Are there a few solutions for actually performing the monitoring that you would suggest?

And the concept of expense tracking? Surely team members should be trusted to spend corporate funds wisely, right? Should we stretch that to government? Can trust our civil servants to spend our money wisely?

Time is the most scarce resource a business has. Getting reporting on how people spend a resource isn’t evil, if done correctly… And it’s not necessarily a signal that you don’t trust your team (especially if the team can see how the manager is spending their time!).

Transparency like this has some pretty radical effects. People who don’t know what they should be working on seek out productive stuff to do. People who are leisure surfing don’t hastily alt-tab to Excel when the boss walks by because they’re confident their data is out there. People who work odd hours don’t look like slackers. People who aren’t necessarily good at APPEARING productive/focused no longer pale next to those who do. Workplace camouflage is no longer rewarded.

Putting the truth out there isn’t a force of evil– hiding the truth IS. But obviously, an evil/small-minded manager could do considerable damage with spyware-style monitoring tools.

It’s hard to see this as anything but evil. If you are required by regulation to monitor activity that’s one thing, but anything else shows a distinct lack of trust that will only be harmful in the long run. If you treat people like criminals, they will be behave like criminals.

I have no doubt that there is a market for these products, but I for one would never buy any for my company.