Should employers prioritize efficiency at all costs? It may seem like a good idea. More processes than ever before can now be automated with robotics, artificial intelligence and other technologies.

But in case after case, we’ve also seen technology usher in a whole new era of workplace surveillance. Companies have powerful new tools to track employees and monitor their productivity in detail, raising obvious concerns.

Reports in The Guardian this week highlighted just the latest example. Woolworths has been criticized for having “unrealistic” expectations of the productivity of its warehouse pickers – workers who travel from aisle to aisle to select needed products.

A new framework, introduced by the supermarket giant in 2023, aims for pickers to reach 100% efficiency by putting those who don’t fit into a coaching programme.

Whether efficiency-seeking practices are morally right or wrong raises a more fundamental question. Do increased supervision and productivity measurement actually increase employee performance?

What gets measured gets done, right?

Scientific management approaches that treat workers as cogs in a machine have a long history, originally developed to optimize manufacturing output.

You’d think by now, we’d have moved on to something more human-centric. But the rise of constant monitoring for employees – both on-site and remote – suggests otherwise.

This was likely helped by the shift to remote working as a result of the pandemic, which brought digital surveillance technology into the mainstream. Bosses around the world have had to face a new reality in the workplace.

But given the newness of many of these technologies, there is only limited research on their effectiveness.

A 2023 systematic literature review by Professor Elisa Giacosa of the University of Turin and colleagues explored the outcomes of digital surveillance on employee performance and other measures. Of 57 published empirical studies on the topic, they found that the results were mixed.

Some studies have shown that supervising workers has had a positive impact. Workers who knew they were being observed felt more motivated to perform at a high level, recognizing the benefits of being measured objectively.

Greater objectivity helps workers know what it takes to be viewed positively by employers and could translate into rewards later on.

But other studies have shown the opposite effect. Employees who knew they were being monitored performed poorly, perhaps in retaliation for being constantly observed or clocked.

When the evidence is mixed, researchers cannot conclude whether the intervention – digital surveillance in this case – is effective or not. But that doesn’t stop companies from applying such ambiguously effective approaches in the meantime.