Making Lemonade: Dealing with Analytics Surveillance in the Workplace

In this paper we focus on how organizational practices are generated because of the introduction of analytics-based technologies aimed at monitoring employees’ performance. We use longitudinal data collected from June 2017 to December 2019 at a healthcare network in the Greater Boston Area. The related literature often points to negative aspects of workplace surveillance through these systems; what is more, it is not clear why some organizations can benefit from process improvement through analytics while other cannot. These mixed findings and a gray area around reasons underpinning the successful deployment of these systems motivate our study. We found that a mixture of top-down and bottom-up practices, in the long- term, promote collective actions of supporting the effective use of analytics. Top-down practices (management) focus on the reorganization of structures and formal processes; bottom-up practices (employees) concern cross-community bonding, creative workarounds to improve current practices and the attempt to transfer these (improved) practices to different contexts where the same analytics standards “rule.” We theorize on how these practices need to be interwoven to be successful, and we highlight that this takes time. We therefore contribute to (and question the pessimism of) related literature by showcasing the bright side of analytics at work, happening over time.