I read an article on the Guardian website recently which piqued my curiosity, and I wanted to put forward a question:  Is Gen Z’s reluctance to adhere to workplace surveillance something we should all be taking note of? Perhaps even agreeing with? And does it even work? Surely we can all sit and daydream just as effectively at home or in the office – if we really want to?

In April, it was found that the Donald Trump administration officials revealed to US federal employees that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) had been using artificial intelligence to monitor employee emails for anti-Trump words, as well as secretly recording virtual meetings and downloading monitoring software onto computers.

In the wake of the latest diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) campaign, which saw Trump vow to scrap US initiatives, Doge allegedly has been using AI to scan for DEI buzzwords, too.

The strict surveillance of employees is something that we are not used to in modern times, particularly in the wake of hybrid and remote working models. Employees have been given more flexibility to work as they see fit, with reduced or flexible work hours and less monitoring by management.

While there was a large debate about whether remote work produced more or less productive teams and also if the results were better using that model, largely, employees reported feeling better in their jobs with more freedom.

Notable high-profile bosses agreed with this strict method, as in January, founder and former CEO of BrewDog, James Watt, claimed that workers should focus less on attaining a work-life balance and should instead focus on obsessive, dedicated work-life integration. Although not everyone has a podcast dedicated to how challenging working at Brewdog actually was…!

Days later, the former M&S and Asda CEO, Stuart Rose, stated that working from home was not ‘proper work’ (and I guess it is hard to stack shelves remotely…..). 

Hypersurveillance, such as in the case of Doge, appears to be bringing back trends from past generations, which saw KPI targets pushed stringently, penalties doled out to staff, and harsher working conditions, which is a stark difference from the yoga-like holistic approach of workplaces in the 2010s and early 2020s.

However, surveillance technology is becoming more and more popular in businesses, with projections that 70% of large employers will be monitoring staff by the end of 2025.

I have written a lot about the difference between Gen Z’s work ethic and that of Millennials or even Baby Boomers and Gen X, and there appears to be a rising trend: Gen Z does not want to hustle as their parents did.

Oli Mould, a professor of human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, recently agreed with this, stating that the younger workforce is prioritising a work-life balance over hustle culture and prefers a job package which includes plenty of benefits without demanding hours and a stressful daily grind.

In fact, they will even refuse jobs if they appear not to be in line with what they are willing to do. So, adding surveillance to the mix may not be an appealing prospect for the young staff.

As one federal worker told the Guardian about the working conditions in the US governmental department: “It’s really funny to think about the Dogebags sitting there, watching and learning in real-time, that the ‘deep state’ is really a bunch of goobers just doing our boring jobs for middling pay.”

Is this right? Or is engagement the real issue – any worker that’s truly committed to their work will be productive regardless of where they are.

If you want to know more about the state of the workplace, keep your eyes on Orange Malone’s Blog, where we post regular commentary on employee challenges.