Electronic performance monitoring

One implication of the pandemic emergency and the consequent mass transition to telework is that many supervisors can no longer observe their employees throughout the workday via traditional “management by walking around.” Much attention from the popular press has focused on organizations turning to electronic performance monitoring (EPM) software to track individuals as they work remotely (e.g., Allyn, Reference Allyn2020; Satariano, Reference Satariano2020) in an attempt to satisfy the need to see exactly what their employees are doing. At the anecdotal level, the subjects of these press pieces express discomfort with their organizations tracking their behaviors in their own home, particularly when the monitoring is secretive or may capture non-work-related information. There is some evidence that the relationship between EPM use and perceptions of privacy invasion may vary based on whether non-work-related information is captured (e.g,. McNall & Roch, Reference McNall and Roch2007), but the pandemic presents opportunities to better understand the monitoring characteristics that individuals perceive as unacceptable, particularly when monitoring occurs in their home, and how they may respond to such intrusions.

Existing work on EPM offers some guidance on how organizations should implement monitoring during these times. Research generally suggests that well-understood best practices in human resource management such as honesty and procedural transparency should continue to guide how organizations monitor workers, regardless of the temptation of electronic surveillance devices (e.g., Oswald etal., Reference Oswald, Behrend, Putka and Sinar2020; Yost etal., Reference Yost, Behrend, Howardson, Darrow and Jensen2019). Individuals tend to feel their privacy is most intruded upon when monitoring is secretive (e.g., Zweig & Webster, Reference Zweig and Webster2003) or is used for surveillance purposes (i.e., monitoring with no clear purpose beyond a desire to collect information or assert control; Ravid etal., Reference Ravid, Tomczak, White and Behrend2020). As such, organizations deciding to start using monitoring systems strictly out of fear that their employees will abuse affordances associated with remote work are likely to be perceived as privacy intrusive and may be met with decreased perceptions of procedural justice (McNall & Roch, Reference McNall and Roch2007) and job satisfaction (Thompson etal., Reference Thompson, Sebastianelli and Murray2009) while also creating a more stressful work environment (Mallo etal., Reference Mallo, Nordstrom, Bartels and Traxler2007) during an already highly stressful time. Moreover, there is scant evidence to suggest that EPM for surveillance purposes improves performance and some evidence for moderate negative performance effects (Becker & Marique, Reference Becker and Marique2014). Thus, organizations that turn to EPM during the pandemic should do so with a clear and transparent rationale for how the monitoring will specifically assist individuals in meeting personal and organizational goals.

Health monitoring

The pandemic crisis provides new opportunities to investigate the extent of privacy that individuals are willing to sacrifice to ensure their own and others’ health and safety at work, and how individuals respond to such trade-offs. The CDC guidelines for employers recommend organizations conduct “daily in-person or virtual health checks (e.g., symptom and/or temperature screening) of employees before they enter work” as individuals return to workplaces (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Beyond formal health monitoring, less formal peer monitoring may also take place as individuals remain sensitized to symptoms of COVID-19 in others. Individuals are generally resistant to the idea of physiological monitoring in workplaces (e.g., Tomczak etal., Reference Tomczak, Zarsky, Mancarella and Behrend2020), but research on this subject is not specific to monitoring for health or safety, and it is certainly outside the context of a pandemic emergency. There is a clear need for research exploring how individuals respond to formal and less formal means of health monitoring in workplaces, the individual and contextual factors influencing such responses, and the evolution of responses over time and with various environmental shifts (e.g., pandemic prevalence, policy changes, media coverage). Of note, individuals tend to report greater privacy concerns when monitoring has the potential to cost them financially (Bolderdijk etal., Reference Bolderdijk, Steg and Postmes2013). Health monitoring is thus likely to be received more favorably in organizations providing leave compensation to those that screen positive for symptoms than in organizations choosing not to provide such benefits.

Health disclosures

Another implication of the pandemic emergency is that a large number of individuals will need to decide whether to reveal private health information to employers in order to obtain safety accommodations (e.g., personal protective equipment, temporary adjustments to job responsibilities). Recent estimates suggest 41.4 million adults in the United States ages 18 to 64 are at risk for severe COVID-19 symptoms due to an underlying medical condition such as heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, or autoimmune disorders (Koma etal., Reference Koma, Neuman, Claxton, Rae, Kates and Michaud2020). The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2020) recently clarified that those with conditions that put them at high risk for severe COVID-19 are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act and as such may request and discuss reasonable accommodations that help protect them from the virus. In effect, the risk for severe illness from COVID-19 represents a current workplace disability for many. Individuals who may have preferred to keep their health information private instead will need to have a dialogue about their condition with their employer and receive accommodations that may reveal their health status to colleagues.

The large number of workers who will need to seek work accommodations during the pandemic presents research opportunities to better understand the nature of health privacy and disclosure experiences. We know that the process of revealing a concealable attribute such as a health condition at work is often accompanied by fear of stigmatization and differential treatment (Jones & King, Reference Jones and King2014) and that individuals who are young or have recently acquired a disability may be least likely to disclose their condition to request work accommodations (Baldridge & Swift, Reference Baldridge and Swift2013). Scholars are encouraged to take this opportunity to conduct research to better understand the decision processes and experiences of those who do and do not decide to disclose private health information, ideally with longitudinal research to capture the experiences prior to and following disclosure. An interesting question is to what degree the extreme salience of a pandemic will impart legitimacy to requests for accommodations that has not always been afforded to those who seek accommodations for concealable disabilities (Santuzzi etal., Reference Santuzzi, Waltz, Finkelstein and Rupp2014). From a practice standpoint, organizations where supervisors and policies are viewed as more employee supportive can expect individuals to feel more comfortable disclosing private information (Ragins etal., Reference Ragins, Singh and Cornwell2007). Organizations should additionally anticipate that a portion of their employees may have undisclosed health conditions and consider proactively implementing reasonable accommodations where possible to mitigate the need for disclosures.

Information security

The transition to telecommuting during the pandemic has introduced other threats to privacy that warrant research scrutiny. Organizations with little experience in long-term remote work may lack the security infrastructure to protect employee and client privacy. Recent news stories about telecommuter targeted cyberattacks (Sanger & Perlroth, Reference Sanger and Perlroth2020) highlight the potential for malicious privacy intrusions and the need for organizations to incorporate security awareness programs into training curricula. Less malicious, but also concerning, is the risk of incidental exposure of private information from one’s living space or personal life as individuals telecommute from home, particularly for the many who do not have a home office or a partitioned workspace. Evidence suggests online workers often express concern about informational security and privacy (Kang etal., Reference Kang, Brown, Dabbish and Kiesler2014), and research efforts are needed to understand the degree to which similar privacy concerns characterize and affect work during and following the pandemic.

Privacy norms

An important question for researchers and practitioners alike is to what degree privacy expectations formed during the pandemic will persist as individuals return to workplaces? Many individuals working from home may perceive greater privacy with the increased control over their work processes, work environment, and work interactions. Perceptions of privacy intrusion are anchored to contextual norms (Bhave etal., Reference Bhave, Teo and Dalal2020), and workplace practices that may have once been routine (e.g., close monitoring) may be perceived as invasive upon return to workplaces. Organizations will need to adapt their human resource policies and practices to align with new privacy norms that emerge from the pandemic. Researchers can aid in these adjustments by conducting intervention research to best inform organizations on how to effectively reintegrate individuals back into workplaces.