On the Clock and at Home: Post-COVID-19 Employee Monitoring in the Workplace: As companies take actions to ensure productivity, maintain protocols and protect workplace health, increased monitoring cannot be the end goal. HR professionals know this well, but the research suggests that many managers, supervisors and executives may not. The WFH shift triggered by COVID-19 has rapidly expanded deployment of potentially invasive tools and put them in the hands of reasonably inexperienced supervisors.

Organizations considering monitoring tools should have a robust discussion about what they are trying to achieve. Instituting monitoring without clear boundaries and goals risks privacy violations, additional work and a culture of surveillance.