Employers Are Mining the Data Their Workers Generate To Figure Out What They're Up To, and With Whom (wsj.com) 101
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: To be an employee of a large company in the U.S. now often means becoming a workforce data generator -- from the first email sent from bed in the morning to the Wi-Fi hotspot used during lunch to the new business contact added before going home. Employers are parsing those interactions to learn who is influential, which teams are most productive and who is a flight risk. Companies, which have wide legal latitude in the U.S. to monitor workers, don't always tell them what they are tracking. [...] It's not just emails that are being tallied and analyzed. Companies are increasingly sifting through texts, Slack chats and, in some cases, recorded and transcribed phone calls on mobile devices.
Microsoft Corp. tallies data on the frequency of chats, emails and meetings between its staff and clients using its own Office 365 services to measure employee productivity, management efficacy and work-life balance. Tracking the email, chats and calendar appointments can paint a picture of how employees spend an average of 20 hours of their work time each week, says Natalie McCollough, a general manager at Microsoft who focuses on workplace analytics. The company only allows managers to look at groups of five or more workers. Advocates of using surveillance technology in the workplace say the insights allow companies to better allocate resources, spot problem employees earlier and suss out high performers. Critics warn that the proliferating tools may not be nuanced enough to result in fair, equitable judgments. The report says that "U.S. employers are legally entitled to access any communications or intellectual property created in the workplace or on devices they pay for that employees use for work." Companies are getting smarter by analyzing phone calls and conference room conversations. "In some cases, tonal analysis can help diagnose culture issues on a team, showing who dominates conversations, who demurs and who resists efforts to engage in emotional discussions," the report says.
Microsoft Corp. tallies data on the frequency of chats, emails and meetings between its staff and clients using its own Office 365 services to measure employee productivity, management efficacy and work-life balance. Tracking the email, chats and calendar appointments can paint a picture of how employees spend an average of 20 hours of their work time each week, says Natalie McCollough, a general manager at Microsoft who focuses on workplace analytics. The company only allows managers to look at groups of five or more workers. Advocates of using surveillance technology in the workplace say the insights allow companies to better allocate resources, spot problem employees earlier and suss out high performers. Critics warn that the proliferating tools may not be nuanced enough to result in fair, equitable judgments. The report says that "U.S. employers are legally entitled to access any communications or intellectual property created in the workplace or on devices they pay for that employees use for work." Companies are getting smarter by analyzing phone calls and conference room conversations. "In some cases, tonal analysis can help diagnose culture issues on a team, showing who dominates conversations, who demurs and who resists efforts to engage in emotional discussions," the report says.
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Richard Dawkins was fantastic as the host of Family Feud, but he's gotten a bit darker in his later years
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They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb on his way to Judea. He said to his disciples, "That man is round about the lamb."
They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it."
He said to them, "While it is alive, he will not eat it, but only when he has killed it and it has become a corpse."
They said to him, "He cannot do so otherwise."
He said to them, "You too, look for a place for yourself within repose, lest you become a corpse and be eaten."
Same as it ever was (Score:1)
s/less/fewer/ (Score:2)
It might mean more from former "problem employees".
Hysterical (Score:2)
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Companies in the US have always been obsessed with the appearance of toil and suffering on part of their employees. This simply extends that obsessive micromanagement and corporate surveillance state.
They also monitor your smartphones... (Score:1, Interesting)
A few years ago, employer-provided Outlook on our personal smartphones gave us a way to get & send work email. About a year ago, we were "upgraded" to Office 365 & told that -- if we left the company -- the company would erase the Outlook 365 data left in our phone. I agreed to all that. What I didn't realize about the "upgrade" was two things.
First, the company WiFi installed a certificate in my personal smartphone which allowed it to decrypt and re-encrypt the data going through
Re:They also monitor your smartphones... (Score:5, Insightful)
Something that I have learned the hard way: never use your personal phone for work. If your company/boss wants you to have a phone, let them provide one.
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Meanwhile the rest of us aren't at war with our employers, recognise the value of communication and like to work from home or other locations.
Always accept a company phone if it's offered, and if you're expected to provide your own, buy a second device.
You can retain control and privacy without being a paranoid idiot.
I'd use my dedicated burner instead. (Score:2)
If I own the phone I can root it and run what I like. If I own the phone I can choose when to answer it. If employers wish to install questionable software I'll have a personal copy to extract, examine, and perhaps expose on Slashdot.
Devices are cheap, control is priceless, and fun is worth a few dollars for a decent used phone if you don't have a few lying about.
Reality (Score:2)
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Re: Reality (Score:2)
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The uniqueness of the URL given to each participant for such a survey is not even remotely any indication that their responses are being or might get tracked... at mos
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This is ridiculous. You are not a slave, that's an absurd notion. They are paying you for your time, you provide it. Or don't, you can walk away any time.
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"Slavery"? Hyperbole much?
One, a person is being compensated for their time. Two, a person is free to quit at any time. One is "enslaved" to a job within the USA only to the extent that one feels they may not be able to find another one, which in general will still be relatively independent of the conditions which one might be subjected to at work.
Calling such working conditions slavery both exaggerates them and is somewhat dismissive of how actually unfair real slavery (which does still exist) is.
Re: Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
And become homeless.
Starve.
Lose oneâ(TM)s children.
The freedom of the wage slave.
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That is entirely independent to the conditions one is subjected to at work, and only relevant insomuch as it might factor into how much of an undesirable employment situation one is willing to accept before deciding that they've had enough.
Regardless, It is not the employer who forces such potential disadvantages of being unemployed upon a person, so the employer is not enslaving the employee by any definition of the word.
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Oh, look another idiot who can't value anything worth a damn.
One, just because they are being compensated doesn't mean it's worth the time and effort spent. If anything Capitalism demands that the time and effort spent by an employee be compensated as little as possible to maximize profits.
Two, "they can quit anytime" often means finding another job that has similar work conditions and less pay. No employer is going to pay more for an employee who just up and left their previous po
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Exercising the ability to leave may create a worse plight only because of the society in which we happen to find ourselves. The employer does not force any of the adverse side effects of unemployment upon you should you choose to leave.
You may, if you are lucky, even find a better paying job or at least one where you feel like you are being treated better.
Slaves have no choice.
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Not directly. They subcontract it to [usually republican] politicians.
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When you accept the job, that is exactly what you're saying.
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Fortunately the rest of us live in countries where you're allowed to look for other jobs, and at a time of near record low unemployment too.
So yes, we're free to walk away. In fact we have a moral obligation to do so; it's the best form of feedback to a shit employer.
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I'm curious. Were you trying to spell "latter" and "employer's" in the above? If not, could you explain what you were trying to say?
Note, by the by, that if you were trying to spell "latter" and "employer's", you're mistaken. The employer owns the equipment that he provides the employee to do business. And is allowed to control how that equipment is used. On the other hand, the employer has absolutely n
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Except perhaps to say that you aren't allowed to use it while working, unless you are using it for purposes directly related to work, or in an actual emergency as might be required.
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slavery noun - slav.ery
.b : the practice of slaveholding
1 : drudgery, toil
2 : submission to a dominating influence
3a : the state of a person who is a chattel of another
Number one? Sure.
Number two? Well, you did hire on and the company is the dominating force in your economic agreement so, sure.
Number three? Yeah, no.
No it doesn't. Explain exactly why you think it is. Please use the accepted meaning for the word slavery, not som
Moot, Ai will (Score:2)
I wonder how much time is wasted... (Score:2)
Great (Score:1)
Which metrics need faking now? Do I need to send more email to increase my visibility or less emails to decrease my time doing worthless communication? Either way I can do it.
Doesn't fix the core issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this is that it is still unable to identify dumbass managers who are out of their depth and bullshitting their way through the job.
Co-location = gaps in on-line communication (Score:4, Interesting)
Recently my company forced my team to come into the office more often, after many years of encouraging a work-at-home approach. So we struck a deal with our manager and we spend two days a week on-site and three working at home. The result is that when we work at home we use on-line communication tools like chat, video conferencing, email and telephony, but when we're in the office we simply walk over to a conference table and start talking. How is my company going to track my productivity on those days where there's almost no on-line communication? Will we look like slackers on those days? Incidentally, the in-office days are when we do most of our design and problem solving work, which is, in my opinion, of greater value than the heads-down coding and testing we typically do when we work at home.
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All of which can provide false signals regarding team dynamics, productivity, who gets the work done and who makes actual decisions.
I've worked with quiet effective people that stay silent in meetings, then walk out and just get things done while everybody else is still talking about it.
Use a fucking VPN already! (Score:2)
It's around 5 bucks a month.
And remember, email addresses are free.
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I get paid a very good salary and no overtime. The understanding is that I'll earn that salary by getting things done, irrespective of working hours.
So I'm available at 8pm when someone in the US needs help. I may also not be available at 3pm because I've gone for a three hour lunch with friends.
Just because you insist on working rigid hours doesn't make that appropriate for everybody.
Good luck (Score:2)
Mobile phone conversations? (Score:3)
I would hope the companies that are recording and transcribing mobile phone conversations are only doing this on company-issued phones but part of me suspects that not all would be able to limit their eavesdropping to company phones. Wonder how long before some manager finds a way and crosses that line and a company is found to have conducted illegal wiretapping of an employee's personal mobile phone calls? I doubt that claiming they have a right to monitor anything and everything that its employees do while on the clock would ever hold up in the courts. (Though I'm certain they'd try.)