Definition: Work monitoring refers to the practices by which organisations observe, measure, and record worker behaviour and performance. Proportionate monitoring supports accountability and quality without undermining trust. Intrusive or excessive surveillance is a recognised psychosocial hazard: it reduces autonomy, signals distrust, creates anxiety, and impairs the psychological safety that allows workers to raise concerns, ask for help, and perform at their best.
Overview
The expansion of digital monitoring capabilities has significantly changed the landscape of workplace surveillance. Organisations can now track keystrokes, monitor screen activity, measure response times, record location, and observe email communications. These capabilities are sometimes used in ways that go well beyond what is necessary for legitimate business purposes.
The psychosocial harm from intrusive monitoring operates through several mechanisms. It directly reduces autonomy, one of the most important protective factors in work design. It signals distrust, which damages the psychological contract between employer and worker. It creates anxiety about constant evaluation, which impairs cognitive function and increases errors. And it reduces psychological safety, meaning workers become less likely to take initiative, raise problems, or seek help.
Monitoring that is transparent, proportionate, and used for development rather than surveillance has a very different effect. The key variables are: whether workers know what is being monitored and why, whether the monitoring is proportionate to genuine business risk, whether data is used supportively or punitively, and whether workers have any input into the monitoring framework.
The Commonwealth Code of Practice (Comcare, 2024) is the most direct regulatory statement on this issue, naming intrusive surveillance as an explicit psychosocial hazard.
Why it matters
The Commonwealth Code of Practice (Comcare, 2024) explicitly names intrusive surveillance as a psychosocial hazard, a significant regulatory development. Research on workplace monitoring shows that perceived surveillance reduces intrinsic motivation, increases anxiety, and impairs trust. The autonomy dimension of intrusive monitoring connects directly to the extensive evidence base on low job control as a health hazard. WorkSafe NZ's 2024 guidance notes that how work is monitored affects worker wellbeing and falls within the work design hazard category.
Warning signs
Signs this is managed well
- Monitoring practices are transparent and workers understand what is collected and why
- Monitoring is proportionate to genuine business risk, not applied uniformly
- Data collected through monitoring is used to support performance, not as a disciplinary tool
- Workers feel trusted rather than watched
- Monitoring frameworks have been reviewed with worker input
Signs this is a risk
- Workers describe feeling constantly watched or evaluated
- Monitoring software tracks activity in ways workers find intrusive or distressing
- Performance data is used primarily punitively rather than developmentally
- Workers are not informed about what is being monitored or why
- Monitoring extends beyond work hours or reasonable scope
Control measures
- 1Audit current monitoring practices against genuine business justification
- 2Be transparent with workers about what is monitored, how, and why
- 3Establish clear policy on the scope and limits of monitoring, including data use
- 4Use monitoring data to support development rather than as a primary disciplinary mechanism
- 5Consult workers when introducing new monitoring tools or systems
- 6Remove monitoring practices that cannot be justified by proportionate business need
Legal context (Australia and New Zealand)
Intrusive surveillance is explicitly named as a psychosocial hazard in the Commonwealth Code of Practice (Comcare, 2024), making this one of the most direct regulatory statements on monitoring practices. This extends the autonomy hazard established in the Model Code of Practice into the specific context of digital surveillance. In New Zealand, the HSWA's psychological health obligation and WorkSafe NZ's guidance on work design factors apply to monitoring practices. Privacy legislation in both Australia and New Zealand also provides a parallel framework constraining the collection and use of monitoring data.
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Regulatory timeline
How this factor has been formalised in Australian and New Zealand workplace health and safety frameworks.
Regulatory timeline
- 2022
Model Code of Practice names low job control, which encompasses excessive monitoring, as a psychosocial hazard.
- 2024
Commonwealth Code of Practice (Comcare) explicitly names intrusive surveillance as a specific psychosocial hazard for the first time, reflecting growing concern about digital monitoring practices.
Related factors
- Autonomy →The degree of control workers have over how they do their work.
- Leadership →The quality and consistency of management behaviour at all levels.
- Support →Whether workers receive adequate support from their manager and colleagues.