Think your boss is spying on you? New research suggests you might be right. According to a Forbes Advisor survey of 2-thousand employed Americans, 43% report that their employer monitors their online activity.
The poll also reveals:
- Just over two-thirds (68%) of employees admit there’s at least one thing they’d be embarrassed to have their employer see.
- The top things people would be embarrassed to have their employer see are personal messages with friends and partners (37%), researching new job opportunities while on the clock (27%), Google searches (25%) and visited websites (24%).
- More hybrid workers report being monitored, 48% of them say their employer monitors them, compared to 37% of fully remote employees.
- A quarter of workers say the workplace surveillance makes them uncomfortable and 39% say it has a negative impact on their relationship with the job, while 43% say it negatively affects company morale.
- But four in 10 respondents report that online monitoring actually has a positive effect on their productivity.
- For 18%, being monitored by their employer has caused stress and anxiety, while 16% take fewer breaks because of being monitored.
- A third of workers have had something from their employer’s online surveillance used in their performance reviews.
- Overall, 30% of respondents feel very comfortable with their online activities at work being monitored, while 27% feel somewhat comfortable, 16% are somewhat uncomfortable and 9% say they’re very uncomfortable with it.
- And 27% claim they’d probably quit their job if their employer started monitoring their online activity.
Source: Talker