The Trust Crisis: Control, Presence, And Productivity Metrics
In the last article, we discussed RTO mandates, which are often criticized for prioritizing managerial oversight over operational necessity. Return-to-office policies are just one expression of a broader instinct: the need to control what can’t be directly seen. Rigid attendance rules may offer a sense of order, but they come with significant trade-offs. In this piece, we’ll look deeper at what being “here” really means, how control measures shape behavior, engagement, and performance, and why trust, not control, is the true driver of results.
Physical Presence Control
Many organizations continue to invest in systems designed to enforce physical presence in the office. This is not a new trend, but the sophistication of these measures varies, from access cards and fingerprint readers to video surveillance and GPS tracking.
In my experience, these workplaces often treat employees as ‘time thieves’ by default. I saw this a lot early in my career, especially in consultancies selling developers “in bulk”. Employees quickly became creative around these measures: sharing access cards, “forgetting” to use biometric scanners, or slipping through doors behind others. Much time was spent trash-talking these systems, and a surprising amount of creativity went into beating the rules.
A common side effect is “presence theater,” where the focus shifts from meaningful work to simply appearing busy. Presentism tends to dominate among those who strictly follow the rules, while others quietly find ways around them. In one marketing agency I worked at, poor project planning meant days with very little work to do. Still, we were required to stay in the office, with every minute tracked and monthly reports of “time owed”. When urgent work appeared, employees were asked to put in extra hours, but payment was delayed until any owed time was made up. I personally never faced consequences, because I delivered results, but colleagues who followed the rules more strictly ended up paying for poor management with lost evenings and weekends. Meanwhile, others gamed the system, watching videos for hours to accumulate “credit” and avoid extra work. It was chaotic: people smoked in toilets to avoid tracking, HR was frustrated chasing people, colleagues were constantly venting, productivity suffered, and morale was nonexistent.
The underlying problem is that organizations often equate work with hours rather than results, a model that clashes with the realities of creative, analytical, and problem-solving work, which happens in irregular bursts. Strict presence policies can lead employees to resent the system, spending energy on “beating the rules” rather than contributing meaningfully. Research shows that such surveillance and rigid tracking can damage trust, reduce engagement and commitment, and increase turnover. Employees who feel micromanaged or undervalued are less motivated, less loyal, and more likely to seek opportunities elsewhere, ultimately undermining the very performance these systems were meant to secure (1).
Productivity Control
Modern productivity tracking tools promise managers visibility and reassurance, but often at the cost of autonomy. Some even claim to “ensure your team is working hard.” The problem with such statements is that knowledge work is about working smarter, not harder: solving problems and delivering meaningful results, not just logging hours or clicks and performing for a dashboard.
Even well-intentioned monitoring can backfire. Imagine constantly feeling like someone is looking over your shoulder, a reality for many tracked employees. Studies show that monitored workers report higher stress levels than those who aren’t, and employees often interpret surveillance as a lack of confidence in their judgment. This damages trust, erodes engagement and commitment, and over time undermines job satisfaction and well-being, leaving employees feeling undervalued and disengaged. Research supports these concerns: excessive tracking encourages performative work, prioritizing the appearance of activity over meaningful results, and can increase turnover as employees feel micromanaged and demotivated (Worklytics, The HR Director / VMware).
The consequences extend beyond daily tasks. Surveillance-driven environments can stifle creativity, discourage risk-taking, and undermine collaboration. Employees resent systems that track their every move, often devoting energy to circumventing the rules rather than improving performance. Focusing on hours, clicks, or activity instead of outcomes diminishes autonomy, engagement, and natural motivation, the very factors that drive high performance.
Gamification and Behavioral Control
Some workplaces don’t think that tracking you is enough. Not content with the Orwellian environments they’ve created, they now want you to enjoy it through gamification: badges, points, and leaderboards. Under the pretense of motivating employees, these mechanisms manipulate behavior under the guise of fun. Some employees chase the rewards, though often their engagement is performative rather than authentic, while others are left tolerating these over-the-top attempts to “incentivize” them. Meanwhile, the culture of trust quietly erodes in the background.
Micromanagement Tactics
Control is not only technological. Leaders often exert influence through constant meetings, pop-ins, early arrivals, late departures, and unrealistic expectations. Some managers rarely appear during the day but show up at 6pm just to see who’s still at their desk, a subtle form of oversight that can create anxiety and shift focus from real work to performative presence and often penalizes high performers who deliver results but also have families or other responsibilities. Even well-intentioned rituals, like daily standups, retrospectives, or velocity tracking, can become tools of oversight when misapplied.
The problem is not the ceremonies themselves, but how metrics are interpreted and used. When examined in isolation or over short periods, metrics create pressure to “perform for the numbers” rather than focus on meaningful outcomes. Dashboards and retrospectives should guide long-term trends, not dictate every micro-level behavior.
From my experience, the consequences are all too real. Teams often spend countless hours debating whether a story is a 3, a 5, or a 2, putting energy into defending estimates instead of understanding tasks, dependencies, or potential gaps. Standups can become repetitive and performative: instead of discussing blockers or coordinating work, people often simply restate what they did yesterday or plan to do today. With a visible board and PR discussions already tracking progress, these daily recaps rarely add value. The focus shifts to going through the motions rather than solving problems or supporting each other, making the meetings feel routine and exhausting.
Psychologically, this constant oversight fosters fear, disengagement, and stifled creativity. Teams internalize the expectation of being watched, creating subtle but pervasive stress and tension. High performers, in particular, may become cautious, avoiding work that isn’t directly tied to a ticket or estimate. Fixing a flaky test, investigating a new error in the logs, or upgrading a dependency to patch a security issue, are the kinds of tasks that top engineers usually take on voluntarily because they care about their craft, but under constant scrutiny they may stick only to the easiest most visible work.
Trust in the Balance
Organizations that invest heavily in surveillance and micromanagement often achieve short-term visibility at the cost of long-term dysfunction. In contrast, organizations that emphasize autonomy, transparency, and psychological safety frequently show stronger productivity, retention, and innovation over time.
In workplaces where trust thrives, you often see:
- Open communication and willingness to raise concerns
- Recognition of achievements at all levels
- Transparent decision-making processes
- Collaborative goal-setting
- High engagement and proactive problem-solving
Does that sound like your working environment? If so congratulations, but if not, there’s still hope. You can improve things even if just for your direct teams. The situation is clear: measures designed to improve control can undermine the very outcomes they aim to secure. And trust, once lost, is difficult to regain.
So before we end, here’s something to try: instead of running retros every sprint, space them out, maybe once a month, or every two or three cycles. Give the team that extra time for actual work, tackling blockers, or experimenting with new approaches. It’s not about skipping reflection, but shifting the lens, from snapshots of isolated moments, to trajectories and the patterns that emerge over time. You might be surprised to see what happens when you keep tracking the metrics, but stop paying attention to them for a while, and what they later can reveal about your team.
Then, look beyond the numbers. Do people raise important issues on their own? Do they collaborate differently when they feel less observed? The small details, the tone in meetings, the way people take initiative, will tell you more about trust than any metric ever could.
If you made it this far, thank you for your attention. If you enjoyed these reflections, stay tuned and subscribe to the newsletter. I’ll be exploring more around trust in the next articles of this series.