Dr. Michelle O'Sullivan:

There are benefits in terms of helping quality of work – it depends on the job – but there can be excessive levels of monitoring as well. We do not know what the rights of the worker are in that situation. We conducted interviews as part of the study and a bank manager provided an example. Customers who come into banks now are often people who do not have access to the Internet or find it difficult, so some employees might go to great lengths to explain to them what the services are, but if their conversations are recorded and they are found to have gone off script, they can be disciplined or receive a heightened level of monitoring even though they feel they were trying to help the customer as much as possible. Employees want to give a good service. In some of our interviews, they felt that technology was working against them or that it was not there to help the customer as much as it could. They do not mind technology that helps them in their work, but when it works against them and they feel it is leading to inefficiencies and unwarranted disciplining, that is when they are concerned.