Only one in five U.S. employees who regularly use a computer or other device at work have a great deal of trust that their organization's leaders will use worker data responsibly, a Gallup survey found. Employees who are engaged in their jobs report far more trust than those who are actively disengaged.
The Gallup workforce study found that another 43% trust leaders somewhat, while 23% trust them not too much and 14% not at all. The survey distinguished activity data, such as hours worked and badge swipes, from content data, such as emails, meeting content and websites visited.
Forty percent of engaged employees said they have a great deal of trust in leaders' use of their data. That compares with 13% of employees who are not engaged and 4% of those who are actively disengaged. The results show an association, not that engagement itself causes greater trust.
Many employees are unsure what is collected
Fifty-nine percent of employees believe their employer definitely or probably collects activity data, while 26% believe it probably or definitely does not and 15% do not know. For content data, 46% believe their employer collects it, 33% believe it does not and 21% do not know.
Gallup cautioned that those answers describe employees' perceptions and may not reflect their organizations' actual practices. Only 19% of all employees said someone at work had discussed the data or metrics their organization collects about their work with them.
Managers and leaders were not much more likely than individual contributors to report having had that conversation. The shares were 21% for managers, 23% for leaders and 19% for individual contributors.
About one-third of employees said they were very or somewhat concerned about how their organization collects and uses worker data. Concern varied sharply with trust: it was 13% among employees who trusted leaders a great deal, compared with 65% among those who did not trust leaders at all. It was 25% among engaged employees and 50% among actively disengaged employees.
Purpose affects comfort with monitoring
Workers were more comfortable with uses they saw as constructive than with uses affecting their standing at work. Sixty-two percent were very or somewhat comfortable with employers using activity data to help managers support team effectiveness and goals, while 61% were comfortable with using it to help employees improve performance or development.
The shares were 53% for using activity data in performance reviews and 57% for organizational decisions such as staffing and scheduling. Across the potential uses Gallup tested, employees were more comfortable with the use of activity data than with the content of their activity.
Employees who had discussed workplace data use with someone at their organization were more likely to have a great deal of trust in leaders' handling of that data: 26%, compared with 18% of those who had not had such a conversation. They were also eight percentage points more likely to express concern about data use, a reminder that discussion and confidence do not move together in every measure. The survey does not establish that the conversations caused either difference.
Among managers and leaders, 24% said they had direct access to employee data and 26% said they could request it. Another 27% said they could not access it, and 23% were unsure what was available. Forty-six percent of those with direct access had a great deal of trust in leadership's data use, compared with 27% of those who could request access and 16% of those who could not access the data.
Gallup conducted the probability-based, self-administered web survey May 6-20, 2026, among 22,573 employed U.S. adults in its panel. It weighted responses to national demographic benchmarks and reported a sampling margin of error of plus or minus 0.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for the quarterly workforce study. Gallup noted that question wording and practical survey difficulties can introduce error beyond sampling error.
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