[sjperez]

Is anyone aware of any actual research on this issue? If so, what does it say? Do remote workers actually work less? Do intrusive monitoring apps improve productivity or decrease productivity?

I've always had the sense that people who work remote are perfectly capable of being productive without monitoring. In some ways, depending on your personal situation, being at home can be less distracting than being at the office. On any given day, I would bet that most people in an office only put in 3-4 hours of good work (or less). Much of the rest of the time is spent being distracted by office gossip, meetings, coffee breaks, etc. Why should we expect people working from home to put in 8 solid hours of good focused work when we don't demand the same of people in the office?

It would be nice to see some actual data on this problem. I have an instinct that this is a major overreaction by managers and that it will ultimately drive productivity and retention down. However, I'm open to being proved wrong if this is an issue that has been studied in a rigorous fashion.