Companies monitor employees and they are okay with it

When asked if they would voluntarily give their company access to work-related instant messages and email text data to help identify and resolve employee experience issues, 43% of respondents said “probably yes” or “definitely yes,” according to a survey of 1,000 people. office workers led by experience management company Qualtrics.

The number of people who agreed to have their company listen to their work activity was significantly higher than what HR leaders predicted, said Qualtrics chief workplace psychologist Benjamin Granger. However, employees still draw the line at companies looking at their activities outside of work, such as their social media, even if they are anonymous, he added.

“If you’re on a work device and you’re at work, they feel more comfortable with that,” Granger said wealth. “You can see that clear fall line, like that comfort level that goes down once you start getting to things outside of work.”

Granger said this type of “passive listening,” which uses anonymous data that can’t be traced to a single employee, is often a better tool for executives to identify employee issues than surveys. Instead of leaders asking specific questions in surveys that may not address all employee concerns, AI-enabled passive listening could help them uncover issues they may not have been aware of, such as burnout and disengagement.

“Surveys are great, and management needs the opportunity to ask questions, but sometimes employees have ideas, they have problems – they see something wrong with the customer that management doesn’t, and they need an open line of communication” , Granger said. .

The surprising tolerance for using artificial intelligence to help analyze work-related data stands in stark contrast to the public’s perception of the role of artificial intelligence in everyday life. A 2023 Pew Research poll found that just over half of Americans were more worried than excited about using AI in their daily lives.

However, the idea of ​​an employer eavesdropping on work-related activities was still off-putting to just under a third of employees surveyed — with the remainder saying “maybe” — and Atlanta entrepreneur and business executive Jay McDonald said the wrong move . it could damage a company’s reputation and prevent it from attracting top talent. Anything that damages trust between employers and employees could be a disaster, he added.

“Trust is the glue between an employee and a business and between a business and a customer, and if you do something in that monitoring, or spying, or AI, or technology, any of those ways, it erodes that trust, then it erodes. trust and ultimately it will kill your business,” he said.

To avoid such a reputation, Qualtrics’ Granger suggests companies start implementing “passive listening” programs gradually, with full transparency and permission from employees, so they don’t condemn the idea from the start.

“If employees see value in it, they’ll generally become more comfortable with it over time,” he said.

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