Employee monitoring software is no longer a niche tool. According to a 2024 report highlighted by Forbes, 43% of employees have had their online activity monitored by an employer. From keystroke logging to webcam snapshots, digital oversight has become normalized—often justified in the name of productivity and accountability.
Yet the data tells a more complicated story. Research from the American Psychological Association shows that electronic monitoring is associated with higher stress levels and lower job satisfaction. As organizations attempt to balance flexibility with performance expectations, leaders must ask: At what point does insight become intrusion?
Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank—a curated group of seasoned HR leaders and workforce experts—have confronted this question firsthand. Drawing on decades of executive leadership, research and advisory experience, they offer a consistent message: Trust is the cornerstone of performance, and once compromised, it is difficult to rebuild.
Support, Not Surveillance
David Bator, Managing Director of Achievers, which operates the Achievers Workforce Institute, studies the conditions that allow employees to do the best work of their lives. He believes the conversation around monitoring often misses a fundamental human need.
“Your employees want to be supported rather than surveilled,” Bator says. “Weekly check-ins have just as much utility for inspecting work and managing expectations, and also provide opportunities for positive reinforcement, coaching and career development conversations.”
Bator argues that leaders often default to clock watching when they should be investing in connection. “Instead of clock-watching, leaders should make sure they are making time to properly appreciate the big things but especially the little things their employees do every day to make a difference in the lives of customers and colleagues,” he says.
Based on Achievers’ research, “When employees are recognized just monthly by their manager for the impact in their role, they are 19 times more likely to trust their manager,” Bator says. “Trust is indeed the foundation of everything good that happens at work. Without it, you’re nowhere.”
The implication is clear: Recognition builds trust; surveillance erodes it. Monitoring may provide data, but it does not build the relational capital necessary for sustained performance.
A Trust and Engagement Killer
Steve Degnan, Advisor, Board Member and Former CHRO with two decades of experience as a Chief HR Officer at a global food and pet food company, has faced the monitoring debate repeatedly.
“This issue came up several times during my tenure as CHRO, and each time I was opposed,” Degnan says. “This is a trust and engagement killer.”
Degnan believes the solution lies not in software but in leadership philosophy. “The simple solution is developing leaders who are focused on outcomes, mission accomplishment and achievement,” he says. “They will drive productive activity leading to results.”
Rather than continuous oversight, Degnan advocates restraint. “As far as monitoring software goes, use it when you have reasonable suspicion that someone is practicing malfeasance—but only then.”
His approach aligns with a broader shift toward results-only work environments, where employees are measured by deliverables rather than visible busyness. When organizations prioritize outcomes over activity, they communicate respect. When they track every click, they communicate doubt.
“Once trust is compromised, no software can measure what has been lost.”
When Visibility Replaces Value
As Chief People and Experience Officer at Blue Zones Health, Nicole Cable focuses on long-term well-being and sustainable performance. She sees monitoring as a cultural inflection point.
“Employee monitoring may promise productivity insights, but the ethical line is crossed when trust is replaced with surveillance,” Cable says. She warns that tracking behavior rather than outcomes distorts priorities. “When organizations track behavior instead of outcomes, they signal that visibility matters more than value—and psychological safety erodes fast,” she says.
Cable points to cultural consequences that extend beyond morale. “Opaque surveillance is linked to declining trust and morale, especially in remote and hybrid teams,” she says. “It turns work into performance theater and leaders into enforcers rather than partners. People stop experimenting, stop speaking up and start optimizing for optics over impact.”
Ultimately, Cable emphasizes that technology cannot substitute for trust. “Sustainable performance comes from clarity, trust and accountability,” she says. “Once trust is compromised, no software can measure what has been lost.”
Her warning echoes APA findings linking electronic performance monitoring to emotional exhaustion. The hidden cost of surveillance may be innovation itself.
“Healthy cultures focus on clarity of outcomes and ownership—versus constant visibility.”
Policing Time vs. Driving Results
At executive search firm Odgers, Dr. Robert Satterwhite works closely with boards and senior leaders on organizational performance and culture. He draws a sharp ethical distinction.
“The ethical line gets crossed when monitoring shifts from understanding what work gets done to policing how people spend their time,” Satterwhite says.
If employees are “responsive, collaborative and consistently delivering results,” he adds, surveillance sends an unmistakable message: “I don’t trust you.”
“Over time, this approach erodes psychological safety, encourages performative behaviors over real impact and weakens accountability,” Satterwhite says. “Healthy cultures focus on clarity of outcomes and ownership—versus constant visibility.”
When monitoring replaces trust, he warns, “engagement, innovation and commitment suffer.”
In leadership circles, psychological safety has become a core predictor of high-performing teams. Monitoring that signals suspicion undermines precisely the conditions executives seek to cultivate.
A Red Flag for Leadership Gaps
Laci Loew, Fellow, HR Analyst and People Scientist at the Global Curiosity Institute, takes a systems-level view.
“Use of employee monitoring software should be done only after careful consideration of negative and potentially fraudulent action,” Loew says. “The ethical line is crossed when monitoring becomes a tool of control and invasion of privacy rather than a lever for support and growth.”
Furthermore, “Organizations that use monitoring as a means to empower rather than police their workforce will build stronger, more resilient cultures in the future of work,” she says.
By contrast, “organizations that practice inappropriate use erode employee trust and aren’t transparent—actions with correlations to higher burnout and lower organizational commitment.”
Loew offers a provocative conclusion: “Overall, organizational need for use of such software is a red flag that you have the wrong talent—leaders and employees alike.”
In other words, heavy surveillance may indicate deeper hiring, leadership or cultural issues that software cannot fix.
“What organizations need are managers who coach, not police.”
Measure Outcomes, Not Mouse Clicks
For Heide Abelli, CEO and Co-Founder of SageX Inc., an AI-powered mobile coaching platform focused on soft skills development, monitoring often signals a management failure.
“If managers were consistently doing their jobs well, companies wouldn’t need most employee monitoring software,” Abelli says.
She outlines what effective management should look like: “Strong managers set clear goals and expectations, observe work quality and progress through regular interaction and give feedback and coaching in real time.”
When those fundamentals are in place, “software that tracks keystrokes and mouse movement adds little value and just undermines trust,” she says.
Abelli sees monitoring as a shortcut. “Monitoring software becomes a crude substitute when managers don’t have the time or skill to actually manage,” she says. “Measuring activity is easier than measuring outcomes, judgment, creativity and collaboration.”
“It might be cheaper to license a software package than to invest in manager capability at scale,” she adds, “but what organizations need are managers who coach, not police.”
Her point reinforces a central theme: Productivity is relational, not mechanical.
How to Strengthen Trust
- Prioritize recognition over surveillance. Regular, meaningful recognition builds trust and drives engagement more effectively than tracking tools.
- Measure outcomes, not activity. Focus leaders on mission accomplishment and results rather than digital visibility.
- Use monitoring sparingly and transparently. Limit software to cases involving reasonable suspicion of misconduct.
- Protect psychological safety. Avoid systems that encourage performance theater instead of authentic contribution.
- Treat monitoring as a diagnostic signal. If you feel compelled to install tracking tools, examine leadership capability and talent alignment first.
- Invest in manager capability. Coaching skills, feedback loops and clear expectations reduce the perceived need for digital oversight.
The Future of Work Requires Trust and Open Communication
The rise of employee monitoring software reflects real pressures facing modern organizations: distributed teams, economic uncertainty and heightened accountability. But the insights from the Senior Executive HR Think Tank are clear—when monitoring replaces trust, culture pays the price.
The future of work will belong to organizations that measure impact without diminishing dignity. In a knowledge economy powered by creativity and collaboration, trust is not a soft value—it is a strategic asset. Leaders who remember that may find they need fewer dashboards and far more conversations.
