- Six in ten (59%) of UK employees say their employer uses monitoring software, rising to 71% of Gen Z
- Majority (82%) want a legal requirement for employers to disclose monitoring
- Half (50%) of UK managers would be interested in sending an AI avatar to meetings in their place
Big Boss is watching: six in ten UK workers are tracked while time is lost to meeting tech
Six in ten (59%) UK employees say they are monitored at work, with employers tracking everything from login times to mouse movements, according to Owl Labs’ 2026 State of Hybrid Work Report, a survey of 2,014 full-time UK employees. Employees are clear on what they want, with 82% believing employers should be legally required to disclose when they use monitoring tools.
Logins, meetings and mouse clicks
The most commonly tracked activities are:
- login and logout times (32%)
- the number of meetings attended (22%)
- screen and mouse movement (17%) and
- keyboard usage (15%).
Younger workers are watched most closely, with 71% of Gen Z saying their employer uses tracking software, compared with just 38% of Gen X.
Present on paper, absent in practice
Meeting attendance is the second most tracked activity, yet many of the people in those meetings would rather be elsewhere. More than a quarter (28%) of UK workers have tried ‘phantom meeting attendance’, keeping their name on the invite and catching up later through notes, recordings or AI summaries. Managers are leading the trend, with one in three (33%) having done it, more than double the rate of non-managers (15%).
As UK workers lean into AI to make their working day more efficient, meeting attendance may be next on the list to be automated, with 42% considering using an AI avatar to attend meetings on their behalf. This average hides a bigger divide, with half (50%) of managers interested in the technology, versus just 21% of non-managers.
The metrics being tracked to gauge workers’ productivity also miss what managers say matters most. Asked how they define productivity, managers point first to operational efficiency (51%) and customer satisfaction (50%).
The real productivity drain is in the meeting room
One of the biggest barriers to productive meetings is the technology used. Almost three quarters (73%) of UK workers lose time to technical difficulties in hybrid meetings, 70% struggle to hear everyone and 69% experience audio echo or distortion. Teams spend an average of 6 minutes getting each hybrid meeting started.
Investment is also slowing: only a quarter (25%) say their employer installed or upgraded meeting room video or audio equipment in 2026, down from 35% in 2025. Yet 83% of employees rate good technology as important to their working life.
“Employers want visibility of how their teams are working, and monitoring tools have filled that gap quickly, with 59% of UK employees saying they are tracked. Our data shows employees are uneasy about how those tools are used, and the activity they track says very little about the quality of work being done,” said Frank Weishaupt, CEO, Owl Labs.
“With the Government reviewing how workplace monitoring should be regulated, now is the time for employers to be open about what they track and why. The bigger productivity gains sit in the meeting room, where 73% of UK workers lose time to technical difficulties. The minutes lost to setup, the colleagues who can’t be heard and the daily workarounds all add up. Trust and reliable technology are what keep people productive, and what keep them in the business.”
To read Owl Labs’ full State of Hybrid Work 2026 report, visit here.
