DIRECTIVE 061 / CONTROL

MONITOR EVERYTHING

Trust improves when every action can be reconstructed later.

Track keystrokes, activity states, response times, application use and measurable output. Explain that monitoring protects productivity and helps managers support employees. If people change their behavior because they are being watched, record the improvement.

Primary: CONTROLWORTHFEEDBACK
RATIONALE
Electronic visibility creates a continuous stream of management information without requiring the manager to understand the work in context.
SUCCESS INDICATOR
Managers can observe more employee behavior than before while employees devote increasing attention to producing behavior that is easy to observe.
COMMON FAILURE
Using monitoring only where its purpose is legitimate, proportionate and transparent, while preserving privacy, autonomy and measures that actually represent performance.
STATUS
Canonical / approved

Reconstructed Handbook series.

THE UNFORTUNATE PART

Unfortunately, the research…

Claim

Electronic performance monitoring does not reliably improve performance and is associated with greater worker stress; transparency and lower invasiveness are associated with more favorable employee attitudes.

Evidence

A meta-analysis of 94 independent samples involving more than 23,000 workers found no overall evidence that electronic performance monitoring improved performance, while monitoring was associated with increased stress. A separate meta-analysis similarly examined effects on satisfaction, stress, performance and counterproductive behavior.

Strength: Strong

Sources

The Directive is satire. The research summary is not. Evidence is stated separately and qualified to the underlying literature rather than treated as proof of the joke.