As the world marks five years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dynamics of the workplace have undergone seismic shifts, leaving many to ponder whether employees or employers have emerged victorious in the era of remote work. The reality is multifaceted. While remote employees enjoy the perks of eliminating their daily commutes and the associated costs, companies benefit from reduced expenses linked to office spaces. However, this new work paradigm also raises issues of isolation, disconnection, and the temptation for employees to become less productive during work hours.

Historically, pandemics have been known to empower the working class. For instance, during the Middle Ages, the devastating impacts of the Black Death significantly reduced the labor pool in Europe, consequently raising the bargaining power of workers. Yet, the current technological landscape may be shifting this balance back toward employers. The digital tools that facilitate remote work also enable extensive monitoring of employees, often without their knowledge. The reality of post-COVID work environments is that many companies have resorted to scrutinizing their workers’ productivity, even outside traditional office settings. A survey conducted in 2021 involving 375 senior leaders revealed that a staggering 91 percent of respondents in Australia utilized monitoring software to oversee remote employees, while a mere 5 percent allowed for self-reporting.

The same technologies that make remote work feasible—laptops, the internet, smartphones, and collaborative platforms like Microsoft Teams—also serve as tools for surveillance. Employers can track keystrokes, monitor time spent on screens, observe mouse and eye movements, and even analyze the tone of messages sent, thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence.

Kira Bomberg, the marketing director for Mimecast Australia, has noted that prior to the pandemic, her cybersecurity company focused on identifying unusual email activity outside of regular hours, which could indicate unauthorized access to sensitive information. However, as the transition to hybrid work continues, simply monitoring time-based activities no longer suffices for ensuring cybersecurity. Currently, Mimecast processes an astounding 98 million emails daily in Australia and New Zealand alone, with a total of 1.1 billion globally. Bomberg remarked, “COVID saw the use of collaborative tools across businesses, the rise of Teams, Zoom, Slack.” The increasing reliance on such tools necessitated an enhanced focus on security.

Mimecast's cybersecurity approach now emphasizes behavioral analysis, looking for signs of data breaches or insider threats. Their systems are designed to track employee data movements and use risk-scoring models to flag concerning behaviors for employers. The company also employs AI to analyze anomalies in employees’ speech patterns, which raises the question of whether a certain employee would use specific language or engage with particular teams. This level of monitoring means that employees are under constant surveillance, both in the office and increasingly in their home workspaces.

Although some may argue that this surveillance is justified, it does raise ethical concerns. Bomberg acknowledges that relying solely on AI for monitoring can lead to false positives, where innocent behaviors are flagged as suspicious. Mimecast’s APAC field chief technology officer, Ryan Economos, asserts that these false positives are not common occurrences, emphasizing that most incidents often arise unintentionally rather than from malicious intent.

The impacts of remote work on employee monitoring have led to some controversial practices among employers. In March, around 2,000 employees at AMP, a wealth management company, were asked to sign contracts permitting continuous video surveillance. Following public backlash, AMP retracted this clause.

Stories of unease among employers have emerged, with some tech executives discovering employees holding second jobs without revealing this information to their primary employers. One notable case involved an employee attending a company meeting while simultaneously representing a direct competitor, raising significant ethical and legal questions.

The debate surrounding the legality and morality of employer surveillance in remote work settings continues to unfold. Dr. Joellen Riley Munton, a labor lawyer from the University of Technology Sydney, notes that public acceptance of such monitoring tends to be higher in roles where safety is a concern. In New South Wales, workplace surveillance laws require employers to notify employees about monitoring practices, thus creating a framework for acceptable surveillance. Munton reminds us that monitoring of employees is not a new phenomenon; it has been a part of the employment landscape since the industrial age, albeit in different forms. The evolution of remote working has, in some respects, offered greater freedom, allowing individuals to earn income without the constraints of traditional factory settings.