An Empirical Assessment of the Intrusiveness and Reasonableness of Emerging Work Surveillance Technologies in the Public Sector

Abstract

As public sector work environments continue to embrace the digital governance revolution, questions of work surveillance practices and its relationship to performance management continue to evolve, but even more dramatically in the contemporary period of many public servants being forced to shift to remote work from home in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. This article presents the results of three surveys, two of them population‐based survey experiments, all conducted during the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic in Canada that compare public servant (n = 346) and citizen (n = 1,008 phone; n = 2,001 web) attitudes to various cutting‐edge—though no doubt controversial among some—digital surveillance tools that can be used in the public sector to monitor employee work patterns, often targeted toward remote working conditions. The findings represent data that can help governments and public service associations navigate difficult questions of reasonable privacy intrusions in an increasing digitally connected workforce. Evidence for Practice New work surveillance technologies are available to use within the public sector and will present acceptability challenges to public managers as they contemplate the introduction of these technologies. Multimodal survey data from Canada reveals that public servants and citizens find these emerging work surveillance technologies to be quite intrusive and unreasonable but show relatively more tolerance for digital surveillance over physical surveillance practices. Understanding surveillance anxieties among targeted employees will be key to finding a balance between employee privacy rights and employer desires to manage employees in a remote or digital environment.

COVID-19 and digitalization: The great acceleration

“…From an organizational perspective, it is not clear as to whether the loss of subtle nonverbal means of communication may diminish internal efficiency, result in more misunderstandings, and reduce empathy ( Kniffin et al, 2021 ). Employees may open themselves to new forms of intrusive digital surveillance, which, even if not widely deployed, can lead to increased suspicion as to employer motives and behavior ( Charbonneau & Doberstein, 2020 ). A reduced ability to monitor worker productivity arising from the digitalization of work directly might drive firms to demand greater output from employees ( Hodder, 2020 ).…”

Risk Management: Exploring Emerging Human Resource Issues during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Given the emerging issues of performance management in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aguinis and Burgi-Tian ( 2021) have introduced the innovative Performance Promoter Score measure, which is a practical and helpful solution for dealing with the performance management challenges during and even after the crisis. Digital surveillance tools could be used to monitor employee performance in the Canadian public sector (Charbonneau and Doberstein 2020). Furthermore, it is crucial to point out the core motivators that have driven employees' performance and achievement during the pandemic, which would allow employers to prepare for a crisis well in advance, in terms of HRM (Sadhna et al 2020).…”

Introduction: COVID‐19 Viewpoint Symposium, Part II

“…Charbonneau and Doberstein (2020) consider work surveillance practices and their relationship to performance management. With so many public servants being forced to shift to remote working from home in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, such oversight is increasing in importance.…”