Significance of Monitoring and Control for Employees’ Felt Trust, Motivation, and Mastery

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to investigate the importance of monitoring and employee control for employees '

Monitoring remote employees: implications for HR

“…In order for employee monitoring to lead to the appropriate outcomes (specifically productivity and effectiveness), employers need to balance their own needs (e.g. the want to control and record work activities and productivity) with employees’ desire to be valued and trusted by their employers (Bernstrøm and Svare, 2017). This brings us to the other side of the coin when it comes to employee monitoring and surveillance.…”

“…At this stage, the input of employees – and other employee representatives – need to be consulted to test the situational boundaries and appropriateness of different monitoring features given the activities that would be monitored (Abraham et al , 2019). In addition, industry, professional and cultural differences should also need to be considered in terms of how employees respond to monitoring (Abraham et al , 2019; Bernstrøm and Svare, 2017). By law, varying by jurisdiction, many more stakeholders might expect to have a say on how and when employees are monitored.…”

“…turnover, efficiency and morale). This ensures that monitoring does not dispirit teams or undermine trust in management (Bernstrøm and Svare, 2017).…”

Be Careful How You Do It: The Distinct Effects of Observational Monitoring and Interactional Monitoring on Employee Trust

“…Although sometimes perceived as invasive, these OM practices like electronic monitoring have been considered conducive to encouraging employee compliance and preventing counterproductive work behaviors [17]. However, as emerging technologies create novel OM measures and empower existing ones, researchers have started to unfold the undesired side of OM, which is claimed to be responsible for a series of negative outcomes, especially in psychological terms, e.g., higher stress [18], anxiety [19], lower felt trust [20], and reduced satisfaction, intrinsic work motivation, and affective organizational commitment [21]. In the light of these findings, the current study contends that OM will undermine employee trust because it will hurt both their cognitive trust as well as affective trust in their management.…”

Designing Administrative Reforms for Maintaining Trust

“…Here, management is dependent on reciprocity between the person who manages and the one who is affected-it is management based on trust. Several studies study the feeling of being trusted, (Deng & Wang, 2009;Dirks & Ferrin, 2001;Lau et al, 2014), especially the negative effect of monitoring and controlling the feeling of trust (Bernstrøm & Svare, 2017;Falk & Kosfeld, 2006;Westin, 1992). These approaches, thus, tend to contrast authority-based and trust-based management, something that is also mirrored in recent popular notions, such as 'trustreforms', which refers to the need to reduce authority-based governance and management forms in order to increase the basis of trust in public management (Andreasson, 2017).…”