Employee surveillance has accelerated in the pandemic: As distributed workforces become more entrenched, data-collection practices are rapidly expanding into uncharted and largely unregulated terrain. Activities once tracked in an office are now being collected inside people’s homes.

“The biggest concern related to surveillance in the pandemic is that the blurring of work and home boundaries becomes worse,” Jessica Vitak, a professor of information studies at the University of Maryland, told HR Brew.

Privacy experts and researchers interviewed by HR Brew predict that in the coming years, employee monitoring could take on a more personalized and possibly more invasive dimension as organizations continue to allow employees to work remotely.

For HR professionals at companies practicing some level of employee data collection, this brave new world of work raises a vital question: Will this enhanced surveillance jeopardize employee engagement and company culture? Keep reading here (we promise not to tell anyone).—SB

We’ve consulted all the horoscope apps, shaken our Magic 8-ball until “All signs point to yes,” and even interviewed some experts. This is the future they foretold: The next five years of HR will be on apps.

The year is 2027, and almost every HR process under the sun starts with a push notification, then a gentle vibrating nudge, and concludes with a message requesting that the employee rate their user experience.

The consensus among HR leaders and software developers who HR Brew recently interviewed is that there will be AI-powered apps for recruiters, apps that integrate the in-office and home-office experiences, apps that offer learning and development, apps for employee engagement and community building, and apps to automate the mundane, like tax preparation.

Then, a company must create an app that can sync all of that.

What does this accelerated shift toward technology mean for the people profession? Read on, humanoid.—SV

Organizations are relying more and more on independent contractors, which can present a unique challenge for HR professionals, according to Jeroen Meijerink, an assistant professor of human resource management (HRM) at the University of Twente, who studies the gig economy.

Although independent contractors are meant to require less daily management, in practice, Meijerink says many HR teams treat hourly employees and contingent workers similarly.

“Firms are walking a tightrope,” Meijerink told HR Brew. “They constantly have to balance between exercising control…without implying that they are exercising control. So one of my colleagues said, ‘Well, they’re actually doing HRM without HRM.’”

How does that work? Depends on who you ask.—SV

​​A tight labor market and grueling pandemic made 2021 a uniquely difficult year for recruiters scrambling to hire workers and HR professionals responsible for retaining them. Will 2022 be any easier? We spoke with several hiring experts and HR leaders to get a sense of what might lie ahead.

To get the bad news out of the way: The Great Resignation wasn’t a one-season wonder à la The Queen’s Gambit—by all accounts, it’s coming back for season two in 2022. We can offer you a chaser. Demystifying retention doesn’t require consulting a ouija board.

Liz Wilke, principal economist at Gusto, a firm that tracks hiring data throughout the US, said the quit rates “blew right past” previously reported numbers. According to Wilke, turnover was led by women, workers in retail services, and employees in areas with low vaccination rates.

So what to expect in the year ahead? Step into our time machine.—SV