Monitoring Individual Employees Isn’t the Way to Boost Productivity

Ever since workers moved from offices to work-from-home setups, companies have worried about how they’re spending their time. Many have bought invasive “productivity monitoring” software to keep tabs on people — logging keystrokes, timing how long they’re away from their computers, even watching them through cameras. But these tools are about control more than productivity. They reflect a “squeeze ’em” view of work that uses superficial metrics that measure busyness, and employees know it — and often resent it. There is, however, a better and more empathic way to use data to improve productivity: look at where the company can improve, not individuals. By using anonymized data about how people work — where they encounter friction, where broken processes make their jobs harder — companies can reveal what about their systems isn’t working. In other words, this data should be used as a mirror, not a microscope. To do this effectively, in a way that aligns company and employee interests, employers should: make individuals anonymous, collect data at the team level, make participation opt-in, share the data with workers, invite collective problem solving, and empower teams to use this data on the local level.