Acceptance-discrepancy paradox: an empirical study of employee perceptions of acceptance and trust towards employee monitoring software

Although employee monitoring is not new, the shift to remote and hybrid work after COVID-19 has led to an increased use of employee monitoring software (EMS). EMS offers employers access to employees’ private homes via webcam, screen, and audio recordings alongside quantified measures of ‘productivity’. In response, we first conducted an exploratory study which reviewed specific features of EMS. We then evaluated employee perceptions of the software’s adoption, focusing on its acceptability and trustworthiness. Fifteen key EMS features identified in our content analysis (for example, screen recording, social media monitoring, audio recording etc.) were generally viewed by participants as neither acceptable nor trustworthy. Furthermore, we found no overall differences in how people accept and trust EMS features; however, significant differences were observed between the acceptability and trust of individual features and the willingness to adopt EMS as a system. We refer to this pattern as the acceptance-discrepancy paradox (ADP). Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed that trust and acceptance do not form a unified construct but can be segmented into several factors reflecting the characteristics of different monitoring features, indicating that employee evaluations of EMS are multidimensional. Practical and future research recommendations are discussed.