn’t mean their boss is any more relaxed than usual. If anything, that boss may be watching them more closely.
No longer able to crane their necks around the cubicle and screen employees, more and more employers have instead turned to monitoring digital productivity. According to a study by The New York Times, eight of the top 10 private employers in the US track employee productivity metrics. Some of this software measures active time, monitors key breaks, and even silently counts keystrokes.
JP Morgan, Barclays Bank and UnitedHealth Group all track employees, The Times reported, and see everything from the time it takes to write an email to keyboard activity. There are consequences when workers don’t meet expectations: a pushy note, a skipped bonus, or a work-from-home day taken away, to name a few.
For employers who surrender in the fight to get back to the office, such monitoring is a way to maintain a sense of control. As Paul Wartenberg, who installs monitor systems, told The Times, “If we give up on getting people back into the office, we won’t give up on managing productivity.”
The compromise of remote work
Most CEOs, unlike the workers themselves, are about remote work. JP Morgan’s Jaimie Dimon, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon and Tesla’s Elon Musk recently urged all their employees to return to headquarters.
But the employees are fighting back. In May, Apple workers threatened to quit after Tim Cook’s memo about a hybrid work schedule.
Since the pandemic, many knowledge workers have fought for the freedom to work anytime, anywhere. According to a Future Forum Pulse poll, most (95%) want flexibility in their working hours. The idea is that remote work allows employees to have a longer tether and be able to complete their core tasks within their own schedule.
“People don’t want a full day of meetings from 9 to 5,” Brian Elliott, executive leader of the Future Forum, told Fortune in February. “They want the flexibility to turn off notifications when it’s right for them. Maybe for caregivers it’s the flexibility to check out from 3pm to 8pm and then come back and do a bit of head down work after the kids are in bed.”
While hybrid work has recently gained popularity, many employers are reluctant to give up the war for full-time employment. Meanwhile, the number of people wanting to go into the office full-time hit its lowest level in two years in July.
But tracking every move of these remote workers doesn’t seem to mean much to employers. “We’re in this era of measurement, but we don’t know what to measure,” Ryan Fuller, former vice president of workplace intelligence at Microsoft, told the Times.
That all sounds counterproductive. Managers may waste time just using productivity trackers. Nervous remote workers may also be wasting a little time — data from Qatalag and GitLab found knowledge workers spend about 67 extra minutes a day proving they’re online and not slacking off.
The reality is that hybrid workers are the most productive, according to early research. They are more likely to feel productive, engaged, and upbeat about their performance than full-time field or office workers.
Maybe everyone would be a little more productive if they stopped trying to prove their productivity.
Sign up for the Fortune Features email list so you don’t miss our biggest features, exclusive interviews and research.