Employers' attempts to monitor remote workers is backfiring

Despite proof that remote work is successful, employers still want to closely monitor employees' whereabouts, including their work activity and their breaks. But their efforts to keep productivity high could be the reason it starts to fall. 

Working from home can increase productivity by up to 13%, according to a recent study from Stanford University, and yet many employers still insist on keeping pandemic-era strategies, such as mouse tracking, in an effort to ensure employees stay at their desk. This is forcing workers to try anything to keep from "going yellow." 

"[The term] refers to Teams or Slack statuses," says Hannah Yardley, chief people and culture officer at employee engagement platform Achievers. "A yellow status means an employee is away from their desk, not active, or hasn't moved their mouse for a certain period of time. But this phenomenon is stressing out employees because they feel the need to always have an active status, so that it looks like they're working with no breaks from nine to five." 

Read more: Your employees may look like they're working — but they're not

Inactivity on Teams or Slack doesn't always mean that employees are being unproductive — it could just mean an employee is taking a short break to get some fresh air or making lunch. However, employers can make the argument that employees are intentionally not working, according to Yardley, so for remote and hybrid managers who don't have visibility into what their employees are doing at all times, a yellow status can lead to suspicions or assuming the worst.

"It's not healthy, productive or sustainable, but employees still don't want to be seen as just cruising by in the world of hybrid and remote work," Yardley says. "Stress about losing jobs due to AI or an economic downturn has only heightened this anxiety, and employees want to be seen as valuable to their employers now more than ever." 

And unfortunately, their fear is justified. In June, Wells Fargo let go of more than a dozen bankers after the bank discovered the staff were "simulating keyboard activity" instead of actually working. The bank didn't include details as to how employees were getting away with false statuses, but it's safe to assume that employees were using tools like mouse togglers, which have become increasingly more popular post-pandemic, to make it seem like they were active even when they weren't. 

While organizations can use instances like the one at Wells Fargo to successfully push return-to-work incentives, using fear to encourage employee engagement can oftentimes end up counterproductive, according to Yardley. 

Read more: Why managers are to blame for 'quiet vacationing'

"Rather than empowering employees to be more productive, it just worsens productivity anxiety among the workforce," she says. "Instead of focusing on disciplining employees using keyboard togglers, organizations should shift their energy to focus on implementing programs that drive engagement, therein boosting employee productivity." 

Yardley suggests organizations invest in the factors that have been proven to make employees more committed and fulfilled, such as culture alignment, recognition, relationships at work, feedback and career progression. This can be achieved through strategies like giving employees "recharge days" by tacking on an extra day off to holiday weekends, lengthening the company's standard on lunch hours and encouraging employees to use all of their allotted PTO by recognizing those who do so.

"This tells employees that these work-life balance practices are not only welcomed by the organization, but embedded into its values," she says. "It's vital to communicate to employees, through both words and actions, that these habits are essential for employees to do their best work, feel productive and not fall victim to burnout."