Wednesday 25 March 2026 11:53 am  |  Updated:  Wednesday 25 March 2026 12:10 pm

The Debate: Is employee tracking justified in the modern workplace?

By: Anna Moloney

Deputy Comment and Features Editor

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JP Morgan last week announced it had started using tech to track its junior employees; amid the rise of work from home, is it fair enough? We hear the case for and against in this week’s Debate

YES: Accountability ensures that labour is priced according to actual effort

Employers want to track staff working hours? Gasp! Big Brother! Orwell! Put the pitchforks down, monitoring is a simple response to a simple problem: how do you ensure staff aren’t overworked, overreporting, or both?

In any high-stakes market, transparency is essential. Investment banking is famous for long hours and late nights. Staff underreport their hours to stay visible on deals. The result is not just personal risk; it is lost productivity. Monitoring software can provide clarity on who is genuinely overloaded and where bottlenecks exist so that corrections can be made.

We often forget that productivity is measurable and that measurement drives improvement. Markets function best when information is accurate, and labour markets are no exception. If hours worked are misreported, resource allocation is distorted. Firms over- or under-staff projects and staff catch burnout. 

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