Bosses don't need a 'what did you do' email. They're already tracking you.

Some companies have taken to using sophisticated data analysis tools to spy on their employees

- Natasha Khan & Ray A. Smith

What did you do last week? The question that Elon Musk lobbed to federal workers in an email set off anger and angst from unions and employees. It also prompted some head-scratching from corporate America, where technology tracks worker productivity at a granular level to answer that question in real time.

At a click of a button, managers can check how many pitches a sales person made this week, how quickly a customer service representative resolved a complaint, or the progress an engineer made on an assigned task.

Some companies have taken to using sophisticated data analysis tools to spy on their employees, sifting through millions of emails and chat messages and calendar appointments to measure productivity.

Executives say the intel allows for quicker and more nimble feedback, allowing them to shuffle resources according to the data. Productivity in the U.S. has been on the rise, in part because of new technologies.

"Corporations have moved beyond calling for written weekly status reports and into real-time accountability," said Deidre Paknad, chief executive of WorkBoard, a software company.

While working at IBM, Paknad said she endured the tedium of compiling weekly status reports. As a manager, she collected information from her reports by Wednesday so she could add it to her own on Thursday (often combing through calendars and emails to find details to include). Then, her manager would put all those together on Friday.

Frustrated by the inefficiency, she co-founded WorkBoard in 2014. Among the services: Managers are sent an automated weekly report on Friday that includes prompts to praise high performers, and another at 8:15 a.m. Monday outlining areas that needed prioritization.

For Erik Huddleston, an Austin-based chief executive of marketing for technology company Aprimo, feedback has been a fundamental part of the seven companies he built.