FROM WATCHED AT WORK TO WATCHED AT HOME: WORKPLACE SURVEILLANCE DURING A PANDEMIC

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities and new tensions related to workplace surveillance. Monitoring workers via digital tools to analyze everything from keystrokes to email and social media to the websites they visit is increasingly common, and the shift to remote work in the early days of the pandemic led many employers to consider new ways to monitor their employees while working from home. In this paper, we consider how the pandemic has affected office workers’ experience of surveillance, focusing on the types of monitoring they currently experience and their concerns related to future forms of surveillance. In particular, we unpack the sociotechnical implications of shifting work surveillance practices due to COVID-19, focusing on how evolving and emergent workplace surveillance practices may impact workers. Using factorial vignettes, survey respondents (N=645) read and responded to 35 scenarios about future workplace surveillance practices. Each scenario randomly varied four factors about workplace monitoring: the type of data being collected, the purpose for data collection, the actors who can access the data, and the transmission principle guiding data collection. For each scenario, respondents assessed both the appropriateness of each scenario and how concerning they found it. We evaluate this data, as well as data about respondents’ work environment before and during the pandemic, using Nissenbaum’s framework of privacy as contextual integrity. We also consider the potential harms associated with different types of monitoring.

Covid-19 and Employee Surveillance

While working from home is not a new concept, the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic has, for many in the workforce, rendered it the ‘new normal’, concomitant with enhanced use of workplace surveillance technologies to monitor and track staff working from home. Even prior to the global pandemic, organisations were increasingly using a variety of electronic surveillance methods to monitor their employees and the places where they work, whether it be in an office building or remotely. This technology traverses various facets of the work environment, including email communications, web browsing, the use of active badges for locating and tracking employees, and the gathering of personal information by employers. The application of these technologies, nevertheless, raises privacy concerns, which are exacerbated when work is undertaken in employees’ own homes, a phenomenon that has become more prevalent due to Covid-19. This article addresses the issue of electronic workplace monitoring, its implications for employees’ privacy and the role of collective bargaining in addressing this emergent practice, which has also been given new impetus during the pandemic.

The Implications of Digital Employee Monitoring and People Analytics for Power Relations in the Workplace

Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison project was based on three central assumptions: the omnipresence of the “watcher”; the universal visibility of objects of surveillance; and the assumption, by the “watched,” that they are under constant observation. While the metaphor of the panopticon, following Michel Foucault’s work, was often applied to workplace and workplace surveillance to highlight the “disciplining” power of the supervisor’s “gaze,” this paper argues that it is only with the recent advent of digital employee monitoring technology that the workplace is becoming truly “panoptic.” With modern electronic means of surveillance, the supervisor is always “looking”—even when not physically present or not actually watching employees—as all worker actions and movements may now be recorded and analyzed (in real time or at any time in the future). This paper argues that the modern workplace approximates Bentham’s panoptic prison much more than the “traditional” workplace ever did and examines the implications of this fundamental historical change in the paradigm of employee monitoring for power relations in the modern workplace.

Special Issue “Applications of Photoacoustic Spectroscopy”

Photoacoustic spectroscopy is one of the most exciting areas of research in physics and chemistry, covering a broad range of applications from agricultural to biological, including atmospheric monitoring, space science, and air-quality measurements to security and workplace surveillance, in addition to its great potential in preclinical and clinical biomedical applications [...]

Algorithmic Surveillance in the Gig Economy: The Organization of Work through Lefebvrian Conceived Space

Workplace surveillance is traditionally conceived of as a dyadic process, with an observer and an observee. In this paper, I discuss the implications of an emerging form of workplace surveillance: surveillance with an algorithmic, as opposed to human, observer. Situated within the on-demand food-delivery context, I draw upon Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad to provide in-depth conceptual examination of how platforms rely on conceived space, namely the virtual reality generated by data capture, while neglecting perceived and lived space in the form of the material embodied reality of workers. This paper offers a two-fold contribution. First, it applies Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad to the techno-centric digital cartography used by platform-mediated organisations, assessing spatial power dynamics and opportunities for resistance. Second, this paper advances organisational research into workplace surveillance in situations where the observer and decision-maker can be a non-human agent.

Dataveillance in the Workplace: Managing the Impact of Innovation

Background: Monitoring and surveillance are a fundamental part of the workplace environment, with employee performance and productivity as the main objects of scrutiny. However, many questions surround the ethical nature of managements’ ability to employ advanced digital technologies to monitor employee behaviour and performance while in the workplace. If unaddressed, these concerns have the potential to significantly impact the relationship between the employee and the employer, impacting trust in management resulting in negative attitudes and counterproductive behaviours.Objectives: The goal of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of workplace surveillance whilst outlining some of the emerging issues relating to the use of employee monitoring technologies in the workplace.Methods/Approach: A detailed review of the literature was conducted in order to identify the major issues relating to workplace surveillance. In addition, a number of practitioner-based studies were examined to extract and identify emerging trends and concerns at an industry level.Results: Workplace surveillance is on the rise; however, empirical studies are in short supply.Conclusions: The issue of workplace surveillance is an under-researched area, which requires much attention. There is a distinct need for clear measures and structures that govern the effective and fair use of communication technologies in the workplace.

New Means of Workplace Surveillance Model: From the Gaze of the Supervisor to the Digitalization of Employee Performance

Based on a data collection using the puzzle method. This method allowed us, first, to collect new types of data on Tunisian workers, in order to better quantify and analyse their activities. As a result, this study shows the consequences of the excessive use of employee behaviour monitoring tools and control devices established in Tunisian companies after the events of 14 January 2011. Indeed, it has been found that the system of control and monitoring of employee behaviors can feed the sources of stress and burn-out. Finally, some recommendations were proposed to address these issues.

Internet of Things technology applications in the workplace environment: a critical review

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the use of IoT technology (RFID technology, sensor networks, wearable devices and other smart items) in office settings and its respective impact on the optimization of employees’ productivity and workspace effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews 41 relevant publications reporting IoT use in office settings to identify how this technology has been applied in office settings and what topics are mostly addressed in the literature; how IoT technology improves employees’ productivity; and what the benefits and risks associated with IoT use in the workplace environment are. Findings Two main areas of application of IoT technology in the workplace environment were identified. The first one concerns the influence of the physical characteristics of workplaces on aspects related to workspace effectiveness. The second one is employee-centered and concerns the use of IoT data to identify employees’ social behavior, physiological data and emotional estates associated with productivity. IoT technology provides real-time data with speedy information retrieval. However, its deployment in office settings is not exempt from risks. Employee workplace surveillance, re-individualization of the IoT data and employee refusal of IoT technology in office settings are the main risks associated with this technology. Originality/value This literature review categorizes IoT application in office settings according to two perspectives and highlights employees' attitudes, user-experience of IoT technology and the risks associated with this technology. These results will help researchers and workplace managers interested in the deployment of this technology in the workplace environment.