We all know that meeting or exceeding performance expectations is the best way to ensure your job security. But do you know how your employer is tracking and measuring your performance-related activities?
Increasingly, employers are using a wide range of AI-powered tools and software platforms to track keystrokes, mouse movements, internal communications and calendar appointments as well as AI usage via prompts, tokens and tasks.
In fact, 74% of U.S. employers now use online monitoring tools to track employee work activities. Potentially, the data could be factored into decisions about performance, promotions, raises and layoffs.
But while companies have detailed visibility into activity and adoption rates, they have far less clarity on their impact on productivity, effectiveness and outcomes. Only 32% of employees report receiving formal workplace policies explaining online monitoring practices. Worse, taken in isolation, raw activity data can easily lead to incorrect conclusions about your productivity.
Don’t wait. Here are four ways to avoid surprises at review time in the age of AI activity monitoring.
Gain Absolute Clarity
Don’t wait until your company rolls out new performance guidelines, warns Dr. Kyle Elliott, career and executive coach for tech leaders. You need to be absolutely clear about what’s important and what you’re accountable for.
“Find out what activities they’re already tracking and how they plan to use the data,” Elliott says.
Is the data being used to make decisions, or is it just a data point? That’s a key distinction.
For instance, tracking calendar activity alone fails to reveal whether your time spent in meetings actually produced meaningful contributions, solutions or results. That data needs to be taken in context.
Plus, monitoring things like laptop activity when organizations implement return-to-office (RTO) mandates to spark "spontaneous collaboration" sends mixed messages.
“You need to make sure that you and your boss are on the same page and that senior leaders won’t review the numbers in a vacuum and reach unfair or inaccurate assumptions about your performance,” Elliott added.
Volunteer to Help Set Performance Standards
If your boss is struggling to quantify the role that activity plays in the execution and delivery of successful outcomes in your field or role, volunteer to help write objectives that balance metrics with quantified subjective evaluations to capture a complete picture of impact suggests Dr. Tiffany Keller Hansbrough, associate professor, School of Management at Binghamton University.
“Ideally, employees, especially those in professional roles that require deep thought and creativity, should have some voice in designing what the metrics should be and how they are used to evaluate performance,” Hansbrough said.
If your boss needs convincing, back up your case with data.
Electronic performance monitoring increases worker stress and doesn’t improve performance, according to a meta-analysis by Dr. Daniel Ravid, assistant professor for the Department of Management at the University of New Mexico.
However, when workers are given agency over monitoring and the ability to access the data and deploy the tools on their own, they tend to see monitoring as helping rather than micromanaging, Ravid explained.
Employers need to focus on what top performance looks like based on the role and how activity tracking can contribute positively to performance, not hurt morale or results.
Adopt New Habits
The reality is that adhering to an AI-driven activity tracking system requires some gamesmanship.
To avoid being perceived as disengaged, you may need to “play along” by changing the way you record activity, interact in virtual meetings or move conversations into public digital spaces so automated AI agents can index, parse, and act on the data.
For example, one of Elliott’s clients plays ping pong with co-workers during breaks at the office to build relationships, trust and exchange ideas. He now puts the games on his calendar to ensure that they are viewed as structured, purposeful gatherings focused on real-time collaboration. You also want to ensure that you get credit for impromptu meetings or hallway exchanges with stakeholders or executives that produce ideas or agreements.
Document Your Impact
Be ready to advocate for your success and challenge incorrect conclusions or reviews that mistake superficial metrics for actual performance. How? Document!
Spend 20 minutes at the end of each week recording your accomplishments while they’re still fresh in your mind. The goal of this document is to shift the focus from raw activity metrics (like clicks, keystrokes, workflows and Claude Code usage) to business impact (like completed deliverables, process improvements, adherence with regulatory compliance, reduced token consumption, strategic solution development, mentoring junior colleagues and so forth).
Review your achievements with your boss on a regular basis to proactively head off any discrepancies and ensure a smooth performance review. Unfortunately, when companies fall behind in writing performance goals, they sometimes end up applying them retroactively to the entire period. You certainly don’t want to find out that the rules of the game were changed after you already played it.
Plus, marketing your success internally is one of the smartest ways to create job security, build influence and unlock promotions within your organization so your hard work does not go unnoticed.
If you receive a rating that seems inaccurate or unfair due to a lack of activity or engagement, stay calm, wait 24 hours to process your emotions and gather factual evidence before responding Elliott says.
Having lists of completed projects and the results in terms of speed, effectiveness, quality, impact, costs and value can help you approach the meeting as a joint problem-solving session to fix a flawed activity tracking system.
The best way to address an incorrect conclusion about your performance is to counter raw data about your activity levels with objective, human-driven evidence.
