Will the distrust caused by workplace surveillance cause big problems for companies?

Trust thought for today - trust and workplace surveillance.

The way my boss monitored me at home was creepy - Guardian

"The ICO urges employers to consider the potential negative effects of monitoring on staff and whether there are less intrusive alternatives, such as catch-up calls or email exchanges."

One negative effects might be a large fine if the ICO follows the direction of travel on privacy when potentially fining Barclays up to $1.1billion for monitoring staff at their desk in their own workplace. At home is another dimension again. See here:

https://lnkd.in/gdk9rkh3

But I would be interested to see trust research on this. 'Do you feel your employer trusts you?'. Clear evidence not. So what does this do to productivity, loyalty, intent to go that extra mile for an employer or customer, inclination to be a clock watcher, do the minimum, feelings of unfairness, disrespect and the sheer creepiness of it, as the article says.

My hunch is it doesn't even work on the level it is designed for which probably to increase/maintain productivity in remote workers. The unintended consequences are that the obvious lack of trust in employees will have implications and negative effects which can be far more damaging to the company in the longer run.

In my world those who pay me don't even want time sheets or allocation of hours or anything any more. They trust me and that makes me totally scrupulous about my time keeping, even over generous.

However when I was employed by companies in the 80's and 90's it was well known and expected that time sheets reflected what was being paid by the client, not necessarily what was actually being done. I remember the Friday rush to make them up for the week, lots of fudging & vague memories of phone calls and how long it took me to write stuff.

Sorry world, we brought this on you! This is where lack of trustworthiness leads.

https://lnkd.in/gAtGba_p