Abstract

The sudden decentralisation of work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic challenges institutionalised work practices, which some companies seek to counter by using people analytics. Narratives around people analytics often portray it as an enabler of remote workers’ (self-)organisation. Simultaneously, especially when deployed for performance management, people analytics is considered an enabler of workplace surveillance. Further, algorithmic biases in the systems can perpetuate social injustice and discrimination of marginalised groups, impacting established hierarchies and social structures in the workplace. Our study 1) provides an overview of the status of emerging themes around people analytics, remote working, and leadership, and 2) assesses the impact people analytics has on shifting structures in organisations. We guide our analysis by deploying and extending the Structurational Model of Technology. Our results suggest that people analytics poses vastly different challenges for employees and leaders, and that it can potentially contradict current trends towards flat hierarchies.

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