“ALMOST EV ERYONE PAYS LIP SERV ICE TO A PEOPLE-CENTRIC AGENDA, BUT W H AT COMPANIES DO BEHIND CLOSED DOORS OFTEN TELLS A DIFFERENT STORY” Words_Simon Caulkin in the covid-induced move to working from home, one business is booming: developing and selling surveillance software to monitor remote employees’ behaviour via their computers and phones. Some companies are quietly installing similar programmes in their offices, too. People detest and resist this kind of tracking. It is self-defeating, damaging business performance by sabotaging trust on both sides. (We examine this phenomenon on page 56 of this edition.) “High trust is a dividend, low trust is a tax”, one author reminds us. Mental and physical health are also casualties. People at companies where electronic monitoring is the rule are more stressed and unhappy, less energetic and burn out more than those who work in a trusting environment. Bottom line: surveillance is bad for the bottom line. All this has been known for years and is backed by reams of research. So why on earth does it get signed off? Unfortunately, you can ask the same question of many other management and motivation practices. Take pay. Almost all companies use incentives and pay-forperformance programmes of one kind or another. Again, the evidence suggests that most fail to achieve their objectives and simply cause employee dissatisfaction. What’s more, whether it’s carried out in companies, university faculties or baseball teams, the research is
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