Digital monitoring is no substitute for active management for successful remote work, says study

A new study from the University of California, San Diego and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examines the use of digital worker monitoring, specifically software that monitors the activities of remote workers, and tests how effective it is in improving worker performance. I’m doing it.

The results make it clear that simply applying monitoring is not enough to improve productivity. Rather, productivity is greatest when employees engage with human managers and understand the reasoning behind business decisions.

These findings may explain why corporate offices such as Amazon, Starbucks, Disney and JPMorgan have issued orders forcing employees to return to the office five days a week, according to the study’s authors. It is said that there is. will be published soon by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Many organizations have introduced new digital tools, such as digital monitoring tools and new communication platforms, to manage remote work, but without complementary management practices, these tools do not necessarily support the success of remote work. ,” said Associate Elizabeth Lyons. He is a professor of business administration at the University of California, San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and a co-author of the study.

“Our results suggest that the money spent on these digital tools may not have been well-spent, which is why many companies believe that remote work will work better in the long run. This may be one of the reasons why I am not doing so.

She added: “It would probably be a better use of resources to invest in operating capital rather than investing in surveillance technology.”

Lyons and co-author Namrata Kalla of the MIT Sloan School of Management found that in a randomized controlled trial of 434 remote workers on Upwork who were placed under digital surveillance to monitor their productivity. It tested how effective digital surveillance was.

They were able to identify relatively productive and relatively unproductive remote workers and randomly assign both types into three groups.

One-third of low-performing employees were told that their work performance was not as good as their managers expected and that they needed to continue using digital monitoring tools to improve their performance. Another group was told they needed to improve their performance, but were allowed to turn off digital monitoring tools. A third group was told they needed to improve their performance and continue using digital monitoring tools.

These statements were not linked to assess the effectiveness of the monitoring tool in cases where employees might view it as a counterproductive invasion of privacy. Therefore, continued digital surveillance cannot be justified on the basis of performance.

Among high-performing employees, one group reported performing well and, as a result, no longer needed to work with monitoring tools on. A further third said their performance was good but they needed to continue using monitoring tools. A third group was told that they had good performance and could work without being monitored, but workers’ positive performance could not be used to explain the removal of digital surveillance. did.

Both removal and continuation of digital monitoring reduce performance if not accounted for

Low-performing workers who were told to continue using digital surveillance tools without explanation were significantly less productive (approximately 17%) compared to workers who were allowed to opt out of surveillance. ).

Highly productive workers who were allowed to remove surveillance without explanation also performed significantly worse (17%) than those who remained under surveillance.

“These results make it clear that simply applying monitoring is not enough to improve productivity,” Lyons said. “They also suggest that managers need to provide clear reasons for whether they require employees to use monitoring to improve productivity.”

Lyons added that clarity appears to be key in poor performance, regardless of the actual monitoring activity.

“Even if everyone is completing the same tasks within a single job or employee, both the removal and continuation of digital monitoring can have a negative impact on performance if not accounted for,” Lyons said. said. “These results highlight that employees want to understand their managers’ decisions, which is why active management is so important.”

The results echo Lyons’ previous research showing that remote workers are more productive when they communicate regularly with their managers.

The report also found that among high-performing workers, going to work without digital monitoring tools is not perceived as a reward. Workers could not say that their job satisfaction had improved. Instead, they reported wanting more compensation.