About half of US workers know their employer monitors them with technology: 51% in the American Psychological Association's 2023 survey. Monitored workers report more stress and are nearly twice as likely to plan to leave. Every figure on this page comes from a named survey, study or regulator, with its year and a link.
Key takeaways
- 51% of US workers say their employer monitors them with technology (APA, 2023).
- 56% of monitored workers feel tense or stressed at work, against about 40% of other workers.
- 70% of UK adults would find monitoring by an employer intrusive (ICO, 2023).
- Only 12% of leaders are fully confident their hybrid team is productive (Microsoft, 2022).
How common is employee monitoring?
- 51%
of US workers know their employer uses technology to monitor them
APA, 2023 - 60%
of large employers used tools to track workers in 2022, double the share at the start of the pandemic
Gartner, 2022 - 19%
of UK adults believe an employer has monitored them
ICO, 2023
The APA figure counts only people who know they are monitored, so treat it as a floor. In the same survey it was 49% among office workers and 55% in customer, client and patient services.
In the UK survey, people who believed they had been monitored were asked how. Timekeeping and access monitoring was the most common answer (40%). Monitoring of emails, files, calls or messages came next (25%). Screenshots or webcam footage was the least common (10%).
How do monitored employees feel?
The APA compared workers who are monitored with workers who are not. The gap shows up on every measure.
| Statement | Monitored workers | Workers who are not monitored |
|---|---|---|
| Typically feel tense or stressed during the workday | 56% | About 40% |
| Feel micromanaged | 51% | 33% |
| Uncomfortable with how their employer tracks them | 46% | 23% |
| Intend to look for a new job | 42% | 23% |
| Feel emotionally exhausted | 39% | 22% |
| Rate their mental health as fair or poor | 32% | 24% |
- Monitored workers42%
- Workers who are not monitored23%
Source: APA 2023 Work in America survey, conducted by The Harris Poll among 2,515 employed US adults in April 2023.
A survey like this shows an association, not a cause. Workplaces that monitor heavily may differ in other ways too. It is still the clearest picture available of how monitoring and strain travel together.
Do managers and staff see monitoring the same way?
No. In the APA survey, the people who choose monitoring were far more positive about it than the people who live with it.
- Upper management79%
- Front line55%
- Middle management54%
- Individual contributors42%
Source: APA 2023 Work in America survey.
What does the public think?
The UK regulator asked 1,012 adults in August 2023. 70% said they would find monitoring by an employer intrusive. Only 19% would feel comfortable taking a new job if they knew they would be monitored, and 57% would feel uncomfortable.
The method matters a great deal.
- Monitoring of personal devices83%
- Audio or video recording78%
- Screenshots or webcam footage77%
- Timekeeping and access monitoring47%
Source: ICO survey, carried out by Survation.
In the United States, a Pew Research Center survey of 11,004 adults in December 2022 found that 81% thought using AI to monitor workers would leave them feeling inappropriately watched.
What do leaders believe about productivity?
Microsoft surveyed 20,006 workers in 11 countries in 2022 and found a wide gap between how productive people say they are and how confident leaders feel. Microsoft named it productivity paranoia.
- 87%
of employees say they are productive at work
Microsoft, 2022 - 85%
of leaders say hybrid work makes it hard to be confident that people are productive
Microsoft, 2022 - 12%
of leaders have full confidence that their team is productive
Microsoft, 2022
Controlled research points the other way. A randomized trial of 1,612 employees, published in Nature in 2024, found that working from home two days a week had no effect on performance reviews or promotions and cut resignations by a third. See productivity paranoia for what to do about the gap.
What have regulators fined?
European data protection authorities have fined employers for monitoring that went too far.
| Year | Regulator | Company | Fine | What it was for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Hamburg, Germany | H&M service center | €35.3 million | Extensive records of details from employees' private lives |
| 2023 | CNIL, France | Amazon France Logistique | €32 million | An excessively intrusive system for monitoring employee activity and performance |
| 2024 | CNIL, France | A real estate company | €40,000 | Software that counted periods of inactivity and took regular screenshots, plus constant filming |
The rules behind these cases are covered in employee monitoring under GDPR.
What happens when activity becomes the target?
People optimize for whatever is measured. In 2024, Wells Fargo dismissed more than a dozen employees over simulated keyboard activity. When the measure is keyboard and mouse movement, some people will fake keyboard and mouse movement. See mouse jigglers and fake activity.
How should you use these numbers?
Before you quote a monitoring statistic
- Name the year and who was surveyed. A figure about large employers says nothing about small ones.
- Keep employer figures and worker figures apart. They measure different things.
- Check who paid for the survey.
- Say "is associated with", not "causes", for survey comparisons.
The pattern across these sources is consistent. Monitoring is common, the people being monitored are uneasy about it, and the methods they object to most are the ones that reach into private life. That is the reasoning behind how BirdsEye is built: tracking runs only inside working hours, every employee can read the rules applied to them, and screenshots can be blurred. See security and privacy.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of employers monitor their employees?
Gartner reported in 2022 that 60% of large employers used tools to track workers, double the share at the start of the pandemic. From the worker side, 51% of US workers told the APA in 2023 that they knew their employer monitored them with technology.
Does monitoring increase employee stress?
Monitored workers report more of it. In the APA's 2023 survey, 56% of monitored workers typically felt tense or stressed during the workday, against about 40% of workers who were not monitored. The survey shows an association, not proof of cause.
How do employees feel about being monitored?
Mostly uneasy. 70% of UK adults told the ICO they would find monitoring by an employer intrusive, and 46% of monitored US workers told the APA they were uncomfortable with how their employer tracked them.
Which kind of monitoring do people object to most?
Monitoring of personal devices. 83% of UK adults rated it intrusive in the ICO's survey, compared with 47% for timekeeping and access monitoring.
Sources
- American Psychological Association: 2023 Work in America survey, monitoring
- Gartner: The Right Way to Monitor Your Employee Productivity
- ICO: guidance to ensure lawful monitoring in the workplace, with survey results
- Pew Research Center: AI in hiring and evaluating workers
- Microsoft Work Trend Index: Hybrid work is just work
- Bloom, Han and Liang: Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance, Nature, 2024
- Hunton: Hamburg DPA imposes €35.3 million fine on H&M
- CNIL: Amazon France Logistique fined €32 million
- Lewis Silkin: real estate company fined for excessive surveillance
- Finextra: Wells Fargo fires employees for simulating keyboard activity