UK office workers face the threat of increasing control, monitoring, scrutiny and micro-management, according to findings of a long-term study.
Supply chain technology developed for monitoring goods is now being applied to individuals instead of products, warns research from the London School of Economics (LSE).
The report – The Future Role of Trust in Work – is based on a year-long study by the LSE and Microsoft. It argues that outdated command and control management culture is causing managers to misuse technology, over-scrutinising wor-ker performance. This means staff are reacting to communication from employers rather than interacting with customers – ultimately damaging UK productivity.
Carsten Sorensen, from the LSE, said that UK business needed to find new ways of managing people in the face of changing technologies at work.