'The more transparency, the better'

Employee monitoring software has been around for years. What's changed is how much it can do — and how much scrutiny companies face when they deploy it.

Take TD Bank, for example, which made headlines recently when it was revealed the company was tracking productivity this way. While their stated intentions seemed reasonable — to “more accurately manage workflows, team capacity and performance” — there was backlash nonetheless.

Transparency helps, according to experts speaking with Canadian HR Reporter. And that means being candid that part of the reason for the monitoring is to ensure people working remotely are doing what’s expected, says Jared Brown, CEO of Hubstaff.

“In some cases, yes, there are concerns if folks are putting in a full day's work, for instance,” he says, but employers get past that part pretty quickly. “If that is all there was to it, it wouldn't be as interesting of a product to them."

What keeps employers impressed is more substantive: insight into how work actually gets done — who has too many meetings, who has too little focus time, whether AI policies are being followed, and what separates top performers from everyone else.

Getting this right requires more than picking the right platform: It requires a communication plan, a clear policy, a firm grasp of what’s allowed in Canada — and honesty about why you're doing it, say the experts.

Sarah Altemus, productivity lab manager at ActivTrak, puts it plainly: "The platform is designed to answer ‘What should we do about it?’ not just ‘What happened?’ with unbiased insights meant to inform coaching and workload conversations, not serve as the basis for punitive action.”

What these platforms actually track

The tracking capabilities vary by platform and configuration, but the broad categories are consistent across the major tools.

Brown describes two main buckets: granular time data and associated metadata. On the time side, the platform tracks in 10-minute blocks down to the second, captures start and break times, detects idle time, and allows manual time entry after the fact.

"If somebody's supposed to take a break every four hours of working, it can remind them of that and ensure that they're taking those breaks," he says.

The metadata layer is where the tools get more sophisticated — and more sensitive. Hubstaff tracks what Brown calls "activity percentage": how much time within a given block the user is typing or moving a mouse.

“We don't record the actual keystrokes, just that you were active and how active were you. So, out of a 10-minute block, were you active 40 per cent of the time?” he says.

"It is not a productivity percentage. It's not measuring how productive or how much are you working. You could be on a call like we are right now, and your activity percentage will be low, and that's understandable because you're in a meeting. So, it is just one data point to look at."

Screenshots are optional and configurable with the software, and the same flexibility applies to app and website tracking: off, blurred or fully visible. Location comes from IP address or, on mobile, GPS.

Brown is equally clear about what the platform does not collect. "We don't track the actual keystrokes. We don't track any data, timer activity data, when the timer is stopped. And we also don't use the webcam."

But the more lasting value, he says, is operational in looking at how top performers behave.

“We have a lot of these newer, more qualitative sort of metrics… around how much focus time do people have? How much are they getting pulled into meetings? Are meetings dictating a lot of their daily schedule?"

Avoiding incomplete data

ActivTrak takes a similar approach in capturing behavioural data “across people, technology, AI and the workflows that connect them,” according to Altemus.

This helps leaders gain insights around disengagement, burnout, workload capacity, workflow inefficiencies, productivity patterns, automation gains and higher-value work.

Calendar integration captures meeting time so offline activity doesn't register as idle — addressing what Altemus describes as a core accuracy problem: "Incomplete data — such as gaps from missed meetings or ignored offline time — can misrepresent someone's actual effort."

Activity classification is pre-built for common apps and customizable by role, since the same tool can be productive for one team and not another. Location is inferred from network analysis rather than GPS.

Employees can also access a personal insights dashboard to see their own focus time and productivity patterns, while coaching conversations are “grounded in actual patterns rather than assumptions or subjective impressions,” she says.

The platform tracks software license utilization, identifying tools that are underused or redundant, and offers benchmarking against industry peers so managers can compare their team's meeting load or focus time against similar organizations rather than just internal benchmarks.

In addition, automated HRIS time-off sync ensures PTO and approved absences don't skew adherence or productivity reports, according to Altemus.

Fairness in practice

Both vendors flag the risk of managers over-relying on activity metrics without context.

"Throughout the user interface, we have explicit language that is reminding folks — especially management that's looking at this data — ‘This is one data point… it is not the full context,’” says Brown.

However, AI features now in development at Hubstaff will go further — contextualizing activity data by job role, flagging that someone likely in meetings all day would be expected to show low computer activity, and suggesting specific topics for one-on-ones by dynamically putting text on the screen, he says.

"It can even recommend ‘Here's what you should be talking about in the next one-on-one with this individual. Maybe ask them about these areas, maybe there are things going on in their personal life.’”

Brown sees this as a meaningful shift. "AI is very intelligently bringing those caveats up. So that's one area of the fairness."

The other, he says, is consistency. "It is working the same way for everybody, the way it measures this data, the way it collects this data. There's no differentiation based on what your job role is, where in the world you work. There are no changes in how it operates. It's the same for everybody."

Employee privacy concerns

Privacy is a big question when employee monitoring is discussed, but concerns can be alleviated if people able to see some of the data, says Brown. They may realize they’re not setting enough focus time aside each day or they’re checking their communications tools too often, for example.

“It's not to monitor everybody and micromanage things. Quite the opposite — when this is done correctly, it gives management and also those team members information to go act on.”

Employees may worry about invasive monitoring such as keystroke logging, screen recording, email content capture, or precise GPS location tracking, according to Altemus. As a result, ActivTrak takes a privacy-first design approach, with no keystroke logging, no content capture (timestamps and app usage only), no cell phone monitoring and no GPS.

“Configurable privacy controls also let organizations set exclusions, retention limits and data anonymization to match their own policies and legal jurisdiction,” she says.

The legal picture: location matters

Canadian employers need to start with a jurisdictional question because the rules surrounding employee monitoring vary across Canada, says Rono Khan, a member of Baker McKenzie's Employment & Compensation Law Practice Group in Toronto.

The general principle is that employee personal information can be collected and tracked without consent “for the purpose of establishing, managing or terminating an employment relationship,” he says.

Productivity tracking falls within that.

"Productivity tracking software and productivity monitoring would fall within the purview of managing the employment relationship, and that would include performance management generally and discipline as well,” says Khan.

But the exceptions matter. Quebec requires employee consent for monitoring while British Columbia and Alberta have standalone privacy legislation substantially similar to PIPEDA  (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) that permits monitoring for employment management purposes without consent, he says.

Ontario has no equivalent statute but has its own requirement under the Employment Standards Act to have an electronic monitoring policy and the use of productivity tracking software would be captured in that requirement, says Khan.

On the legal side, Hubstaff strongly recommends that employers disclose the use of the tools, regardless of the company’s location, says Brown.

"We feel that's the best course of action. Certain jurisdictions or regions will require that, others don't. That's really on the company to determine… they would need to seek legal advice to see if they’re going to be in good standing.”

Data handling and performance management

While legal requirements vary by province, Khan identifies principles he considers best practice regardless of jurisdiction:

• Collect only what's reasonably required for employment-related purposes.
• Be clear about the purpose for collecting the information, how it would be used, how long it would be retained for, and who it would be shared with.
• Restrict access to a need-to-know basis.
• Put technical safeguards in place, such as multi-factor authentication.

When monitoring data is used for performance management or discipline, accuracy becomes legally significant, according to Khan.

"As an employer, you want to ensure that the information you're obtaining is accurate and accurately reflects the employees, what their day-to-day looks like and how they're performing their duties and responsibilities or not performing them," he says.

If it doesn't — for example, if low activity metrics are misread as poor performance when an employee is in meetings or on calls — the consequences can be serious.

"That could be the basis for an employee taking the position that they've experienced adverse treatment, either due to bad faith — so an arbitrary act by the employer against an employee that has nothing to do with the employment relationship — or an employee could take the position that there's a human rights element to that treatment,” says Khan.

The rollout: communication before deployment

The experts converge on the same practical advice: tell employees before you launch, not after.

Brown points to TD Bank as a cautionary example. "I don't know a lot of the details of it, but maybe they weren't as forthcoming about what they were doing at the company level."

Altemus agrees on the need for some transparency: "Poorly communicated or excessive monitoring can create a surveillance culture, damaging morale and psychological safety."

The best practice, she says, is positioning the tool as workforce optimization rather than surveillance — "communicating transparently what's monitored and why, before deployment rather than after."

On the ActivTrak side, Altemus says training is a standard part of implementation: "Manager training on appropriate use of monitoring data, privacy considerations and legal compliance is a standard part of implementation."

At a high level, she says, "we guide customers to be transparent about data collection and to disclose what they're collecting, why they're collecting it and how they'll use it."

Hubstaff recommends a phased approach: executive team first, then management, then the broader workforce.

 "It's all [about] ‘What are the goals and how does this help us achieve those goals?’ so that people know the reason behind it. And I think that's the most important part," says Brown.

Part of that, he adds, means being upfront about the remote-work trade-off. "That’s kind of a part of the give-and-take there is the company is able to offer that remote lifestyle. I think bringing that out into the open and not trying to hide it, that's a good move."