Happy Thursday, everyone.
I'm Frank Richardson, an organisational psychologist observing the workplace with curiosity and care. Each week, I share insights to help HR leaders better understand the people behind the processes and build cultures where both individuals and organisations can thrive.
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This week in workplace whiplash 🌀
Companies are dialling up control with subtle shifts that pile pressure, from tightening office rules to stretched job expectations, the workplace mood is changing fast.
📊 ‘Hybrid creep’ spreads as RTO rules tighten
More firms are mandating in-office days again. Intel, NBCUniversal, Starbucks, and BNY Mellon now expect 4+ days a week, up from 3 or hybrid models. A survey shows 34% of full-time U.S. workers must be in-office ≥4 days now.
👉 Business Insider🤯 Workday pushes for AI agents in HR & finance
Workday just dropped over $1.1B to acquire Sana and is rolling out AI agents aimed at automating recruiting, performance tasks, and more. The worry: workflows may speed up, but bias, oversight, and discrimination concerns are rising.
👉Wall Street Journal⚠️ HR dragged into America’s culture wars
Following Charlie Kirk’s killing, HR teams are caught in the crossfire of politics. They're getting tasked with policing employee posts, investigating politically-charged conduct, and balancing pressure from leadership with growing concern over free speech.
👉 Business Insider
The boundaries between work and life keep shrinking. The Kirk surveillance wave is just the loudest example of a quieter trend: a slow erosion of trust that every leader should be watching.
🤝 Supported by HiBob
Budgets are tight, expectations are high, but your culture doesn’t need to pay the price. This HiBob webinar offers practical steps for lean HR teams to drive results and keep employees thriving. Walk away with strategies you can act on now, plus a free workbook and 1 HRCI credit.
According to The Times, several US companies have started monitoring employees’ social media after the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, leaning on AI tools to flag posts that might clash with “company values.”
As Business Insider reports, HR teams are now being pulled deeper into America’s culture wars, investigating politically charged conduct, managing reputational risks, and acting as referees in battles that spill far beyond the office walls.
On paper, it’s about protecting reputations. In reality, it means a sarcastic tweet, a political hot take, or even a snarky comment on a friend’s post could end up in HR’s inbox.
So why does this story hit so hard? It forces the question nobody wants to answer: how much of yourself do you actually sign away when you sign your employment contract?
🧠The behavioural science lens
To make sense of why companies do this (and why employees hate it) you have to look at the psychology driving both sides.
Surveillance and trust: Heavy monitoring frays loyalty. Harvard Business Review shows that surveillance erodes autonomy and motivation, which drags performance. People do better work when they aren’t treated like suspects.
The silence effect: When punishment feels likely, voices go quiet. Pew Research found social media users are far less likely to discuss contentious topics when they sense disagreement in their networks. Add bosses snooping in the background, and silence becomes the safest option.
When watching backfires: Surveillance chips away at trust, and sometimes it pushes people into quiet acts of resistance. An Academy of Management Journal study found that monitoring reduces a sense of agency, which makes employees more likely to bend or break rules. Watchdogs don’t always get compliance. Sometimes they get resistance.
Well-being hit: The effects aren’t just cultural. A 2024 study found that perceived monitoring is linked to higher stress and lower job satisfaction. Put simply: surveillance makes people miserable, and miserable people don’t stay.
🚀What this means for leaders
Be transparent. If monitoring is happening, say it out loud. Spell out scope, tools, and limits in plain language. Employees always find out anyway (remember that episode of the Office?), and when they do, secrecy stings worse than surveillance itself.
Respect off-duty lives. A rant outside work hours should not be a firing offence unless it causes demonstrable harm. Leaders need to be crystal clear on where the line sits, and resist the urge to move the goalposts when things get uncomfortable.
Prefer dialogue to detection. The smartest companies aren’t the ones scanning for bad posts; they’re the ones creating space for hard conversations. Build channels where employees can raise concerns, challenge leadership, or blow off steam without fear of reprisal.
Audit your AI tools. Algorithms miss nuance, tone, and cultural context. False positives ruin reputations and morale. Human review isn’t just a safeguard; it’s a signal that you value judgement over automation.
Guard psychological safety. Employees who feel they must self-censor won’t innovate, won’t challenge shaky decisions, and often won’t stay long. Protecting that freedom to speak (even when you disagree) is the difference between a team that thrives and one that checks out.
Think long-term. Surveillance might feel like brand protection today, but the bigger cost shows up later: higher turnover, lower engagement, and a reputation as a place where people feel stifled.
💬 Final thoughts
The new frontier of workplace surveillance isn’t the office camera. It’s your feed, your likes, and that sarcastic meme you thought only friends would see. Employers may think they’re protecting reputations, but the real risk is cultural. Once people feel watched everywhere, trust evaporates. And when trust goes, loyalty is rarely far behind.
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Until next week,
Frank
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