Most workers are okay with bosses checking their DMs, emails if allowed to WFH: Survey

The survey found that 62 percent of people who work from home three times a week were okay with their employers broadly monitoring their digital footprint.

As companies across the world have begun to increase their pressure on employees, demanding they return to working from the office, many professionals who prefer working from home appear to be okay with handing over the one thing that most employees hold dear especially at workplaces -- their privacy -- in exchange for being permitted to work remotely.

Software company Qualtrics conducted a survey of about 37,000 workers across 32 countries and found that most of them are willing to let their employers go through their emails, chat messages, and virtual meeting transcripts so that bosses can make workplace improvements.

As per the survey, 62 percent of people who work from home three times a week were okay with their employers broadly monitoring email, chat messages, and social media posts for insights, Business Insider reported. But for employees who worked from the office, the number stood at 49 percent.

Also, even among these employees who permitted their companies to look into their digital footprint, only about four in 10 workers were comfortable with it, the publication reported.

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According to Benjamin Granger, chief workplace psychologist at Qualtrics, companies that previously had to rely mostly on things like employee surveys to understand what employees' feedback were now using technology to mine through things like emails, chats, and even comments in a webcast to understand what they are talking about and how they feel about it.

"People are generally fairly comfortable with a company scraping work-related communications," Granger told Business Insider. "But as you get to the more personal stuff, that's where people get more uncomfortable, naturally."

Therefore, it was not surprising that it was the younger workers who were somewhat more comfortable than their older colleagues about letting companies monitor their social media posts. As per the survey, 45 percent of Gen Z and millennial workers were okay with it but only 37 percent of Gen X workers and 29 percent of Boomers agreed to that approach.

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