We're a 14-person business (mix of admin, sales, and ops) and we went hybrid last year. Two days in office, three from home. Honestly it's been fine for most people but I've got two folks where the output has just... slowed. I'm not sure if it's a focus thing, a workload thing, or a "playing Candy Crush" thing, and I don't want to assume the worst. Before I go down the rabbit hole of installing something that takes screenshots every five minutes (which feels gross), I wanted to ask other owners - what's actually worked for you? Did you go the full monitoring route, or did better check-ins / clearer KPIs solve it? Looking for what didn't backfire on team morale.
I’m wondering how this is usually handled in workplaces. If the company switches tools, updates tracking features, or changes what data is collected, do employees normally get notified, or is it often treated like a normal backend software change?
I’m curious how people feel about employee monitoring tools from a software/user experience perspective. Do these tools actually motivate people, or do they mostly create pressure and make employees want to move away from monitored roles?