Imagine that a hundred years from now, our descendants visit a museum showcasing common everyday items from our era. What could they possibly find there? What insights could they gain about our fears, aspirations, and values?

For example, the undetectable mouse mover is a popular product available on Amazon. This device simulates activity to create the illusion that we are actively engaged at our screens, diligently working. It moves the mouse at random intervals to simulate the clicking and scrolling that are common to an employee's work. Future anthropologists will surely wonder why we need this device so desperately.

Primarily, the mouse mover is a technological reaction to another technological innovation: employee monitoring software (EMS), which has spread worldwide. The name itself reveals its purpose. Although most research confirms that remote and hybrid work can boost productivity, collaboration, and employee satisfaction, employers increasingly fear losing control over how their employees spend their work time.

Hybrid work offers considerable advantages for employee well-being and retention. Additionally, compared to their counterparts in traditional office settings, remote workers spend more time on their screens, log longer hours, and take fewer breaks. They often take fewer sick days and may work evenings and weekends.

However, the COVID pandemic has accelerated the shift toward remote work, which has increased demand for productivity and efficiency assessment tools that operate independently of an employee's physical location. Employee monitoring software tracks mouse movements and keyboard activity and can monitor and evaluate websites visited and documents opened and closed.

Perhaps most concerning is that some programs capture random screenshots of employees during the workday. Employers can track how long you spend in the bathroom, how much time you spend on breaks, and how much time you spend on specific websites. Screenshots can be taken of you without your knowledge at any moment during your workday.

This data collection process seems governed by a desire for total control. Also, it reflects a feudal mindset where employers believe they own their employees' time as long as they pay them. Moreover, they believe that they can control employees' movements, bodies, and even thoughts during this period of temporary servitude. The intention goes beyond merely preventing employees from wasting time; it seeks to discover more efficient ways to manage and exploit human resources. So, here are 4 employee monitoring software disadvantages:

Employee Monitoring Software Disadvantages 

1. This type of software confuses two key concepts

activity and productivity. Engaging in activities like browsing the web, opening files, and moving devices does not equate to meaningful work. Employee monitoring software fails to assess the quality or quantity of our ideas, as our focus may be elsewhere even while we appear present on our screens. Moreover, tracking mouse movements does not indicate the effectiveness or impact of our efforts; it merely logs physical actions.

2. Frequently taking breaks

Knowing that every minute we stray from our screens will be recorded and questioned will make us more hesitant to take breaks to recharge. Research consistently shows that appropriate breaks are crucial for maintaining productivity and well-being. Excessive and intrusive monitoring increases our reluctance to take the breaks we need.

3. Counterproductive

Approaching employee management with low trust and minimal autonomy leads to counterproductive outcomes regarding engagement, well-being, and morale. The best way to boost productivity and engagement within an organization is by fostering trust, ensuring psychological safety, encouraging autonomy, supporting personal and professional growth, and promoting a sense of belonging and shared purpose. Employee monitoring software does the exact opposite. EMS assumes that all workers are lazy and time-wasters, treating them like undisciplined children requiring strict oversight.

Employees will inevitably resist this kind of humiliating digital slavery. Employee monitoring software (EMS) can cause a brief, fear-driven increase in productivity, but in the long run, it is harmful. Even Forbes magazine confirms that employee monitoring software can harm morale and company culture, potentially leading to employee frustration, increased turnover rates, and ethical and legal issues.

4. Digital slavery

Many modern workplaces have made deep work completely impossible, even though most knowledge workers should primarily spend their time on this type of work. Employee monitoring software worsens the unproductivity issue with back-to-back Zoom meetings, excessively distracting technology, limited offline time, and the inability to stop working even in the evening.

Consequently, devices like mouse movers reflect a troubling return to outdated beliefs about work, time management, leadership, and organizational culture. They also highlight the growing divide between proponents of flexible and remote work and those who oppose it on ideological grounds.

Remote Work Importance

It's essential to recognize that remote work is particularly vital for parents and caregivers—predominantly women—whose needs are often overlooked. On a deeper level, employee monitoring software expresses a philosophical (and political) belief that people are inherently untrustworthy, requiring discipline through fear and punishment.

Research indicates that investing in employee health and well-being, community-building workshops, and enhancing company culture is a wiser choice than digital spying programs. Traditional methods—whether digital or not—are remnants of an outdated era and have been largely replaced in progressive workplaces by intelligent support and motivational strategies. Furthermore, most employers already have multiple tools to assess employee performance, including traditional key performance indicators and many other precise and logical metrics.

The Confusion Between Activity and Productivity

However, a more troubling thought arises: what if we are among those fortunate enough not to be subjected to external monitoring, yet we still perpetuate a culture of incessant activity?

What if we mistakenly equate activity with productivity and view our time spent in front of screens as meaningful work?

Many of us have become poor leaders for ourselves, willing to sacrifice moments of joy, relaxation, and connection in our lives. The detrimental work ethics and harmful assumptions we have about work and time existed long before employee monitoring software emerged. These beliefs have deep historical roots, linking laziness to sin, worldly achievement to spiritual salvation, and productivity with our existential purpose in life.

In Conclusion

Throughout the ages, particularly during the recent surge of capitalism, these beliefs have entrenched themselves in our minds through pervasive employee monitoring software. Thus, the undetectable mouse mover is merely a manifestation, a symptom of our long-standing enslavement to outdated and entirely unhelpful dictates about productivity.