In September 2021, 45% of full-time employees were still working remotely, and the trend is hard to reverse. People like the freedom of working from home. Without a commute, they save time. Without a boss looming in the background, they can multi-task at home. And, without an office full of colleagues, they don’t have to worry about dressing up or having water cooler chit-chat. While employees see these changes as positives, businesses see remote workers as a bit of a risk.

Gone are the days where bosses could simply walk by an employee’s desk and peek at their computer screen to see if they were on task. At the end of last year, 45% of full-time employees worked from home at least part of the time, and many want to keep it that way. Enter employee monitoring, not-so-affectionally known as “bossware.” It’s software that companies install to better understand what it is their employees are doing all day.