I’m also in this business [1], the reality is everyone has to do it to compete. These systems help you fire bad apples, which could bring down your business. Personally started my company because I saw the lack of understanding and abuse of these systems.
Not a single company I know of built their systems to increase retention. No matter what they claim, HR doesn’t really care about that - they care about bad apples. It’s for insider threat detection and mitigation. Fire the trouble makers, keep the people who do work by the system metrics. The problem is that the system metrics don’t reflect what employers look for (skill sets, influence, etc) that’s why I started my business — to focus on skill sets and knowledge retention.
In any case, is this a bad thing? I don’t know.
It’s a fine line companies that build mass surveillance tread. HR and management typically fully trust the system numbers. Meaning, the amount you spend on email becomes a promotable/fireable metric... what if you just email efficiently or you use email ineffectively, the system may not pick that up.
Most of these surveillance companies are unscrupulous and the management of the companies they sell to fall into the point system trap. There’s also no getting away from it. Every large company has, or will have these systems. So, the best thing you can do (and the difference with my company) is you make it clear to employees and try to provide benefits in some way. Our company uses as chat bot and provides a search engine. Most companies provide nothing to the employees, just monitor and fire them.
[1] https://metacortex.me/