Electronic monitoring: what do employees think of this innovation?[Le monitoring électronique : que pensent les salariés de cette innovation ?]

The electronic performance monitoring is often perceived as an innovative management tool based on technological innovations but is mainly innovative through the systematization and the capacity of surveillance and control. Used by organizations to improve performance and control employee, electronic monitoring appears to have significant side effects such as stress and the feeling of invasion of privacy. While most research has focused on the technical and managerial dimensions of monitoring few have considered its human consequences. The perception of monitoring was nevertheless addressed as the link between the technical design and implementation managerial work. In this way our objective is to study the perception of electronic monitoring and examine its effects on performance. Three case studies were conducted (44 employees interviewed, three call centers). In continuation of previous works the results show that the monitoring may well be seen as a source of stress, source of invasion of privacy but also as a tool for effective control and source of performance improvement and in this depending on how it was implemented and applied. These results also help to reveal the paradoxical nature of monitoring and its effects. These paradoxes concern the will of performance and the reification generated. The performance will be found to have perverse and counterproductive effects and social dynamics leads individuals to want their own reification.