With remote work on the rise, more employers are tracking their employees to see if they’re slacking off while on the job. • Starting Tuesday, Ontario employers with 25 or more employees will be required to have an electronic monitoring policy — and they have 30 days to disclose the information to staff. • It's part of the Working for Workers Act, and it makes the province the only one in Canada with legislation on employee monitoring. • The legislation applies to all employees using company-issued devices — whether the employer is tracking the GPS of a delivery truck driver or the emails of an office worker. • As the COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns and forced employees to work from home, many employers implemented electronic monitoring systems without alerting their staff, according to employment lawyer Mackenzie Irwin, who said the new rules are a good first step toward transparency. • "Once we know what they are actually doing, then we'll have a better sense of whether those monitoring systems are breaching any other legislation." • But the usefulness of tracking employees is up for debate. • Some critics of employee monitoring software say it's actually not an accurate representation of employee performance because it doesn't capture other work that may be helpful to employers, such as talking to colleagues and mentoring co-workers. • Companies could fare better by assessing workers based on output, rather than the time they spend on what the computer marks as work, said Valerio De Stefano, a professor and Canada Research Chair in Innovation, Law and Society at Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School. • "People, when they know that these systems are in place, spend much more time trying to game the system rather than actually focusing on work." • Tap our link in bio to read more. • • • (Reporting: Nisha Patel/CBC News; Photo: OPOLJA/Shutterstock) #Work #Employer #Employee #Tracking #Privacy #Digital #Data #Canada #CBC #CBCNews