As employers facing the novel coronavirus sent their workers home this spring, some worried how the change would impact productivity. In a tech-enabled world, one solution gained particular popularity: productivity monitoring.

The pandemic also drove employer interest in another form of monitoring — contact tracing. Since COVID-19 spread throughout the U.S., several services have emerged, offering tools that allow employers to track which workers may have come into contact with the virus.

Below are five stories that delineate the nature of productivity monitoring and contact tracing and explore the tricky compliance questions these topics create.