Workplace monitoring measures screens not meaningful work
Screen Monitoring Turns Work Into a Compliance Test
Tracking browser time, chats, and meetings may produce a tidy dashboard. It does not necessarily measure useful work. In social services, a worker can spend an hour untangling a housing application, listening carefully, or documenting risk that cannot be reduced to active screen minutes.
The mental-health cost is not incidental. When every pause looks suspicious, workers start performing busyness instead of doing thoughtful work. That is a system design problem, not a motivation problem.
The Missing Question Before employers collect more data, they should explain who sees it, how it is interpreted, and whether workers can challenge the record. The legal protections may be thinner than many employees assume. CBC’s reporting includes accounts from Canadian workers living with that pressure.