How Employee Monitoring is Reshaping Workplace Culture, and What Leaders Must Do Differently
A recent investigation by Solitaire Bliss titled “Report: 95% of Managers Say Their Company Monitors Employees”, reveals some startling truths about how modern organisations are tracking their people. Solitaire Bliss As someone committed to solving burnout and building culture-safe environments, I want to unpack what this means for you as leaders (and human-being humans). Let’s dig into the findings, the implications for culture and retention, and how your leadership must adapt.
Key Findings You Need to Know
Here are the headline take-aways from the Solitaire Bliss piece:
95 % of managers say their company monitors employees. Solitaire Bliss
Nearly one in five U.S. employees report no transparency at all about monitoring practices. Solitaire Bliss
68 % of workers believe monitoring decreases trust between employees and management. Solitaire Bliss
36 % of workers feel uncomfortable being monitored. Solitaire Bliss
76 % of employees say they’d agree to more monitoring if they were paid significantly more for it. Solitaire Bliss
Monitoring methods reported: attendance tracking (66% of workers vs 69% of managers) and website/browser tracking (30% vs 44%) and video surveillance (30% vs 45%) and browser history (25% vs ~50%). Solitaire Bliss
What jumps out here is not just that monitoring is pervasive, but that trust, transparency and culture are dangerously under-attack in the process.
The Culture Cost of Surveillance
From my vantage point (in burnout prevention and culture design) the underlying problem is this: when organisations monitor people rather than empower them, you get disengagement, stress, and increased turnover risk. There’s strong academic evidence for this:
A 2024 study found that workplace surveillance has damaging consequences for workers’ mental health. PMC
Research shows that monitoring tools often erode trust and end up undermining the very productivity they aim to boost. IAHRIM+2ScienceDirect+2
And a 2025 article on “bossware” noted that while employers track more than ever, the uplift in performance is far from proven and trust takes a hit. Axios+1
In short: you can’t extract performance from people if they feel like suspects rather than contributors. The paradox here is that in the name of “control,” many companies are losing the one thing that truly drives sustainable performance: psychological safety and ownership.
What This Means for Leadership & Burnout Prevention
Let me break down four practical implications for how you should lead differently:
1. Monitor with purpose, not paranoia.
If you must monitor (and many organisations will), the reason must be clear, shared and justifiable. It should support a safety or quality imperative not just “we might as well.” The Solitaire Bliss data shows many employees don’t even know their company’s transparency level. When nearly 20% of employees say they have no transparency at all, you’re opening the burnout door. Solitaire Bliss
2. Make trust your primary metric.
As the data shows, 68% of employees believe monitoring decreases trust. Trust isn’t a soft issue it’s a productivity issue. If you erode trust, you erode collaboration, creativity, and retention. Leaders must ask: “How are we building trust every day even as we handle risk or compliance?”
3. Transparency plus involvement equals buy-in.
Research on hybrid work shows that employees are more accepting of monitoring if they understand the why, have input, and know what data is collected and why. ResearchGate+1 The same applies universally: involve your team in policy design; communicate the purpose; revisit it periodically.
4. Balance autonomy and oversight.
Good monitoring supports autonomy it doesn’t replace it. A detailed summary from Teramind shows that monitoring can help productivity, but only when it is aligned with autonomy and support. Teramind - If you lean too hard into “watching,” you may drive people away. 82% of the study admitted to evading monitoring in some way. Solitaire Bliss
Retention, Burnout and Culture: The Hidden Risks
Here’s the deeper impact on what we care about most: retention, burnout and culture. When employees feel watched more than trusted:
They may feel less agency, which is a core predictor of burnout.
They may disengage or hide behaviour rather than bring it forward and the silent erosion of culture begins.
They may stay but become “quiet quitters,” turning up but not contributing, which eventually impacts performance and morale.
The cost of high turnover in knowledge work is steep; retention strategies must consider psychological safety, not just perks.
If your company is doing heavy monitoring, ask: Is that monitoring supporting our culture or undermining it? Because at the end of the day, trust is the organising principle of modern, healthy leadership.
Five Questions Every Leadership Team Should Ask
What exact behaviors or outcomes are we trying to monitor and why?
Have we clearly communicated this to our teams, and built in their voice?
How are we safeguarding privacy, autonomy and psychological safety?
Are we using monitoring data for development and support, not just discipline?
How will we measure whether our monitoring is helping or harming our culture?
By asking these questions, you shift away from: “How do we watch more?” to “How do we lead better?” And that shift makes all the difference between a burnt-out workforce and a thriving one.
Final Thoughts
In my work with the Breakfast Leadership Network and in my books such as Burnout Proof, the single most consistent theme is this: Culture isn’t the by-product of systems. Culture is the system. When you treat people as units to monitor instead of human beings to lead, you chip away at the foundation of retention and engagement.
The data in the Solitaire Bliss article is a red flag to leaders: yes, monitoring is everywhere but you cannot take trust for granted. If your monitoring practices are not rooted in transparency, purpose and respect for autonomy, you will pay a price in morale, culture and retention.
And at risk is more than productivity: it’s your ability to attract the next wave of talent who won’t tolerate being treated like trackers. The future of work demands organisations that empower not just inspect.
For more on preventing burnout, building trust-driven culture and retaining talent in the age of disruption, visit our blog at the Breakfast Leadership Network: BreakfastLeadership.com/blog and check out our deep dives on how to design workplaces people stay for, not escape from.
