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Employers are mining the data their workers generate

wsj.com

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Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#11

Post by ziddoap »

oh_hello wrote: post #7

Is anyone familiar with what data Slack makes available to management? Can they see a nice breakdown of when I was online?

User ID, Username, Email, Account Creation, Account Type, Days Active, Messages Posted, Daily/Weekly Active Members, Daily/Weekly Members who Posted, % Public Messages, % Private Channel Messages, % Direct Messages.

On a per channel basis you can see members who posted, members who viewed, changes in members who posted, reactions added, members who reacted, # messages posted, total membership count.

Those are what I've found just poking around. I dont really check the analytics of our workspace so I may be missing some. It doesn't look like there is a super-easy way to look up the last time a specific member was online - but there very well could be depending on the plan. Or I could be missing where I look it up.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#13

Post by JustSomeNobody »

ziddoap wrote: post #8
seneca wrote: post #5

The idea that McKesson does this, along with their completely tone deaf idea of adding open offices to increase retention, points to a bigger issue: a complete lack of understanding of people. These people running these companies are utterly detached from the reality that their work force lives day to day, such that they think implementing one of the most universally hated office schemes and mass surveillance are way…

This is what I really am having trouble understanding. How disconnected from reality do you need to be to think surveillance and converting to an open office is going to somehow increase retention of employees?

You get a bunch of "yes men" together and group think takes over and you end up with this. Rationality goes out the window. It has to because you have to say, "yes".

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#14

Post by jedberg »

People keep forgetting that equipment and subscriptions are your employers property and data, not yours. They have the right to access anything they pay for without telling you. It's important to remain aware of this any time you do anything for work.

Back before we had computers, there was nothing stopping a company from opening every memo that came through the mail room and recording every phone conversation and opening your file cabinets when you weren't there. The diffence was it was a lot more work for them to do those things, so it never really came up. Now it's super easy for a company to process every single thing you do or say, even including recording audio in the workplace.

So maybe it's time for us to look for some legal protections for worker privacy?

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#15

Post by Moru »

seneca wrote: post #5

The idea that McKesson does this, along with their completely tone deaf idea of adding open offices to increase retention, points to a bigger issue: a complete lack of understanding of people. These people running these companies are utterly detached from the reality that their work force lives day to day, such that they think implementing one of the most universally hated office schemes and mass surveillance are way…

The only reason a company switches to open offices is to save money, just like the removing of free sodas. The will claim any other reason officially though.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#16

Post by paladin314159 »

oh_hello wrote: post #7

Is anyone familiar with what data Slack makes available to management? Can they see a nice breakdown of when I was online?

I don't think we have the most enterprise version of Slack, but as an admin the data available to me is # of days active of the last 30 days and # of messages sent over the last 30 days.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#17

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mfoy_ wrote: post #10
_o-O-o_ wrote: post #6

I know this is a cheap potshot, but who has a keyboard setup like that? https://images.wsj.net/im-90409?width=1260&size=0.6666666666... And the caption: Diana Hubbard, working from her home office in Texas, says she does not communicate about her private life on work devices at all. PHOTO: JONATHAN ZIZZO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Someone who hasn't heard of USB Switches.

Someone who's IT department has plenty of keyboards but no USB switches on hand at the particular minute they are given hardware.

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#18

Post by tareqak »

ziddoap wrote: post #8
seneca wrote: post #5

The idea that McKesson does this, along with their completely tone deaf idea of adding open offices to increase retention, points to a bigger issue: a complete lack of understanding of people. These people running these companies are utterly detached from the reality that their work force lives day to day, such that they think implementing one of the most universally hated office schemes and mass surveillance are way…

This is what I really am having trouble understanding. How disconnected from reality do you need to be to think surveillance and converting to an open office is going to somehow increase retention of employees?

I totally agree. I wonder to myself sometimes, "where did this person's empathy go?".

Re: Employers are mining the data their workers generate

#19

Post by dudul »

oh_hello wrote: post #7

Is anyone familiar with what data Slack makes available to management? Can they see a nice breakdown of when I was online?

I don't have an answer, but it always surprised me what people would say either in Direct Messages or in private channel. This is a corporate slack, I'm pretty sure management can access all conversations, even in DM or private channels.
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