A new Morning Consult poll asked about monitoring employees – roughly half of tech workers who are not monitored at work… would resign rather than be subjected to facial recognition or have their employer record audio or video of them. The survey also found that more than half of tech workers would not take a new job in their field if the company used a surveillance technique.
Let’s pair that with another piece of research – Cisco looked at the views of remote workers on their reliability… and while employees say they can be relied upon, they don’t feel the same about their coworkers. 75% of respondents said their manager trusted them to be productive while working remotely, yet a lower proportion (61%) felt their colleagues could be trusted to do the same.
Workers also felt that bosses were more likely to micromanage when working remotely or in hybrid arrangements, with 43% of respondents reporting those micromanaging behaviors had increased.
All this in a landscape of slowing hiring – Protocol noted 61 tech companies with layoffs in May, with about 16,000 employees laid off. Note that tech is considered contrasting to other industries, with US employers generally adding more jobs than expected.
Employees believe they can be trusted but naturally distrust others. And they don’t want their bosses using tech to watch them. This is why culture will be so critical now – and those that are bad at it want everyone back In the office. Managers can’t use the tech to monitor employees and instead will have to do the hard work of building trust and teams… and they will have to do it without everyone being next to one another.
If you’re not investing significant time in this problem, you should be worried.