More Australian businesses are changing how they assess staff performance, placing less emphasis on time spent working and more on measurable productivity. In a competitive environment, companies are tightening performance expectations, using AI tools and tracking technologies to monitor and rank employees. While the aim is to raise efficiency, these methods may impact employee morale.
Companies in tech, finance and accounting sectors are responding to economic pressure by increasing performance standards. According to data from a major recruitment firm, 41% of employers have already updated productivity benchmarks this year, with another 39% planning similar changes. This shift reflects the growing ability to assess workloads and deliverables digitally, whether employees are remote or in the office.
Organisations are moving away from tracking hours and instead focusing on task completion, client satisfaction and output. More than half of employers monitor how many tasks each employee completes, while only 3% still track hours worked. HR platforms and other digital tools make it easy to collect and display this data, often through dashboards that highlight which employees are meeting expectations or falling behind.
Nearly 6 in 10 organisations now use employee monitoring tools, led by the private sector. Video surveillance, GPS tracking and biometric tools such as fingerprint or eye scanning are becoming normal in many workplaces. Some software automatically triggers alerts when a worker seems inactive for too long. This detailed information is often used to compare employee performance in real time using leaderboards. These rankings may affect decisions about promotions, coaching or redundancies.
However, the focus on productivity could have negative effects. Experts caution that intense monitoring might lead to ‘productivity theatre’, where employees appear busy without producing real results. There is also concern it could damage trust. A rigid system that places output above engagement can alienate staff and reduce long-term innovation. Some suggest focusing on outcomes like problem-solving and value creation instead of sheer activity to build a motivated and high-performing team.
Others argue that the answer may be in simplifying technology, not expanding it. Analysis from a workforce intelligence firm indicates that digital tools themselves are often distracting, with repeated alerts and overlapping tasks leaving workers mentally exhausted. Real productivity, they suggest, happens when employees are trusted and supported rather than controlled by machines.
