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How Employers Track Their Workers

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#61

Post by krapp »

rifung wrote: post #35
joewee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. Similarly, corporate counsel is responsible to the corporate entity (are companies people?), even if that means recommending removal of the founder. A organization with employee friendly values has leadership willing to challenge HR and Legal, but that means a…

> True, their are companies that have founding principles that are employee friendly, but once you have an official HR role, their job is the complete opposite. I really don't like or agree with this characterization at all. Sure part of their job is to prevent the company from being sued but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

>but part of their job is (usually) also keeping employees happy.

Because happy employees are less likely to be a legal liability, and happy employees are more productive and more compliant with company policy.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#62

Post by gaius »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #58
nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

Blue collar jobs are more rewarding and the work environment can be better for all the reasons you described but the money is worth it IMO. If the money were the same I'd hand in my two weeks and get my welding certs. Also, calling it an idler pitman arm is somewhat contradictory (though probably not a technical contradiction) since pitman arm kinda implies it's located on the bottom of a steering gear. ;)

If the money were the same I'd hand in my two weeks and get my welding certs.

In the UK a good plumber or electrician makes comparable money to a programmer. If I had my time over again, or if I were giving careers advice to a young person, do that.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#63

Post by a_imho »

lexicality wrote: post #54
a_imho wrote: post #50

Completely off topic but The Atlantic's GDPR notice is the least intrusive and most compliant I've seen so far. Good job.

Try https://wikia.com . No "manage my preferences" or "are you sure" etc, just a simple yes/no. As a side note, basically no one complies with Article 7.3.4: "It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent." ( https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/ )

Personally I prefer the finer grained controls of The Atlantic, but that is still better than 99% of the rest. Though I'm not sure about the wording, it only says 'advertising cookies'.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#64

Post by expathacker »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #58
nimbius wrote: post #27

as someone who works a blue collar job in an auto repair shop, these articles always make me pause for a moment and ask if i really want to keep learning python in the hopes of pursuing an office job. The entire environment just sounds like high school all over again. Why does anyone in an office put up with it?? is this somehow different than time keeping? do you have a punch card? If you asked my boss where i was,…

Blue collar jobs are more rewarding and the work environment can be better for all the reasons you described but the money is worth it IMO. If the money were the same I'd hand in my two weeks and get my welding certs. Also, calling it an idler pitman arm is somewhat contradictory (though probably not a technical contradiction) since pitman arm kinda implies it's located on the bottom of a steering gear. ;)

> Blue collar jobs are more rewarding and the work environment can be better for all the reasons you described but the money is worth it IMO. If the money were the same I'd hand in my two weeks and get my welding certs.

A few years back a large series of personal tragedies hit me at once which coincided with being screwed over at a job. I decided to leave tech for a while, and spent a few months in Portland becoming a certified bicycle mechanic & frame welder.

This lead to me starting a bicycle company building very solid bikes for obese riders (like myself) who were afraid to ride on the roads. I lost many thousands of dollars and had to go back to software for the financial aspects, but I have never had as much joy and satisfaction in tech as I did building bicycles.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#65

Post by millak »

ragequitta wrote: post #49
kchoudhu wrote: post #40

The bank I was working at tried installing monitoring software on programmers' computers one day with no monitoring. I sent my MD an email saying I wouldn't be working that day because of it, and left. The software disappeared the next day.

Most companies I've worked for (including a bank) you'd be gone the next day. Monitoring is so rampant right now. It's disgusting.

Indeed, I'm working at a bank at the moment. There are half a dozen "endpoint protection" agents installed on my laptop, and don't even mention the network filtering - the Docker, Nginx and Vagrant documentation websites are all blocked for example.

I try to work mostly on my own laptop using Citrix in a web browser to access the corporate network so that the personal data I generate in a day (for example, browsing HN during downtime) doesn't get caught up in all the monitoring but this has some obvious limitations. With the security regime in place they will actually ask you about every piece of software you have installed on your corporate laptop (on which you'll need to request temporary admin access to install most software, of course) or about why you visited x, y or z website or why you searched this or that on Google. Like the article says it's best to keep your head down and try not to get noticed - they collect so much information but nobody looks at it until they have a reason to do so.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#66

Post by jeffalyanak »

icebraining wrote: post #44
jeffalyanak wrote: post #29

When our company first began implementing employee tracking the goal was to help our staff understand their own performance, co-educate and to attempt to support a culture of experimenting with every aspect of our work. Our initial systems ended up being decent at keeping people "moving fast" but in our first few feedback sessions we found it stressed people out, encouraged competition instead of co-education and loc…

I'm curious; in the first version, where was the data stored and who had access to it?

There was an intranet portal available to all the staff and much of the day-to-day data was presented directly to the staff as they completed their work.

However, only management was really "engaging" with the data, the staff themselves only interacted with it enough to outrun it.

Now, employees feel excited about the opportunity to dig into datasets that they created with some specific intent and it's the staff themselves that engage directly with management.

It's just much better all around.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#67

Post by sonnyblarney »

joewee wrote: post #11

I've never seen an employee monitoring system that's built to the benefit of the employee. But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee. HR isn't there to help employees, HR is primarily a risk mitigation and compliance department. Who would assume employee monitoring systems are any different? "They try to never speak up, never stick out, do nothing that might get noticed by management. This leads to…

"But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee"

Paying them 10's of thousands a year is definitely 'to the benefit of the employee'.

The TSA situation is a really bad analogy because it's a high security environment wherein monitoring is basically a given. It's just that with that open window, management can't help but be idiots about it and monitor 'chewing gum'. The second problem is that it's a highly authoritative system with low skilled staff. If TSA were bankers and lawyers (or developers), they'd collectively have a lot more power.

Case and point: software developers, bankers and lawyers are not monitored for 'chewing gum' and 'bathroom breaks', moreover, they aren't monitored for that much other than communications.

Email and electronic communications have to be logged for a variety of reasons (including legal)but they should not be monitored by managers.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#68

Post by sonnyblarney »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #15
joewee wrote: post #11

I've never seen an employee monitoring system that's built to the benefit of the employee. But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee. HR isn't there to help employees, HR is primarily a risk mitigation and compliance department. Who would assume employee monitoring systems are any different? "They try to never speak up, never stick out, do nothing that might get noticed by management. This leads to…

> But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee This isn't a feature intrinsic to companies, but rather a relatively recent social norm. There are still a few companies that do look after their employees, and do things to the benefit of their employees. They aren't very common though, usually it's smaller (often family run) businesses, and often a physical trade rather than an office job.

" but rather a relatively recent social norm."

Ask your great-grandfather working in factory, or a mine, or as a tenant farmer (basically 99% of all work) - how he was treated by 'today's standards'. Where I did my undergrad, the main office building was built by a logger baron who literally had strikers shot. It's almost universally better today.

" usually it's smaller (often family run) businesses" - are usually lower paying and often less stable. It's really, really easy for a contractor to not get paid for a job, or to make a mistake costing him $$$ - and then to be in a position wherein he can't pay his workers the aloted amount. This is common.

Any entity that provides fairly steady, predictable work and guaranteed pay is doing a good thing for the most part.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#69

Post by joewee »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #67
joewee wrote: post #11

I've never seen an employee monitoring system that's built to the benefit of the employee. But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee. HR isn't there to help employees, HR is primarily a risk mitigation and compliance department. Who would assume employee monitoring systems are any different? "They try to never speak up, never stick out, do nothing that might get noticed by management. This leads to…

"But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee" Paying them 10's of thousands a year is definitely 'to the benefit of the employee'. The TSA situation is a really bad analogy because it's a high security environment wherein monitoring is basically a given. It's just that with that open window, management can't help but be idiots about it and monitor 'chewing gum'. The second problem is that it's a high…

Traders have all finances monitored. In some hedge funds monitoring is a lot more invasive. So I don’t agree, but my point is, monitoring isn’t done to protect employees, it’s done to protect the company.

Re: How Employers Track Their Workers

#70

Post by joewee »

samontar wrote: post #47
joewee wrote: post #11

I've never seen an employee monitoring system that's built to the benefit of the employee. But nothing a company does it to the benefit of the employee. HR isn't there to help employees, HR is primarily a risk mitigation and compliance department. Who would assume employee monitoring systems are any different? "They try to never speak up, never stick out, do nothing that might get noticed by management. This leads to…

How about training? Training is beneficial to an employee. Employment itself should count, I’d argue, because the law of comparative advantage means both parties could (and probably do) benefit but even setting that aside, training should count. Still agree with the monitoring, though.

Training is about delivering with consistency and compliance. Some training does benefit the employees but that’s not the “primary” purpose.
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