Micromanagement has become one of the most common problems in the workplace among employees. Several professionals enter their work with enthusiasm only to find themselves under intense scrutiny where every action is carefully watched. While such stories of micromanagement often emerge from office workplaces, have you ever heard of a manager bossing employees around from home?
An Indian woman shared how she was disturbed by a job interview after hearing the employer’s expectations. The employer highlighted “mandatory webcam surveillance” and 10-minute interval screenshots used to monitor “efficiency”, adding that such a restrictive work culture hinders growth and creates more pressure than a traditional office environment.
“Working from home should be flexible”
“I recently interviewed for a job and one of their policies stuck in my head. Everything went well. There’s a work-from-home role where they wanted to watch us work,” Gurleen said in a video shared on Instagram.
She further explained that the company’s surveillance system included recording employees’ screens and monitoring them via web cameras. “Plus they’ll take screenshots of your work. Every 10 minutes bro, I can’t even sit for 10 minutes,” she said.
Speaking about the work culture, she added: “And working from home should be flexible. I understand that productivity and tracking efficiency are very important, but this feels more like torture to me.”
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‘Hiring humans or robots!???’
She also revealed that her interest in the role faded after learning about the politics. “Such a limited culture and micromanagement will never allow me to grow. This is more supervision than in an office. I don’t know if you would be comfortable with this type of work, but it certainly wasn’t for me,” she said.
Sharing the video, Gurleen captioned it: “Hiring humans or bots!???”
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Social networks are responding
Social media users quickly reacted to the post. One person commented, “Send them this reel, please.” Gurleen jokingly replied, “It will be monitored as well.” Another user wrote, “Itna strict bhi nahi hona tha.”
In a similar incident earlier this year, a LinkedIn post went viral after a manager asked an employee on sick leave to share their current location, claiming it was an HR policy.
In a viral LinkedIn post, Pallavi Sugian, a social media marketer, shared a screenshot of an alleged chat between a manager and an employee on sick leave.
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“The employee is asking for sick leave and the manager is asking for where we live. Let it sink in,” she noted. She said the incident made her pause and think about how trust was defined in workplaces.
Infuriated by the lack of trust in employees, Sugian said, “Somewhere we’ve started to confuse management with monitoring and leadership with control.” She added: “If an organization needs GPS evidence to believe someone has a headache, the problem isn’t attendance, IT’S TRUST.”
She further stated that the workplace culture was not defined by the policies written in the PDF. “It reveals itself in moments like these when empathy is tested and power dynamics quietly emerge in WhatsApp chats,” she noted.
“Yes, responsibility matters, but so does dignity,” she added.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user generated content from social media. Livemint has not independently verified and does not endorse these claims.)
