‘You’re walking on eggshells’: exploring subjective experiences of workplace tracking

Abstract

Technology-driven workplace tracking is becoming increasingly widespread and normalized. However, experiences of the tracking practices and their impact on individual employees and employers are not fully understood. Eleven qualitative interviews investigated employees’ and employers’ subjective and affective perceptions and experiences of workplace tracking, finding that employees were ambivalent about being tracked, their divergent feelings affecting their actions and experiences, while employers emphasized the benefits, concerns and rationales of the practice. This research highlights the affective side of the tracking practice by revealing how employee and employer experiences and perceptions of workplace tracking are embodied in divergent ways, with meanings ascribed to technologies culturally situated, mediated by context, positionality and use. Recommendations are proposed for further research as well as a collective policy framework governing workplace tracking to address current tensions within a fairer organizational culture.