There are countries which forbid such tracking software. Also, big companies usually have labor unions, which will do everything to prevent a company from using such tracking. I think, such software creates more problems than it solves. For example people being measured by artificial performance indicators, which might have nothing to do with the real world (code quality/maintainability, other responsibilities, team work, etc.)

I think, managers do want the software, but I would quit any company forcing me to install tracking software.

Depends on how you'd measure the performance.

There are numerous tracking tools that measure how much time you spent on one thing. I felt super uncomfortable when one of the people I worked with requested me to install some advanced tracking software that tracked which apps were running on my laptop. So, it all depends on what your definition of productivity is.

I believe there is a need for a product like this. There was a PM at the coworking space I was working out of that was asking around for this type of software. It seemed like there was no product offering on the market for what he was looking for which was measuring how effective his remote developers were.

He was also asking at our dev meetups how you would even measure such things, let alone, how effective those metrics would be at truly measuring their performance. Lines of code (or lack thereof)? Test coverage? Bugs killed? Features implemented in xyz timeframe? Code stabilization (going from putting out fires that prevent you from writing new features to actually writing those features)? Would those metrics change as your product becomes more stable? What would have to happen for those "goal posts" to move?

I think a product like this would fit better into the corporate model (IT department vs a startup). There's already metrics set in place for most IT departments for performance reviews. I think having a product like this in the enterprise (large(r) corporations) would help them let go of enough control so that their employees could work remotely.

Floors me that in a market like Vancouver, remote jobs are incredibly rare to find - especially when there's a "brain drain" happening because of the cost of living. I'm all for anything that would help increase the amount of remote work available!