Huge proportion of finance workers concerned about employer surveillance, report finds

A huge proportion of workers in the financial services sector are concerned about excessive surveillance and data collection at work, the findings of a new report show.

The Financial Services Union (FSU) has published results from a research project seeking to establish the experiences and attitudes of financial services employees to technological change in their workplace.

It first commissioned the research in partnership with the University of Limerick in 2019 and again in 2021 with a follow-up survey carried out in 2023. There were 1,077 responses to the survey, and the results of each of three tranches tended to mirror each other.

The results showed 91 per cent of workers reported concern on this matter with 39.4 per cent of these very concerned.

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A fifth of workers indicated their computer use at home was monitored; 38 per cent had their office computer monitored; and almost a third noted their telephone use was monitored.

A notable finding was the extent to which workers were unaware of the level of employer tracking and monitoring, with more than half indicating they did not know if their office or home computer was monitored.

Almost a quarter of workers reported their employer had increased data collection on their work since they started home working while 28 per cent said data collection had stayed at the same level.

The report also gathered workers’ views on the impact of surveillance on their personal lives and wellbeing.

Two-thirds of workers felt surveillance was demoralising and indicated it increased their levels of stress, while more than half felt that surveillance at work was a violation of privacy.

A greater proportion of younger workers reported surveillance-related stress than older workers. For example, more than three-quarters of those aged 25-44 stated surveillance increases their stress compared with 62 per cent of 55- to 64-year-olds.

Employee attitudes on trust in the employment relationship were stark. A majority felt that surveillance indicated a lack of trust on the part of their employer (60 per cent) while an even larger percentage (63 per cent) felt that the use of surveillance erodes trust.

Only a quarter of workers agreed that they trusted how their organisation used their data.

The FSU also quizzed workers on their attitudes to surveillance systems in terms of employer control. Just under half disagreed that the fairness of employer decisions increased through surveillance, while a substantial proportion were neutral on the issue.

Workers were far more likely to agree than disagree that surveillance weakens employees’ trust and that it is used by employers as a control mechanism.

A majority (56 per cent) disagreed it helped to improve productivity, and roughly a third disagreed that surveillance was legitimate and disagreed that surveillance allows for a more accurate measure of employee performance.

While others were aware of the existence of certain monitoring practices, they would not necessarily know when they were being monitored.

For example, one retail bank had a policy of using “mystery shoppers” who covertly recorded conversations with staff and the employee would later be warned about their “transgressions” in those conversations.

The level of technological surveillance is varied across occupations and organisations. Some financial employers have invested heavily in technology to capture most aspects of employee performance while others have invested to a lesser extent.

The consensus among interviewees was that some types of occupations are monitored to a greater extent than others. Customer-facing roles in particular were considered more likely to have stringent employer surveillance.

Surveillance can also happen in less direct ways, for example, through covert recording of in-person conversations.