Boss wanted to monitor employees during WFH: Should camera tracking be mandatory for remote work? 23 employees quit after new rule

Working from home has become a normal part of office life for many employees, but how much control an employer should have over people working remotely remains a difficult question. A recent controversy involving billionaire attorney John Morgan has brought that debate back into focus after he claimed that 23 employees quit within a week after his company introduced camera-based monitoring for remote workers.

Morgan, founder of personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, made the comments while appearing on The Iced Coffee Hour podcast. He was discussing the challenges employers face when trying to make sure that employees working from home are actually working.

John Morgan says 23 employees quit

According to Morgan, the issue came up after employees resisted returning to the office following the pandemic. He said his staff were given the option of continuing to work remotely, but there was a condition attached to it: their work laptops would have cameras used for monitoring.


“Here’s what we’re going to do. You can work from home, but guess what? We’re going to put a camera on your computer.”

Morgan went further while describing the policy, saying, “You can work from home. But guess what? We're going to put a camera on your computer. We're going to put a camera up. We won't look at you. It'll be a pixel.”

He claimed the response was immediate, with 23 employees leaving during the first week.

“The first week, 23 people quit. Oh my gosh. It's not that they don't want to work from home. They don't want to work,” Morgan said.

He presented the incident as evidence that some employees may want remote work not only because of the flexibility it offers, but also because they do not want the same level of supervision and accountability that comes with working in an office.

Employee privacy becomes the bigger question

Morgan's comments have also raised another issue: whether monitoring an employee through a laptop camera crosses the line between checking productivity and invading someone's privacy.

Several people online pushed back against his argument. One Instagram user wrote, “I think the key tracking would be sufficient enough… cameras? No.”

Another questioned the need for such monitoring, asking, “Isn’t work tracked by productivity?”

A third person made the distinction between wanting to work remotely and wanting privacy, saying, “I don’t want somebody monitoring me in the privacy of my home. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to work.”

Another commenter argued that results should matter more than surveillance: “A good employer knows if their employees are being productive by the results, not the keystrokes or cameras monitoring them. I'd quit as well.”

Does working from home really mean people work less?

The debate is not as simple as saying that remote employees are either highly productive or avoiding work. Research mentioned in the discussion has found mixed results depending on the type of job and how remote work is organised.

As per Inc.com, one meta-analysis of 82 studies concluded that working from home can modestly improve productivity, but the results depend on the circumstances. Other studies have reported productivity gains in specific workplaces, including a call centre in China and a US Patent Office setting.

At the same time, there are concerns about distractions during working hours. A RiseGuide survey cited in the discussion found that 54% of Gen-Z employees, 52% of millennials and 26% of Gen-X employees reported scrolling social media during meetings.

That does not, by itself, prove that remote employees are less productive. It does show why employers can have concerns about what happens when workers are outside the office.

Camera monitoring may not be the answer

The bigger question, therefore, may not be whether people should be allowed to work from home, but how employers should measure performance when they do.

Morgan's account has prompted a very different interpretation from employees who believe productivity should be judged through work delivered rather than constant surveillance. Whether the 23 people who quit were avoiding work or simply unwilling to accept camera monitoring is not known.

What the controversy does show is that remote work still depends on trust. For employees, working from home can offer flexibility. For employers, it can create concerns about accountability. Trying to solve that gap with cameras and keystroke monitoring may create a new problem of its own.