The year may be 2025, but the future of work looks more like “1984,” if company review analysis by Glassdoor is any indication. References to “corporate surveillance” are up 51% year over year for the first quarter of 2025, according to the site’s April 2025 report.
Not only have “corporate surveillance” mentions increased since this time last year, but references are up 216% since Q1 2021.
A lead Glassdoor researcher, Chris Martin, attributed this uptick to the popularity of remote work at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and advancements in remote monitoring, working together in tandem.
Still, Martin’s analysis of Glassdoor reviews raised the question of whether it was a “necessary evil” or an “Orwellian corporate overreach.”
How remote monitoring affects workplace culture
One of the reviews highlighted in the report acknowledged that productivity monitoring software was installed on laptops with the goal of employees continuing to work from home — “allowing for greater efficiency and less time wasted driving and involved in office distractions.”
Still, it seems like remote monitoring could be its own distraction. Part of Glassdoor’s report highlighted the ongoing discourse around mouse jigglers, which boost the appearance of socially acceptable productivity.
Worth noting is that in a 2023 Glassdoor report, 40% of workers stated that, actually, monitoring made them feel less productive.
Trust was also a recurring theme in the report, but that has long been an issue when it comes to corporate surveillance.
For example, in a 2024 Forbes report, more than 50% of workers polled said they were either very or somewhat comfortable with their online activities being monitored by their boss. Another 19% said they felt neutral about it.
Still, 59% of Forbes survey respondents said they had ethical concerns around remote monitoring.
One review highlighted by Glassdoor in the report named the installation of ActivTrak software as a move that tanked employee morale. (Sapience and Worksmart were other software products named across Glassdoor entries.)
In the review that mentioned ActivTrak, the Glassdoor user noted that their employer had taken note of how remote monitoring had affected worker morale — and vowed to focus on “improving company culture” in 2025.
Worker discomfort remains, despite popularity
Remote monitoring encompasses a wide range of behaviors, from keystroke recording to time and attendance data analysis. Sometimes employers achieve this with newfangled software, and other times, they do so through pre-existing systems such as Slack and Teams.
No matter how employers decide to track their workers’ productivity, data suggests that underlying unease persists.
“Employees hate being watched too closely — and more and more feel that this is the case,” Martin said in the report. “While employers may want to catch employees who are playing hooky, the impact of surveillance on your team’s sense of being trusted to do their work may not be worth it.”
An operations VP at an HR consulting company put it even more succinctly in their highlighted Glassdoor review: “Trust your talent instead of monitoring their every move.”
