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July 24, 2025
Productivity monitoring in hybrid and remote teams can set clear expectations and improve consistency, but ethical use hinges on transparency, proportionality, and trust. The most sustainable approach focuses on outcomes and respectful data practices rather than intrusive surveillance.
Has hybrid and remote work transformed your business? If it has, you’re not alone. Recent studies suggest that around 63% of employers are offering remote or hybrid working arrangements where possible, and it has transformed the way many companies operate.
Remote and hybrid work is linked to increased productivity, lower operational costs and improved hiring outcomes due to a wider talent pool. Companies suffering as a result of the changes include real estate companies with large offices available for lease, and city centre food outlets relying on hungry workers seeking out lunches.
The switch to a hybrid arrangement means that workers might return to the office a few days a week to enjoy some face-to-face time with colleagues, while others have clung to their remote working status. For managers in charge of a distributed workforce, it raises some interesting new challenges.
When workers are not visible and in the office, it can be difficult to know what they are really up to. Companies with low levels of trust in employees might turn to productivity monitoring to help ease their anxieties that workers are taking a full salary to sit at home and do nothing. But this approach could do more harm than good, with workers spending more time trying to trick the productivity monitors than they spend focusing on their work.
There’s also the risk that productivity monitoring could erode trust and damage relationships with workers, leaving them wondering if they should start their search for another job.
In this guide, we’re looking at the benefits and potential pitfalls of productivity monitoring and the ethics behind this practice. By the end of this short read, you should have a clearer idea if this is something you want to implement for your workforce, and how to do it ethically.
When workers are not present in the office, it can be difficult to know if they are getting the job done. When output relies on everyone pulling their weight, it can be damaging when team members are not delivering on expectations, just because they are out of the office.
Productivity monitoring includes methods like tracking when users are active, requesting screen access, or using digital time-logging tools to allow workers to clock in and clock out. This can help to ensure workers are arriving on time, remaining active throughout the day, and sticking around until the end of the day.
| Topic | Key Point |
|---|---|
| Why monitor? | Set expectations, support consistency across office and home, and address repeat issues fairly. |
| Risks | Intrusive tools and surprise checks erode trust, morale, and the flexibility benefits of remote work. |
| Ethical principles | Transparency, proportionality, fairness, and accountability guide responsible monitoring. |
| Data practices | Minimise data, restrict access, and set clear retention periods aligned to the stated purpose. |
| Communication | Explain what is tracked, how it’s used, and how workers can raise questions or concerns. |
| Measures to prefer | Prioritise outcomes and deliverables over keystrokes, screenshots, or constant activity checks. |
| Policy & training | Provide a written policy, manager training, and regular reviews to prevent overreach. |
Implementing productivity monitoring can help to set expectations for workers, so they know what is expected of them, whether they are in the office or not. By establishing expectations, you remove any guesswork and can quickly take action if workers are falling short. If a worker arriving 45 minutes late to the office every day would be problematic, then there is no issue in implementing the same expectations when they are working from home.
Issues arise when this productivity monitoring is either intrusive, or carried out in a way that is designed to surprise workers. There is also the risk that the benefits of working from home could be lost if the worker has to stick to a strict schedule of productivity.
The case against productivity monitoring often hinges on the concept of trust. Do you trust your employees to get their job done? Do you trust them to manage their workload so they give themselves enough time to achieve what they need to achieve?
Junior members of staff might need more guidance and support to stay on task, or they might need to be available in a support capacity, so demands on their time might come in ebbs and flows. Whereas more senior members of staff should know what is expected and when the work needs to be completed. Their view of their employer might be damaged if they feel that their supervisor doesn’t trust them to manage their own time.
Build credibility through open communication, clear expectations, and fair use of data. Trust-first cultures see better engagement than teams managed by surprise surveillance.
Prioritise goals, deliverables, and service levels over keystrokes and screenshots. Align monitoring to business outcomes and review its necessity regularly.
Rather than looking for signs of activity and using digital tools to monitor if workers are active during the day, a better measure of productivity would be output.
The output – or the work produced – is surely the only thing that matters. When looking at factors that will move the needle in business, it’s output and not hours worked that will deliver measurable impact.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if a worker spends all day on a document and manages to get it over the finish line in the last few minutes of the day, or whether they have a stroke of inspiration at the start of the day and manage to cross it off their list.
If you use output as the measure of productivity, trust is restored and workers are able to prioritise doing their best work in a way that suits the flow of their day, giving them the freedom to ride the waves of inspiration as the strike.
Building trust while maintaining productivity starts with having the right people in the right roles. Post your vacancy with CMD Recruitment and find talent that thrives in any work environment.
